Top all-time · #280
Spread Privacy
Company blog · spreadprivacy.comsecurity
Spread Privacy is the company blog at spreadprivacy.com, writing about security. Since 2017, 179 different Hacker News readers have linked it 238 times, most often “DuckDuckGo App Tracking Protection for Android”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 1 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
DuckDuckGo's blog is linked for privacy analysis: Google search defaults and auction economics, tracker and FLoC blocking, Global Privacy Control, email protection, and company updates.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- One commenter says to have a read of its post on blocking FLoC with DuckDuckGo.1
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The Official DuckDuckGo Blog
Most-linked posts?
- DuckDuckGo App Tracking Protection for Android10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2021-11-18
- Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2018-12-04
- What is the business model for DuckDuckGo? (2017)6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2019-10-21
- Email Protection: The easy way to block email trackers and hide your address6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-07-20
- DuckAssist: Generates natural language answers to search queries using Wikipedia6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-03-08
- DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-04-09
- DuckDuckGo AI Chat5 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2024-06-06
- DuckDuckGo email protection beta now open5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2022-08-25
- How to Live Without Google5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-09-14
- Browsers benchmark with DuckDuckGo privacy extension4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-03-30
What Hacker News says?
DuckDuckGo claim to make significantly less money per search than Google does, which seems to disprove that search queries are enough of a discriminator on their own. Source: https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-... Despite DuckDuckGo being robustly profitable since 2014, we have been priced out of this auction because we choose to not maximize our profits by exploiting our users. In practical…
Comment linking /search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-elimination/
on “U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly”Submitted DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps as a story · 961 points
HN discussionDDG complains they can't win the auction: search engines who squeeze money out of every last drop of people's personal information (including ISPs and arbitrage players that will participate in next year's auctions) are easily able to outbid search engines like us that respect people's privacy https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-auctions/
Comment linking /search-preference-menu-auctions/
on “U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly”Submitted DuckDuckGo moves beyond search to also protect you while browsing as a story · 727 points
HN discussionThey royally screw over DDG https://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-...
Comment linking /search-preference-menu-duckduckgo-elimination/
on “U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly”Submitted Google’s Search Preference Menu Eliminates DuckDuckGo as a story · 653 points
HN discussion> You could run Bing (or Google for that matter) in an incognito window and get the same effect. That is incorrect information. Generally speaking, incognito windows limit the retention of information on your computer ; they do not prevent others from collecting information about you. As a simple example, Google and Bing still could track you by your IP address. From DuckDuckGo:[0] Think “Incognito” mode blocks Goog…
Comment linking /is-private-browsing-really-private/
on “DuckDuckGo Traffic”Submitted DuckDuckGo Expands Use of Apple Maps as a story · 611 points
HN discussionDuckduckgo recently included "How to Choose a Good VPN" in their privacy newsletter - https://spreadprivacy.com/how-to-choose-a-vpn/
Comment linking /how-to-choose-a-vpn/
on “Do you need a VPN?”Submitted DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome as a story · 552 points
HN discussionUh oh, DuckDuckGo has been using Dark Sky for its weather results for the past year [1]. Wonder what they're going to replace it with once the API shuts down? [1] https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-weather-results/
Comment linking /duckduckgo-weather-results/
on “Apple acquires Dark Sky”Submitted Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions as a story · 377 points
HN discussionNo vibes and there is voluminous evidence, eg many links here: https://spreadprivacy.com/how-does-google-track-me-even-when... as well as Google Takeout itself. Oh and I forgot location data and shopping records, those are huge. So the collected data about you are well documented. Given the data, why would a trillion dollar company leave money on the table? Their shareholders DEMAND they monetize it. There are few f…
Comment linking /how-does-google-track-me-even-when-im-not-using-it
on “RFC 35140: HTTP Do-Not-Stab (2023)”Submitted Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018) as a story · 362 points
HN discussionAt Terms of Service; Didn't Read, we were one of a whole host of privacy-focused projects that received a donation from DuckDuckGo: https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-privacy-challenge-2018 Thus, however successful DDG will be, at least it will have supported quite a few other projects in its wake.
Comment linking /duckduckgo-privacy-challenge-2018
on “DuckDuckGo Raises $10M”Submitted Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click as a story · 357 points
HN discussionDuckDuckGo’s extension maybe? https://spreadprivacy.com/privacy-simplified/
Comment linking /privacy-simplified/
on “Facebook Really Is Spying on You, Just Not Through Your Phone's Mic”Submitted DuckDuckGo email protection beta now open as a story · 352 points
HN discussionIt's a good time to pivot. Google is one ad-block away from loosing 70% of their revenue [1]. They should adopt the model that DuckDuckGo uses [2] and offer ads based on search query vs user data tracking. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266471/distribution-of-g... [2] https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-revenue-model/
Comment linking /duckduckgo-revenue-model/
on “Google to stop selling ads based on your specific web browsing”Submitted DuckDuckGo Search Improvements as a story · 343 points
HN discussionhttps://spreadprivacy.com/search-preference-menu-auctions/ FYI, DDG's point is that they cannot win the auction because they are less profitable relative to other search engines. They proposed a new way to determine the set of default candidates by search engine market share rather than running auctions.
Comment linking /search-preference-menu-auctions/
on “Google’s Search Preference Menu Eliminates DuckDuckGo”Submitted DuckDuckGo Donates $300K to Raise the Standard of Trust Online as a story · 340 points
HN discussion> So where does that leave us? Everything is biased? Yes, humans have biases. There's not a way around it. > What does that mean when applied to duckduckgo's tweet from 2019? Yes, that tweet is obviously a vague marketing message, but if you read the entire quote in context, it was in reference to filter-bubble biases . It wasn't a claim that DDG employees are somehow superhuman creatures immune to human biases. Obv…
Comment linking /why-use-duckduckgo-instead-of-google/
on “DuckDuckGo “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation””Submitted How to Live Without Google as a story · 327 points
HN discussionThis "nothing to hide" argument has been pretty analized, and in my opinion, it's really dangerous. https://spreadprivacy.com/three-reasons-why-the-nothing-to-h...
Comment linking /three-reasons-why-the-nothing-to-hide-argument-is-flawed/
on “We can do better than DuckDuckGo”Submitted What is the business model for DuckDuckGo? (2017) as a story · 246 points
HN discussionDuckDuckGo made one. https://spreadprivacy.com/block-floc-with-duckduckgo/
Comment linking /block-floc-with-duckduckgo/
on “GitHub blocks FLoC across all of GitHub Pages”Submitted Dear Google: Search Competition should be 1 Click Away so why 15+ on Android? as a story · 146 points
HN discussionDuckDuckGo provides access to 4 different models for free and claims to retain privacy. Unfortunately it doesn't avoid the censorship in models. Here's their blog post: https://www.spreadprivacy.com/ai-chat/ It's since been updated to include newer models: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/aichat/
Comment linking /ai-chat/
on “Kagi Assistant”Submitted DuckDuckGo for Mac beta now open to the public as a story · 144 points
HN discussion
