With App Tracking Transparency Apple has revolutionized the advertising on iOS in an effort to provide more protection for its users. It is a tool that works, welcomed by those who use Apple devices every day and which has drastically changed the balance on the market – with not insignificant side effects, however. And if this is the situation in the Apple ecosystem, there is no such thing on Android at least an official one. The search engine DuckDuckGo he thought he’d fill the gap with his own App Tracking Protection now available in Open Beta for all users of the Google operating system.
There free feature introduced in the DuckDuckGo app for Android” helps block third-party trackers in apps installed on your smartphone (like Google snooping in your weather app) – meaning more complete privacy and less creepy targeting“. The developer promises an even more powerful tool than Apple’s security system capable of automatically blocking all hidden trackers.
DuckDuckGo motivates its decision by providing some numbers:
- there are an average of 35 apps installed on an Android smartphone, which correspond…
- … between 1,000 and 2,000 tracking attempts per day for…
- … over 70 different companies
Just consult three or four apps for various reasons to provide data on location, email, phone number, screen resolution, smartphone make and model, and so on. Time ago DuckDuckGo champions the cause of privacy with solutions for the search engine, navigation and emails – it recently sided against Google – and with the App Tracking Protection it intends to take another step forward extending this protection to third-party app trackers. The goal is to make one available to the user tool to know what information trackers try to steal, blocking it.
App Tracking Protection
Its operation is simple: just activate the App Tracking Protection from DuckDuckGo app > Settings > App Tracking Protection, from that moment every tracking request is detected and, where possible, blocked. It is also possible to check what information is collected, which apps and tracking networks are involved. The tool uses a local VPN connection therefore it does not share any data with external servers.
Being a Beta, the operation is not yet fully optimized For example, stay out of apps that rely on tracking to function properly, such as browsers and apps with in-app browsers.
- DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser | android | Google Play Store, Free
