Debian will use DuckDuckGo as default search engine for the Chromium browser replacing the previously used Google browser.

Debian Linux is one of the great references of the free system. Many other distributions are based on its development, starting with the most popular Ubuntu, which in turn serves as the basis for further development of GNU/Linux. The influence of Debian is enormous, and thus the importance of the news that concerns us.

It should be said that Debian, like most Linux systems, uses Firefox as its default web browser. This cannot be predicted to change in the short term, although Mozilla’s development situation is not the best.

However, Debian also offers another browser in its repositories, chrome, the open source project on which Google built Chrome. Many Linux users prefer it because it offers almost the same features as Chrome, but without Google services and the associated tracking and data collection. And here comes the default search engine change.

DuckDuckGo by Google

This change was announced over two years ago and is now specified as of Chromium 104. The reasons are known: Privacy. And it is precisely the scandals with massive surveillance, data breaches and non-transparent practices that have enabled the emergence of alternative engines that promise greater privacy and return of results that are not so influenced by commercial and advertising reasons.

DuckDuckGo leads the list of these alternative search engines to the giants of the sector, such as Google Search, Microsoft Bing or Yahoo!. An open source development committed to privacy as its core feature and is actually a default module in other browsers such as TOR.

Its use was enormous in the last two years, and although it still has a long way to go with the data of the big leader in the segment, Google Search, there is no doubt that it has been able to establish itself in the engines and start other developments, such as its own browser or email solution.

Of course, not everything was congratulatory and the “Syndicated Search Content Agreement” dispute with Microsoft that allowed Microsoft’s ad trackers to run while blocking Google and Facebook trackers still resonates and may have tarnished DuckDuckGo’s promotion as a champion of privacy and transparency. And it is that although it is better than Google in terms of privacy, it must be said that there are others that are even more private than DuckDuckGo, although perhaps not as effective.

They had to balance everything in Debian to choose it as a replacement for Google in Chromium. Just because it comes standard doesn’t mean other alternatives (or Google itself) can’t be used, as all browsers allow the change to be made very easily in the configuration tool.