Category: Technology

Google Chrome Added a Privacy-Focused Search Engine Called ‘DuckDuckGo’

As it and other technology giants face questions and fines over their practices when it comes to competition and user privacy, Google is adding a new official option to its popular Chrome browser that allows users to search the web using the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo search engine rather than its own platform.

The update to Chromium — which powers Google Chrome — axes search engines like AOL and Yahoo!, replacing them with DuckDuckGo (in France, privacy-focused search engine Qwant was also added to the list). More search-savvy users may have already known about the company’s DuckDuckGo Chrome extension, which makes DuckDuckGo the default option in the Google browser and protects users from ad-tracking software found on almost every site you visit regularly. The Chrome update means you will no longer need an extension to use DuckDuckGo from your URL bar.

If you’re unfamiliar, DuckDuckGo is a search engine designed to protect any data generated by your search results and history. DuckDuckGo does not store any search history data, encrypts your search queries, and blocks advertising trackers while you browse the web (though you’ll need to install either its browser extension or the DuckDuckGo app on your smartphone).

Google’s show of support for DuckDuckGo comes as the privacy-focused search engine is getting more popular at a time when many tech users are looking for ways to protect their data and privacy.

Google Chrome already provided users with a list of optional search engines to choose from, which includes major options like Google and Bing along with competitors Ask, Yahoo!, and AOL. Users are also able to add their own custom search engines, should they want to take advantage of a different option or perform regular searches using a website’s own search functionality. And Chrome users can always navigate to the website of their search engine of choice to use a different option.

Google and DuckDuckGo haven’t exactly seen eye to eye when it comes to search. In fact, Google has apparently caused more than a few headaches for the privacy-centric search engine in the past.

In a series of tweets in 2018, DuckDuckGo accused Google of abusing its power to hinder the search engine’s proliferation on the Chrome and Android platforms — namely by making it impossible to change the default search provider in Android’s search widget, which uses Google searches.

And after acquiring the Duck.com domain through the 2010 purchase of video technology company On2 (formerly The Duck Corporation), Google redirected the URL to its own search page. “Google owns lots of domains that don’t point anywhere, or not to their main search page,” said DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg in a 2010 post on the company’s Duck.co support forum. “That means there was an affirmative decision somewhere along the line to redirect that particular domain to their search product.”

Last December, DuckDuckGo acquired the Duck.com domain from Google, which now redirects to the search engine. “We’re pleased Google has chosen to transfer ownership of Duck.com to DuckDuckGo,” said Weinberg at the time. “Having Duck.com will make it easier for people to use DuckDuckGo.”

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Makes Big New Promises About Privacy

Facebook, which grew into a colossus by vacuuming up your information in every possible way and using it to target ads back at you, now says its future lies in privacy-oriented messaging that Facebook itself can’t read.

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO, announced the shift in a Wednesday blog post apparently intended to blunt both criticism of the company’s data handling and potential antitrust action. Going forward, he said, Facebook will emphasize giving people ways to communicate in truly private fashion, with their intimate thoughts and pictures shielded by encryption in ways that Facebook itself can’t read.

But Zuckerberg didn’t suggest any changes to Facebook’s core newsfeed-and-groups-based service, or to Instagram’s social network, currently the fastest growing part of the company. Facebook pulls in gargantuan profits by selling ads targeted using the information it amasses on its users and others they know.

“All indications that Facebook and Instagram will continue growing and be increasingly important,” Zuckerberg said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press.

Critics aren’t convinced Zuckerberg is committed to meaningful change.

“This does nothing to address the ad targeting and information collection about individuals,” said Jen King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “It’s great for your relationship with other people. It doesn’t do anything for your relationship with Facebook itself.”

Facebook’s new orientation follows a rocky two-year battering over revelations about its leaky privacy controls. That included the sharing of personal information from as many as 87 million users with a political data-mining firm that worked for the 2016 Trump campaign.

Since the 2016 election, Facebook has also taken flak for the way Russian agents used its service to target U.S. voters with divisive messages and being a conduit for political misinformation. Zuckerberg faced two days of congressional interrogation over these and other subjects last April; he acknowledged and apologized for Facebook’s privacy breakdowns in the past.

Since then, Facebook has suffered other privacy lapses that have amplified the calls for regulations that would hold companies more accountable when they improperly expose their users’ information.

As part of his effort to make amends, Zuckerberg plans to stitch together its Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram messaging services so users will be able to contact each other across all of the apps.

The multiyear plan calls for all of these apps to be encrypted so no one but senders and recipients can see the contents of messages. WhatsApp already has that security feature, but Facebook’s other messaging apps don’t.

