With all the problems Google are facing with the EU over its search engine. We wanted to look at another one which has the name DuckDuckGo. A funny name we hear you say, well, when Google first appeared thats exactly what people thought of their name. Now you wouldn’t give it a second thought. Google is the default search engine in Chrome (Windows) or on your Chromebook? It’s not obvious how to do it, but we’re here to show you.
Google Chrome and Chrome OS use Google’s search engine by default, out of the box and make it easy to switch to other search engines.
Whether you want to get it on with Microsoft’s Bing, Ask, yodel or Yahoo!, Chrome let’s you switch search provider by selecting a choice from the drop-down menu available under Settings > Search.
DuckDuckGo is fast-growing, super little search engine whose main points are
- it doesn’t sell your data
- It doesn’t track the searches
- or ‘personalize’ the order of web results like Google does.
Instead it promises its users a superior search experience with ‘smarter search, less clutter and real privacy’.
Chrome does not offer DuckDuckGo as an alternative search provider directly. You’ll need to add it manually if you want to use it for your omnibar, context menu and other in-browser searches.
How To Make DuckDuckGo the Default Search Engine in Chrome
First up, be aware of what you’re changing.
Making DuckDuckGo your default search engine will route all searches made from the Omnibar (‘address bar’) through DuckDuckGo and not Google (the default search engine in Chrome).
Windows- Chrome browser
The good news is that although you need to add DuckDuckGo to Chrome manually it can be done very quickly, in just a few clicks:
- Open the DuckDuckGo website in a new tab or window
- Click the “Set DuckDuckGo as your default search engine” in the box at the bottom
One made default, all future searches made from the omnibar Chrome, the right click context menu, etc will now return results from your new choice.
You will not see a replacement search box on the Chrome New Tab Page, something Bing and a number of other engines do offer, but you will still have access to your top sites.
Going Further
You may want to go beyond changing your default search engine in Chrome and add a few extras. DuckDuckGo has you covered here, too.
You can also add a bookmark — ‘web app’ — that takes you straight to the DuckDuckGo homepage when clicked. When installed you’ll be able to launch the engine from the Chrome App Launcher and be able to pin to your your desktop taskbar or dock, whether on Windows, Mac, Linux or Chrome OS.
A DuckDuckGo Chrome extension is also available. Installing this will add a button to the browser toolbar that shows a popover search box when clicked. Installing it also offers an option to see Answers from the alternative search engine embedded in Google and Bing search result pages, too.
Click the above link then in the omnibar type ‘d’ (without the quotes) and press spacebar
Source: duckduckgo
Dave Thornton
Been involved in technology for many years, more than I care to remember. Live in Dundee, Scotland. I like Android, Windows Phone OS, BlackBerry OS and iOS, and love writing about all things techie. Currently have a Honor 6+, Elephone P6000, Nexus 5, Chrombook C720, HTC One M7, Nokia Lumina 625, Microsoft Lumia 435, Blackberry Q10, HTC Hero and iPad mini
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