DuckDuckGo's private browser for Mac enters public beta

Comments

• Reply 1 of 9

  22july2013 Posts: 3,604member

  October 18, 2022 12:23PM

  Youtube's ads are getting denser and denser. I remember a few years ago when they added a second ad to most ad breaks, and now they are occasionally forcing people to watch three ads in one ad break. And a huge percentage of those ads are at least 15-seconds (and longer, if you don't press SKIP ADS.) So 15 seconds times three ads is 45 seconds of ads, just to watch the first five minutes of a video. In my opinion they've hit the threshold of commercial TV ads (if you don't press on SKIP ADS.) And since ads are tailored for each user, that makes the business much more profitable than commercial TV. That gives me a few options:
  

  1. Stop watching Youtube
  2. Start using DuckDuckGo's browser
  3. Start paying for "Youtube Premium" for less ads
  4. Write software to click on SKIP ADS (I won't say if I've already done this.)

  
• Reply 2 of 9

  deanbar Posts: 113member

  October 18, 2022 12:58PM

  For many years I’ve been using start.com (previously known as “ixquick.com”), which is just as private but gives you the top search/searches in the first line or two, without dozens and dozens of similar but different results like duckduckgo.
  
  I’ve found it to be the most efficient search engine out there.

  
• Reply 3 of 9

  badmonk Posts: 1,308member

  October 18, 2022 1:53PM

  22july2013 said:

  Youtube's ads are getting denser and denser. I remember a few years ago when they added a second ad to most ad breaks, and now they are occasionally forcing people to watch three ads in one ad break. And a huge percentage of those ads are at least 15-seconds (and longer, if you don't press SKIP ADS.) So 15 seconds times three ads is 45 seconds of ads, just to watch the first five minutes of a video. In my opinion they've hit the threshold of commercial TV ads (if you don't press on SKIP ADS.) And since ads are tailored for each user, that makes the business much more profitable than commercial TV. That gives me a few options:
  

  1. Stop watching Youtube
  2. Start using DuckDuckGo's browser
  3. Start paying for "Youtube Premium" for less ads
  4. Write software to click on SKIP ADS (I won't say if I've already done this.)

  Great point July.  People bitch about the Apple-Android App Store Duopoly but what about the monopoly of internet video streaming that is YouTube?
  
  We don’t have any options in this regard beyond shelling out for Premium but the advertisement burden of YouTube has gotten intolerable.
  
  
  

  
  

  
• Reply 4 of 9

  neoncat Posts: 152member

  October 18, 2022 2:28PM

  22july2013 said:

  Youtube's ads are getting denser and denser. I remember a few years ago when they added a second ad to most ad breaks, and now they are occasionally forcing people to watch three ads in one ad break. And a huge percentage of those ads are at least 15-seconds (and longer, if you don't press SKIP ADS.) So 15 seconds times three ads is 45 seconds of ads, just to watch the first five minutes of a video. In my opinion they've hit the threshold of commercial TV ads (if you don't press on SKIP ADS.) And since ads are tailored for each user, that makes the business much more profitable than commercial TV. That gives me a few options:
  

  1. Stop watching Youtube
  2. Start using DuckDuckGo's browser
  3. Start paying for "Youtube Premium" for less ads
  4. Write software to click on SKIP ADS (I won't say if I've already done this.)

  Not lobbying one way or another, everyone needs to decide what's in their budget and what their priorities are, but I've found YouTube Premium to be my most essential "media" subscription and it would be the last one I would consider dropping. I watch a lot of YouTube, for reference, learning and entertainment, and Premium succeeds in removing every single annoyance or limitation while still allowing you to indirectly support content creators (although, direct support via Patreon, etc. is always better, of course). Plus you get YouTube Music as part of the package, which even if you already have Spotify or Apple Music or whatever is different enough in how it works (particularly in how it can pull from YouTube music content) makes it an interesting value-add. 

  edited October 2022
• Reply 5 of 9

  rob53 Posts: 3,260member

  October 18, 2022 2:38PM

  neoncat said:

  22july2013 said:

  Youtube's ads are getting denser and denser. I remember a few years ago when they added a second ad to most ad breaks, and now they are occasionally forcing people to watch three ads in one ad break. And a huge percentage of those ads are at least 15-seconds (and longer, if you don't press SKIP ADS.) So 15 seconds times three ads is 45 seconds of ads, just to watch the first five minutes of a video. In my opinion they've hit the threshold of commercial TV ads (if you don't press on SKIP ADS.) And since ads are tailored for each user, that makes the business much more profitable than commercial TV. That gives me a few options:
  

  1. Stop watching Youtube
  2. Start using DuckDuckGo's browser
  3. Start paying for "Youtube Premium" for less ads
  4. Write software to click on SKIP ADS (I won't say if I've already done this.)

