Is DuckDuckGo a real Google alternative?

Just over two years ago we reported on DuckDuckGo and the growing popularity of the Google alternative with a focus on privacy. In the meantime, the number of search queries via DuckDuckGo has increased significantly and one can ask oneself whether the private search engine could soon become dangerous for the giant Google.  

Increase in search queries on DuckDuckGo Source: Screenshort DuckDuckGo.com

More and more search queries about DuckDuckGo - tendency rising

According to its own statements, DuckDuckGo was able to record an increase in the average number of search queries sent out per day during the course of this year alone by approximately 7 million. In 2019, a total of around 7 billion searches have already been performed. For comparison: In the whole of 2018, there were about 9 billion. In our article from two years ago, one of the reasons was that in mid-2016 the search engine had broken the barrier of 10 billion queries in total. In the meantime, it has already exceeded 30 billion.

Google maps alternative in cooperation with Apple

Since the beginning of the year, DuckDuckGo has also been offering a Google alternative in the area of address searches, in cooperation with Apple! Here, the technology group contributes the map data that is queried via the search at DuckDuckGo. According to DuckDuckGo, no personal data is transmitted to Apple and the approximate location of the user transmitted via the browser is discarded and not used. A navigation solution from DuckDuckGo is not yet available, however, and the Google alternative still refers to other providers such as Bing or OpenStreetMaps.

DuckDuckGo vs. Google: Whether the alternative becomes a competitor

DuckDuckGo represents a real Google alternative for more and more people when they want to search the web. But even though the numbers and growth of DuckDuckGo are impressive, Google is still way ahead. estimates According to estimates, around 2016 Google was used for searching at least about 2 trillion times a year. This figure is not very accurate and somewhat outdated, as Google itself does not publish this information regularly. Nevertheless, this rough estimate shows that Google’s share of worldwide search queries probably exceeds the Google alternative DuckDuckGo by a factor of a thousand. So DuckDuckGo will probably not become a Google competitor in the search engine sector any time soon.

Our conclusion

In any case, DuckDuckGo is a good alternative to Google if you value privacy and feel uncomfortable having your search or surfing behavior analyzed. In the meantime, the search engine has also developed a browser app for mobile phones that forgets everything at the push of a button. So meanwhile even Vivaldi in private mode relies on DuckDuckGo. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)