A new feature of Apple iOS 8 will give privacy-concerned iPhone users the option to use DuckDuckGo as their default search engine in Safari.
The information was spotted on Apple’s OS X Yosemite preview page as part of Apple’s WWDC conference this week.
In addition to being able to open one tab in Private Browsing mode, Safari users will have the option of ditching Google for DuckDuckGo.
Billed as “a search engine that doesn’t track you” Duck Dick Go has strong growth despite big competition from established search engines.
Around this time last year, DuckDuckGo saw a 50-percent jump in traffic over the course of about one week.
Dominic Joseph, CEO, Captify, comments on the feature: “Apple certainly has its users’ best interests at heart with this move towards better data privacy, but is data privacy protection the only driver behind that decision? Or is it also aiming another blow at Google as their battle rages on? What is undoubted however, is the fact that the move marks a major boost for DuckDuckGo. Previously a small player amongst the search engine giants, it’s just been given a considerable leg up into a market where over 500 million iPhones have been sold. Perhaps an acquisition is on the cards?
“What will be interesting to monitor is whether more people will start to browse on their iPhone using DuckDuckGo or whether they’ll simply revert back to their old, and more familiar, ways of searching. History has shown it is often hard for handset manufacturers or even worse, telecoms operators, to convince their users that their embedded search engine is the best solution there is. But this is no ordinary handset manufacturer. It is Apple.
“As the game of data privacy chess continues, it’s likely we’ll see more tech giants make big moves to try and combat nervousness around data security. It’s critical however, that these moves are genuinely made with the consumer in mind and are not mere marketing tools to fight their direct competitors.”