DuckDuckGo Lets You Search the Web Anonymously

Headquartered in Paoli, Pennsylvania, DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn't track or filter bubble users. Named one of the “Top 50 Best Websites” by TIME magazine a couple of years ago, the 20-person company was founded by Gabriel Weinberg, who actually did not set out to build a search engine initially.

In 2006, after selling his startup, Opobox, to Classmates.com, Weinberg found himself with time on his hands, so he took a class in stained glass making. When he saw that the “useful web links” included in his teacher's handout didn't match Google's results, he realized there were “millions of people who knew the right list of search terms and would make a better engine than Google.”

Weinberg believes that search data is “arguably the most personal data,” which is why he decided to make DuckDuckGo an anonymous search engine. “You're typing in your problems, your desires. It's not the same as things you post publicly on a social network,” he told The Guardian.