DuckDuckGo introduces app tracking protection beta to all of its users on the android platform. The said feature will reportedly block third-party trackers over apps and games on your android device.
DuckDuckGo Introduces App Tracking Protection Beta to Users
Privacy-focused search engine platform DuckDuckGo just recently opened its own app tacking protection beta to all of its android users on Wednesday.
DuckDuckGo in a blog post said that android users have an average of 35 apps on their devices and those apps in question tend to send more than a thousand tracking attempts to at least 70 tracking companies.
How Will the App Work
The app tracking protection feature of DuckDuckGo for android will aim to block out third-party trackers across games and apps on your android device. The feature in question will also send you daily reports depicting just how many tracking attempts it has blocked across your apps for the first week after the feature has been enabled.
And after the first week, you will get those reports each and every other week. The feature does not send data back to DuckDuckGo or any other remote servers. This simply means that all data stays on your android device, the search engine stated.
What DuckDuckGo Has To Say About This Development
A DuckDuckGo spokesperson in an email to CNET said: “DuckDuckGo identifies trackers by testing popular Android apps, observing what type of information is sent to which companies that are different from the owner of each app.”
This DuckDuckGo feature is very much similar to Apple’s app tracking transparency tool which helps to protect user data from being shared with advertising companies or third parties.
How Apples Own Transparency Tool Compares
Apple’s feature however relies on developers to stop tracking once a device disables app tracking transparency, but DuckDuckGo’s feature will work directly on your mobile device to monitor network traffic and to also block trackers.
There are a couple of other apps such as browsers that are excluded from app tracking protection. In its blog post, DuckDuckGo said that the number of apps excluded was halved during the waitlist period and that it hopes to continue shortening the list.
How to Enable the App Tracking Protection Beta Feature
That being said, here is how to enable the app tracking protection beta on your android device;
- First, download the DuckDuckGo for android app or simply update to the latest version which is version 5.143.1.
- Next, open the DuckDuckGo app and tap on settings.
- Tap on the app tracking protection beta in the more from DuckDuckGo section.
- Lastly, follow up with the on-screen instructions, and then you are done.
That’s it.
