DuckDuckGo Is Not About Those TV Duck Morons!

In my blog yesterday, the very last item in a long list of new features included in Apple’s iOS 8 update was “DuckDuckGo support in Safari”.

My friend John (RV Live On Wheels) left a comment expressing some bewilderment about what in the heck was a “DuckDuckGo”? 

Well, it certainly isn’t about those TV morons on Duck Dynasty that’s for sure. Instead DuckDuckGo is a new search engine that is taking dead aim at Big Brother Google by claiming they respect your privacy and don’t track you. Here’s how they put it:

DuckDuckGo has everything you expect a search engine to have, including images, news and places, all while respecting your privacy. Great results without tracking you. That's DuckDuckGo in a nutshell.

For the record, the company name originates from the children's game Duck, Duck, Goose which I’d never head of. I Googled it and found out it’s a children’s game where a group of players sit in a circle, facing inward, while another player, the "picker" (a.k.a. the "fox"; some young children call the "picker" the "ducker"), walks around tapping or pointing to each player in turn, calling each a "duck" until finally picking one to be a "goose" and the process begins again.

DuckDuckGo has been around for a while, in fact, it was launched way back in 2008. It’s the brainchild of Gabriel Weinberg who had what a lot of folks called “the crazy idea” that he could go up against Google simply by guaranteeing private searching on the Internet. His little startup got a tremendous boost in July, 2013 after Edward Snowden first revealed the NSA's extensive digital surveillance program to the world. DuckDuckGo exploded and now they are growing at a rate of 200% to 500% a year.

Gabriel Weinberg founder of DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is hardcore about privacy. When you do a search from DuckDuckGo's website or one of its mobile apps, it doesn't know who you are. There are no user accounts. Your IP address isn't logged by default. The site doesn't use search cookies to keep track of what you do over time or where else you go online. It doesn't save your search history. When you click on a link in DuckDuckGo's results, those websites won't see which search terms you used. Give it a try!

Enough about ducks, let’s move on to Apples and, in particular, the iOS 8 update.

As you can see from the image on the left I was able to begin downloading iOS 8 at precisely 9:54am PT which was 6 minutes before it was due to be released to the public..

I had actually tried to upgrade at 9:45am but it wasn’t available yet. So, I’m thinking that by trying again just a few minutes later and succeeding I must have been one of the first few gazillion in the queue for the big 1.1GB download. I’m happy to say that iOS 8 downloaded to my iPhone 5S in a little over 1 hour and 20 minutes later it was installed o.k.

I spent some time playing around with the new Messages app and liked it a lot – no more typing if you don’t want to so it’s great. The Photos app has some nice new features as well including an easy “straightening” tool which is very handy. After a that, I got busy upgrading Paulette’s iPhone 4S and both of our iPads,

Another iPhone thingy I finally got around to after upgrading to iOS 8 was to setup Touch ID on my iPhone 5S. Touch ID is an easy way to use your fingerprint as a passcode.

After going through the setup process in Settings > Touch ID & Passcode I was amazed to see how easy it was to use. No more typing in a passcode to unlock my iPhone – all I have to do now is touch the Home Button and the Touch ID sensor quickly reads my fingerprint and unlocks my phone.

Thinking this was pretty cool, I couldn’t wait to show Paulette.  After watching my little demo, she cut to the chase asking “how can I use your phone if you die, does this mean I’ll have to cut off your thumb and carry it around with me like a ‘thumb drive’ ”  Ha, Ha! Very funny! 

Anyway, while setting up Touch ID you are required to also setup a 4 digit passcode. Then, if you turn your phone completely off, or more than 48 hours have elapsed from the last time you unlocked your iPhone, then you must enter your passcode. Thankfully, I’ll be able to keep my thumbs.

Thanks for visiting!