May 26, 2019

Brave with DuckDuckGo, an alternative to Chrome

It seems as if Google is omnipresent these days as technology has become an integral part of modern life.

With 90% of the market Google is dominant in web search whilst also now being dominant in web browsing with Google Chrome having 70% of the market as of May 2019.

The ubiquity of the Google Search, Chrome, Android and YouTube suite of products has provided Google with unrivaled power to individually target you with ads based on your online footprint.

For those troubled with Google’s power and reach, this post will discuss the Brave browser and DuckDuckGo search products as viable alternatives to Google Chrome and Google Search. Switching to these products will reduce your Google footprint whilst also increasing your privacy and security.

Automatic Sign-in issue with Chrome

I was a long time user of Chrome, that being from launch in 2008 up until 2018. I liked Chrome, it was fast, secure, extensible, and most importantly cross-platform.

The inflection point when I soured on Chrome was when Google accounts were merged with Chrome sign-in in Chrome 69. After that change, logging into your Google account, to read your Gmail, for instance, would also result in Chrome simultaneously signing-in to Google. Presumably once Chrome is signed-in Google may synchronize, and therefore track, your online activity without your consent, either now or in the future.

I was not the only one upset by this particular change, Matthew Green, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who teaches cryptography, wrote about the issue in depth.

Brave Browser

Brave is a modern, privacy-focussed web browser that is based on the same Chromium browser and Blink rendering engine that powers Google Chrome.

The Brave browser is openly developed by Brave Software which was co-founded by Brendon Eich, the creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla, the organization that makes Firefox.

Notable privacy and security features of Brave:

• Automatically blocks unwanted content, such as tracking cookies and 3rd-party ads

• Automatically protects against fingerprinting

• Where possible, insecure connections will be seamlessly be upgraded to encrypted connections for secure communication

• True private browsing mode via the Tor anonymity network

Similarities of Brave to Chrome:

• Equivalent look and feel

• Multi-platform support, including all major desktop and mobile platforms

• Cross-platform and cross-device synchronization

• Compatibility with all extensions in the Chrome Store

Notable Brave deviations from Chrome:

• Google account synchronization is disabled

• All features that send data to Google are disabled

• Client-side cookie lifetimes are limited to 7 days

Whilst some privacy-focussed characteristics of Brave listed above are available as browser extensions to Chrome, namely the uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere extensions, be aware that not all versions of Chrome support extensions, most frustratingly Chrome on mobile devices. Also, content-filtering extensions, such as uBlock, run the risk of one day being black-listed by Google. That will never be an issue for Brave since its security and privacy protections are built-in to the browser itself.

Note, Brave is not the only Chromium-based browser available, other choices include: Opera, Vivaldi, Ungoogled Chromium and now even Microsoft’s Edge browser. Personally, I favour Brave above all these alternatives due to: open-source development, native privacy and security features, timely updates, cross-platform support and synchronization and lastly its resemblance to Chrome.

Lastly, Brave has an excellent and easy to understand privacy policy.

Recommended Brave Settings

Privacy and security can be enhanced by tweaking Brave’s settings. Note, the following settings were valid as of May 2019, however, there is no guarantee they will be named the same, or even exist, going forward.

Brave desktop-specific settings:

• Search engine, Search engine used in the address bar, change to DuckDuckGo

• Brave Shields default, Fingerprintig protection change to Block all fingerprinting

• Social Buttons and Logins, disable all choices

• Privacy and security, disable Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors, Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly and Allow sites to check if you have payment methods saved

• Privacy and security, change WebRTC IP Handling Policy to Disable Non-Proxied UDP

Brave mobile-specific settings:

• Search engine, change Standard Tab and Private Tab to DuckDuckGo

• Privacy, disable Navigation error suggestions, Search and URL suggestions and Access payment methods

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focussed Internet search engine.

Unlike Google Search, DuckDuckGo will:

• Not log user searches

• Not log user meta-data, such as your IP address

• Not track your online activity

• Display the same results, for a given search, to all users

The quality and relevance of search results from DuckDuckGo has greatly improved over the last few years, hence, it no longer feels like a compromise to use DuckDuckGo as compared to Google Search.

Much like Brave, DuckDuckGo also has an excellent and easy to understand privacy policy.

DuckDuckGo !Bangs

DuckDuckGo Bangs are simple shortcuts to 3rd-party search sites. To invoke a Bang search simply type ! with the appropriate site code followed by the search query.

Note, as of May 2019 there are over 12,000 Bangs available to use.

A few helpful DuckDuckGo Bangs:

• !g search query, Google Search

• !gi search query, Goggle Images

• !gm search query, Google Maps

• !yt search query, YouTube

• !a search query, Amazon

• !w search query, Wikipedia

• !e search query, eBay

• !r search query, Reddit

• !gh search query, Github

• !so search query, Stack Overflow

• !t search query, Thesaurus.com

• !d search query, The Free Dictionary

• !rt search query, Rotten Tomatoes

• !bang search query DuckDuckGo Bangs

Bangs work particularly well in Brave once DuckDuckGo has been configured as the default Search Engine; simply enter the Bang of choice and search query directly in the address bar.

DuckDuckGo Bangs making searching the web easy, simple and fast.

DuckDuckGo Instant Answers

DuckDuckGo Instant Answers provides answers to searches, just below the search field, without need to click any search results.

A few helpful DuckDuckGo Instant Answers:

• shorten http:\\really-long-url, shorten a long web link

• @user_handle, search social media platforms for a particular user handle

• calendar, this months calendar

• calendar june 2011, a particular months calendar

• calculator, a simple calculator

• stopwatch, a simple stopwatch

• weather, this weeks weather

• weather london, this weeks weather in a particular city

Conclusion

The Web is now dominated by a few giant companies, chief among them Google. That market concentration is not healthy, so it behooves us to sensibly diversify where possible. Thankfully, with Brave and DuckDuckGo, as alternatives to Chrome and Google Search respectively, diversifying will incur little compromise whilst reaping genuine dividends, especially regarding privacy.

The more people that use products like Brave and DuckDuckGo, the healthier the web will be. Please give these alternatives a try