Zuckerberg likened it to being able to be in a living room behind a closed front door, and not having to worry about anyone eavesdropping. Meanwhile, Facebook and the Instagram photo app would still operate more like a town square where people can openly share whatever they want.

While Zuckerberg positions the messaging integration as a privacy move, Facebook also sees commercial opportunity in the shift. “If you think about your life, you probably spend more time communicating privately than publicly,” he told the AP. “The overall opportunity here is a lot larger than what we have built in terms of Facebook and Instagram.”

Critics have raised another possible motive — the threat of antitrust crackdowns. Integration could make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to later separate out and spin off Instagram and WhatsApp as separate companies.

“I see that as the goal of this entire thing,” said Blake Reid, a University of Colorado law professor who specializes in technology and policy. He said Facebook could tell antitrust authorities that WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger are tied so tightly together that it couldn’t unwind them.

Combining the three services also lets Facebook build more complete data profiles on all of its users. Already, businesses can already target Facebook and Instagram users with the same ad campaign, and ads are likely coming to WhatsApp eventually.

And users are more likely to stay within Facebook’s properties if they can easily message their friends across different services, rather than having to switch between Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. That could help Facebook compete with messaging services from Apple, Google and others.

As part of the process, Zuckerberg said Facebook will meet with privacy experts, law enforcement officials concerned about the new encryption making it impossible to uncover illegal activity being discussed on the messaging service and government officials.

Creating more ways for Facebook’s more than 2 billion users to keep things private could undermine the company’s business model, which depends on the ability to learn about the things people like and then sell ads tied to those interests.

In his interview with the AP, Zuckerberg said he isn’t currently worried about denting Facebook’s profits with the increased emphasis on privacy.

“How this affects the business down the line, we’ll see,” Zuckerberg said. “But if we do a good job in serving the need that people have, then there will certainly be an opportunity” to make even money.

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Google Street View Now Lets You Take a Walk Around the Large Hadron Collider

Ever wanted to take a peek inside an underground particle accelerator? Want your favorite British actor to walk you through the origin of the universe? While you can’t stick your head into the Large Hadron Collider, you can now go for a short walk around it — and explore other scientific marvels, thanks to Google’s new online invention exhibition project, part of its Arts & Culture platform. With AR apps, AI-powered image galleries, and first-person views of underground science facilities, you might encounter more than a few surprising origin stories concerning mankind’s most ambitious discoveries.

The star here is Google’s new Street View-powered tour of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the famous CERN-run particle accelerator. It’s part of Google’s larger Once Upon a Try project cataloging the stories and origins of various objects, inventors, and discoveries. “With over 400 interactive collections, it’s the largest online exhibition about inventions and discoveries ever created,” says Liudmila Kobyakova, Program Manager at Google Cultural Institute.

The ring-shaped LHC is comprised of a series of superconducting magnets — chilled to a brisk −271.25 °C — that accelerate particles destined to smash into each other. It’s part of CERN’s particle accelerator complex housed beneath the France-Switzerland border.

While you won’t be able to walk through the LHC’s entire 27-kilometer ring, the Street View segments available offer glimpses of the most interesting parts of the particle-smashing facility, according to physicist Rolf Landua, head of CERN’s Education Group. In addition to the LHC, CERN’s collection of images and interactive exhibits available on Google’s platform includes Street View looks at other, smaller particle accelerators. “Clearly, our flagship program is the LHC, so we have chosen to show the collider itself, and the four major experiments in the four collision points (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb),” says Landua. “In my view, the LHC and the four detectors are masterpieces of engineering.”

The data gathered from the LHC’s high-speed collisions allows physicists to test out various theories concerning the structure of the world and the laws of physics. “ATLAS and CMS can take 40 million ‘snapshots’ of collisions per second, creating a primary data rate of more than 1 Petabyte per second,” says Landua. Most notably, tests conducted in the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 revealed the existence of the subatomic Higgs boson particle. The LHC is currently undergoing an upgrade to improve its likelihood of detecting as-yet-unseen subatomic particles.

For those uninterested in particle physics, you’ll be able to peruse other interactive exhibitions. Google and CERN have also created an augmented reality app (narrated by actor Tilda Swinton) exploring the origins of the universe, starting with the Big Bang. NASA’s Visual Universe, meanwhile, uses Google’s machine learning technology to sort and analyze over 127,000 images from the space agency’s image archives, making it easier to comb through the database.

You can also browse through various collections of digitized artwork, images, and articles about pivotal discoveries and inventors provided by institutions like CERN and The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

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