DuckDuckGo is asserting a brand new bundled subscription service, Privateness Professional, that provides an additional layer of privacy past its present choices. Customers who pay $9.99 per thirty days will get entry to a VPN that makes use of the open-source WireGuard protocol, on-device private info removing, and 24/7 id theft restoration. Whereas customers of DuckDuckGo’s personal browser and/or search engine aren’t any followers of on-line monitoring, PrivacyPro appears geared in direction of probably the most cautious of its user-base — who’re additionally prepared to pay additional for an encrypted web connection.
DuckDuckGo’s full array of choices have lengthy been free to make use of, together with its browser, search engine, varied plug-ins, even its electronic mail safety service. PrivacyPro is the corporate’s first paid subscription. The corporate chalks this as much as the “considerably extra bandwidth and assets” that providing a VPN service requires. Nonetheless, if it’s solely a standalone VPN that you just’re after, there are numerous high-quality ones in the marketplace which can be underneath 5 {dollars} a month.
The three companies included in PrivacyPro (VPN, ID theft restoration, private info removing) are constructed into DuckDuckGo’s browser, so that you’ll have to obtain the browser and sign-up for a PrivacyPro subscription to activate them.
DuckDuckGo’s VPN, the corporate says, encrypts your web connection throughout your whole gadget — together with all of the browsers and apps you’re utilizing on the time. As an alternative of a standard account username and password, PrivacyPro customers will likely be assigned a random ID. Your ISP supplier shouldn’t be capable of see your looking exercise, and DuckDuckGo itself received’t hold logs of your VPN exercise.
Because it provides that encryption, PrivacyPro seems to be a major step above DuckDuckGo’s present privateness choices. DuckDuckGo’s free browser successfully serves as an additional robust tracker blocker, serving to customers to keep away from electronic mail, app, and advert trackers, in addition to monitoring from social media platforms. Its search engine, the corporate states in its privacy policy, doesn’t monitor your search or looking histories, and blocks some other third events who attempt to.
DuckDuckGo has VPN servers within the US, Europe, and Canada, and customers can select from whichever location they like. The corporate says it plans so as to add extra over time.
PrivacyPro, DuckDuckGo claims, will even take down your private information from third-party knowledge dealer websites like Spokeo. “We scan dozens of these sites to your information and, if discovered, request its removing, even dealing with back-and-forth affirmation emails for you routinely behind the scenes,” the corporate writes. DuckDuckGo says that the knowledge it makes use of for scanning is saved on the person’s gadget, and by no means enters a distant server.
Right here’s an instance of what the characteristic seems to be like under:
Lastly, DuckDuckGo says that PrivacyPro will assist in the occasion a person’s id will get stolen. That assistance will come by way of a partnership with identity theft protection company Iris. The service seems to be a 24/7 concierge for id theft, serving to customers with duties like cancelling and changing vital paperwork, informing medical health insurance suppliers of any fraudulent claims, freezing their credit score report, and extra.
