Hello, reporters! I had a great time at the NICAR conference last week and have plenty of new stuff to share with you.
One is a tool I’ve been using more and more often lately: the web browser DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo has existed for a while as a search engine that doesn’t track what you search. (You may not be aware, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise, that other engines like Google do.)
Now, DuckDuckGo operates as a whole web browser, with a mobile app to match. Even if you were using DuckDuckGo as a search engine before, your browser may still have been tracking you.
When it comes to private web browsing, Tor is the all-time heavyweight, but it can be slow and sometimes complicated to install. If you do still want super-private searches, there’s also a mobile version of Tor, called the Onion Browser, that was in fact created by a NICAR journalist!
DuckDuckGo’s browser may be a bit less intimidating, and less slow, than Tor, but still blocks trackers and so on. Protect your browsing, reporters!