Easy come, easy go.
Starting in 2018, DuckDuckGo’s user base grew by 600%.
Touted for its privacy promises, the search engine attracted internet surfers who don’t like being tracked by Google. After you install it (here) on top of Google, like a blinding flash of light, Google no longer can see your searches.
Cool. Lots of ordinary folks with nothing to hide installed it, simply because they don’t like Big Brother reading over their shoulders.
Conservatives, too, flocked to DuckDuckGo because they believed Google was censoring rightwing bullshit and thought DuckDuckGo wasn’t.
“Then came the Russian invasion,” Vox says, and “DuckDuckGo … took action before most of its conservative fanbase realized it ….” DuckDuckGo suspended its partnership with Yandex, a Russian search engine, and down-ranked Russian disinformation.
Red Square, Moscow
That drew the ire of, among others, Fox’s resident Russia apologist, Tucker Carlson. So now, it seems, Russia-loving conservatives are uninstalling DuckDuckGo. What are they using now? Yandex, among others.
Read story here.