Why doesn’t Duckduckgo delete history?

QI followed Issue 563’s ‘Search the web 100% anonymously’ Workshop. It was a very useful article, and the Duckduckgo extension was so easy to install and use. However, although Duckduckgo supposedly doesn’t track me when using it, when I checked my Chrome browsing history afterwards it still listed all the sites I went on. It’s quite easy to delete this history, but has this been saved anywhere else? Thanks for your help and such a fantastic magazine. Owen Palmer

AThe answer is… maybe. To be clear, Duckduckgo provides total privacy only for searching, not browsing. In other words, while whatever you’re looking for in Duckduckgo is private, the service has no control on what happens after you click a link.

So, if you click a link from a Duckduckgo search when not using Chrome’s Incognito mode then, yes, this activity will be recorded by Chrome as part of your browsing history. If you additionally happen to be using Chrome’s synchronisation features to sync Chrome info between two or more computers then, depending on your specific synchronisation settings, your history might end up on Google’s servers.

To avoid both of these things for specific searches and activities, use Chrome in Incognito mode. Click the menu button (three dots, top right) followed by ‘New incognito window’, or use the keyboard shortcut Control (Ctrl)+shift+n.

You can also use the Duckduckgo extension in Incognito mode, but it needs to be enabled. To do this, right-click the tool’s icon in the Chrome toolbar, then select ‘Manage extensions’. Next, turn on the ‘Allow in incognito’ slider (see screenshot above right). Now you’ll benefit from totally private searches, and your history won’t be saved – either to your PC or to Google’s servers.