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The tech bro ecosystem
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 23, 2025 at 07:46 AM
Because this is not entirely irrelevant to knowledge management, I thought I’d pen a brief piece on my cross-platform experiments.
As you all know, the main data ecosystems out there like to keep a close eye on our activities. Microsoft, Apple, Google – they all keep tabs on us any way they can, usually very surreptitiously and while claiming to be strictly privacy-focused.
I’ve been working within the Apple ecosystem for quite a while now (ever since Windows 7 emerged into the world like a bloated hybrid butterfly). But I am well aware that my MacBook Pro is phoning back to the mothership thousands of times an hour.
About a year ago I acquired a cheap ’n’ cheerful 11” Android tablet to replace my very elderly iPad. And I was impressed (even though the “new” product I acquired was clearly a second-hand one; but it was astoundingly cheap!). The Android ecosystem now resembles iOS very closely, and has gained most of the latter’s benefits while bringing a whole bunch of features of its own.
But of course Android is dependent on the Google ecosystem, which is even more profligate with its mothership phone calls than Apple. However, there is a difference, in the form of an easy solution.
I installed DuckDuckGo (the browser) – and discovered that it comes with an entire built-in privacy suite that can be set up to block trackers from any and all apps on your Android device. Every few hours it generates a report on how many trackers it has blocked, from which apps, phoning back to whichever motherships (mainly Google, but also a surprising number of specialist companies I’ve never heard of). You can look at the report or totally ignore it, up to you.
It’s very impressive, and totally free. And as a result, when I managed to break my beloved iPhone XR, I replaced it with a generic but well-reviewed Chinese mid-range phone (brand new at half the price of the equivalent refurbished iPhone – a Realme 14 Pro+ for those who care). And immediately installed DuckDuckGo.
I’ve experimented with Android before, and promptly abandoned it after finding that I was just too dependent on the inter-device syncing that characterises the Appleverse. But nowadays, such syncing is ubiquitous – and my main task and information repository is Obsidian, which uses its own Sync service. TickTick collects calendar info from any platform and syncs it across all platforms. There are numerous contact syncing apps, again for all platforms (and years of using Apple Contacts have shown me that the latter has a nasty habit of losing contact notes, often curtailing them for no obvious reason, so I avoid using it in any case).
Keeping track of cross-platform services is easier than it’s ever been, but clearly one has to buy into the Big Tech ecosphere.
However, apps like DuckDuckGo on Android (not, unfortunately, on macOS or iOS) return agency to users. Opera also offers a high level of tracker blocking, but it’s nowhere near as comprehensive as DuckDuckGo’s. Both of them offer paid VPN services, but DuckDuckGo’s FOC privacy suite operates like a pseudo-VPN in any case, inserting a blocking layer between your software environment and all outgoing “calls”. You can unblock certain apps if DuckDuckGo’s blocking disrupts them, but I’ve taken the all-in approach and blocked everything, so far without ill effects.
I hope that’s useful to somebody!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Franz Grieser
Jul 23, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Hi Bill.
Interesting indeed. I thought DuckDuckGo was “only” a search engine.
In fact it’s much more: There is a browser and add-ins for Firefox, Chrome etc..
And there are not only versions for Windows and Android but also for iOS and MacOS (though not for Linux).
Posted by satis
Jul 23, 2025 at 04:01 PM
I use Brave, which like DDG is privacy focused. However Brave blocks cross-site trackers, which I believe the DDG browser does not (yet) do. Brave also has anti-fingerprinting tech in it, which gives randomized fake browser details to sites so your individual attributes (fonts installed, browser window size, etc) cannot ID you across the web. It also blocks those annoying cookie consent banners.
While Brave comes with Brave Search as the default engine, users are free to change that. You can even set DuckDuckGo as your default search engine in Brave. But I don’t think DDG lets you automatically search via anything but DDG.
Perhaps most useful is that Brave has a built-in ad-blocker, based on uBlock Origin. I don’t know Android apps so I don’t know if the mobile version of the DDG browser can install an ad blocker.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 23, 2025 at 04:13 PM
Interesting. There’s a useful comparison on DuckDuckGo’s website (at https://duckduckgo.com/compare-privacy) and yes, Brave does have a couple of points over DuckDuckGo with respect to ad blocking. But DDG does so much more (especially on Android). You can also pay for a subscription that includes a fully encrypted VPN, identity restoration and removal of your ID details from naughty sites that sell them. I’m tempted, but have resisted so far (So. Many. Subscriptions!)
satis wrote:
I use Brave, which like DDG is privacy focused. However Brave blocks
>cross-site trackers, which I believe the DDG browser does not (yet) do.
>Brave also has anti-fingerprinting tech in it, which gives randomized
>fake browser details to sites so your individual attributes (fonts
>installed, browser window size, etc) cannot ID you across the web. It
>also blocks those annoying cookie consent banners.
>
>While Brave comes with Brave Search as the default engine, users are
>free to change that. You can even set DuckDuckGo as your default search
>engine in Brave. But I don’t think DDG lets you automatically search via
>anything but DDG.
>
>Perhaps most useful is that Brave has a built-in ad-blocker, based on
>uBlock Origin. I don’t know Android apps so I don’t know if the mobile
>version of the DDG browser can install an ad blocker.
Posted by satis
Jul 24, 2025 at 02:01 PM
MadaboutDana wrote:
>Interesting. There’s a useful comparison on DuckDuckGo’s
>website (at https://duckduckgo.com/compare-privacy) and yes, Brave does
>have a couple of points over DuckDuckGo with respect to ad blocking. But
>DDG does so much more (especially on Android). You can also pay for a
>subscription that includes a fully encrypted VPN, identity restoration
>and removal of your ID details from naughty sites that sell them.
>I’m tempted, but have resisted so far (So. Many. Subscriptions!)
I was directly comparing browser features, not tangential pay offerings. Brave too offers a VPN service, and there are many highly regarded and competitively priced ID removal services that have been around longer than DDG’s. Even Firefox offers this via its own white-label Mozilla Monitor. But this is unrelated to actual browser privacy features, where Brave outshines DDG.
And Brave has its own comparison page to DDG too.
https://brave.com/compare/duckduckgo-browser-vs-brave/
I would never use either service’s VPNs by the way. I only use well-regarded, fast VPN services which have been 3rd-party audited. There are very, very few of those, and the only VPNs I recommend, one of which I use, that meet those criteria are iVPN, Proton and Mullvad (which also offers white label service via Mozilla as Mozilla VPN).