With the variety of search engines available on the internet, the need to change from one search engine to another, and maybe make a different search engine the default search engine, usually arise once in a while.

The good news is, changing the default search engine of your Chrome or Firefox web browser to DuckDuckGo is quite very simple and fast, as you will see in this post.

5 reasons why you should make DuckDuckGo your default search engine.

Maybe you’ve heard of DuckDuckGo before or maybe not. DuckDuckGo might sound like a cartoon character in one of those children’s anime movies but in actuality, it is nothing other than an internet search engine. It came into existence on September 25, 2008 and it’s packed with a couple of unique features which makes up some the reasons why you should consider making it your default search engine.

1. There’s Privacy

DuckDuckGo prides itself of the ability to ensure that its user’s privacy are fully protected. This it does by not profiling its users as well as by not collecting, storing, nor sharing any personal details. DuckDuckGo neither track nor store your search history and it has a thing for showing all users the same search results for a given search term.

Unlike some other search engines out there, DuckDuckGo does not put the personal data of its users up for sale neither does it make them available to advertisers. It has a feature which helps to also block advertising trackers. DuckDuckGo guarantees complete privacy in its private browsing mode which is also something you would expect from a lot other search engines out there but shocking enough, their private mode isn’t always that private.

Hence, with DuckDuckGo, you can be sure that you will be doing your online searches fully on the sly.

2. There are Fewer Ads

It goes without saying that the number of ads displayed on the search result pages of DuckDuckGo is far less compared to that of other search engines out there; so, if you’re easily pissed off by ads, a few of them might make a little difference.

3. Bang commands

DuckDuckGo makes use of Bang commands which are shortcuts that will take you to search results available on other websites. It gives users the ability to search on specific third-party websites, using the site’s own search engine if applicable.

4. Great User Experience

DuckDuckGo has some features that may be manipulated to obtain the desired user experience. It has an option for infinite scroll, which means that you can keep accessing your search results vertically without having to go from page 1 to page 2 and so on, as seen with Google.

In DuckDuckGo, options are made available for choosing fonts settings, colour scheme, and even getting to decide if you want the URL to appear above or below the snippet.

You also have the option to turn off adverts totally, I don’t know if it’s wise for the company to do this considering the fact that they actually need the proceeds obtained via advertising to keep the site running, but yeah, they’ve been doing it for years now and still haven’t shutdown, which means they are cool with it. So, if you find search result ads to be annoying, you can go ahead and turn it off.

5. Voice search

DuckDuckGo introduced voice search for individuals who uses the Google chrome voice search extension. Hence, with DuckDuckGo, you can use your voice and find what you want.

Steps to Making DuckDuckGo the default search engine in Google Chrome browser

To do this, follow the following steps:

1. Open the Chrome browser
2. Click on the three vertically aligned dots on the top right corner of the browser window (see screenshot below).

3. Click “Settings” on the displayed menu in order to show the settings menu. Select “search engine” on the displayed menu list.

4. Under the search engine section, click on “manage search engines”.

5. On the displayed page, select Add in order to add a new search engine.

6. If you’ve successfully executed step 5, you should see a form displayed on your screen.

Fill the form thus:

Search engine field: DuckDuckGo

Keyword: DuckDuckGo.com

URL with %s in place of query: https://DuckDuckGo.com/?q=%s

After filling the form, click on Add.

7. Click on the three vertical dots by the side of your newly added DuckDuckGo search engine and select Make Default. Try searching for something on your browser; if you correctly followed the above steps, you should get your search results from DuckDuckGo.

How to make DuckDuckGo the default search engine Firefox

The steps followed in making DuckDuckGo the default search engine on Firefox is different from that of google chrome. To do this, follow the following steps:

1. Open the Firefox browser.
2. Click the solid three lines located at the top right hand corner of the browser window, directly under the window’s X button.
3. From the dropdown menu, select Options.
4. Clicking Options will cause a new window to open. On the left-side navigation of the newly opened window, click on the Search option with the magnifying glass icon and open the search options.
5. Scroll down to the section that is about Default Search Engine and then click on the drop-down menu situated at where it instructs the user to Choose the default search engine to use in the web address bar and search bar. This will display all options available and allow you to choose the search engine of your choice.
6. Now, select DuckDuckGo displayed among the options.

Voila! You’ve successfully made DuckDuckGo your default search engine on Firefox.

Now that you know how to make DuckDuckGo your default search engine on google chrome and Mozilla Firefox, you can now go ahead and do it so as to enjoy the feeling of privacy while conducting searches, the welcoming user experience, the use of voice search and bangs etc.

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Author: Simon RobertEasyInfoBlog is a multi-author blog. We have experts and professionals in various fields who share their ideas and expert knowledge to help you with your daily information needs. Thanks for reading!