  Not lobbying one way or another, everyone needs to decide what's in their budget and what their priorities are, but I've found YouTube Premium to be my most essential "media" subscription and it would be the last one I would consider dropping. I watch a lot of YouTube, for reference, learning and entertainment, and Premium succeeds in removing every single annoyance or limitation while still allowing you to indirectly support content creators (although, direct support via Patreon, etc. is always better, of course). Plus you get YouTube Music as part of the package, which even if you already have Spotify or Apple Music or whatever is different enough in how it works (particularly in how it can pull from YouTube music content) makes it an interesting value-add. 

  I don't want youtube music, just no ads. They used to have a $4/mo no-ad subscription but that went away a few years ago. It's now $12/mo for premium and a ridiculous $65/mo for youtube TV plus more for extra sports and movie channels. Crazy thing is Comcast costs less for more channels.

  
• Reply 6 of 9

  gatorguy Posts: 24,302member

  October 18, 2022 3:33PM

  At least until a few weeks ago, DDG had an undisclosed agreement with Microsoft not to block data sharing. I'm sure they were not given any option since they're using Bing search results for DuckDuckGo. I don't know if Microsoft and DDG have since made some alterations to the sharing agreement, but had a researcher not discovered it we would not have had any idea that DDG was not quite as private as they trumpet.  Neither DDG nor Microsoft was otherwise going to acknowledge it until their hand was forced.
  
  https://www.tomsguide.com/news/duckduckgo-privacy-browser-facing-backlash-over-microsoft-trackers
  

  edited October 2022
• Reply 7 of 9

  neoncat Posts: 152member

  October 18, 2022 3:50PM

  rob53 said:

  neoncat said:

  22july2013 said:

  Youtube's ads are getting denser and denser. I remember a few years ago when they added a second ad to most ad breaks, and now they are occasionally forcing people to watch three ads in one ad break. And a huge percentage of those ads are at least 15-seconds (and longer, if you don't press SKIP ADS.) So 15 seconds times three ads is 45 seconds of ads, just to watch the first five minutes of a video. In my opinion they've hit the threshold of commercial TV ads (if you don't press on SKIP ADS.) And since ads are tailored for each user, that makes the business much more profitable than commercial TV. That gives me a few options:
  

  1. Stop watching Youtube
  2. Start using DuckDuckGo's browser
  3. Start paying for "Youtube Premium" for less ads
  4. Write software to click on SKIP ADS (I won't say if I've already done this.)

  Not lobbying one way or another, everyone needs to decide what's in their budget and what their priorities are, but I've found YouTube Premium to be my most essential "media" subscription and it would be the last one I would consider dropping. I watch a lot of YouTube, for reference, learning and entertainment, and Premium succeeds in removing every single annoyance or limitation while still allowing you to indirectly support content creators (although, direct support via Patreon, etc. is always better, of course). Plus you get YouTube Music as part of the package, which even if you already have Spotify or Apple Music or whatever is different enough in how it works (particularly in how it can pull from YouTube music content) makes it an interesting value-add. 

  I don't want youtube music, just no ads. They used to have a $4/mo no-ad subscription but that went away a few years ago. It's now $12/mo for premium and a ridiculous $65/mo for youtube TV plus more for extra sports and movie channels. Crazy thing is Comcast costs less for more channels.

  Totally fair, I agree, there should be another tier in there that just removes ads, or is solely focused on YouTube-centric perks rather than roping in YT-M. 

  edited October 2022
• Reply 8 of 9

  danox Posts: 3,003member

  October 18, 2022 5:13PM

  Hey Apple instead of giving money to sports leagues where is your YouTube knockoff?

  
• Reply 9 of 9

  CheeseFreeze Posts: 1,273member

  October 18, 2022 5:56PM

  It’s actually a pretty decent browser. I like it so far. I just need it to support “profiles” for me to be able to quickly switch between GSuite accounts, something Chrome and Edge do, but Safari doesn’t. Profiles also have their own associated encrypted passwords database.