For most of its existence, DuckDuckGo was best known for its privacy-focused search engine, which was often a great alternative to Google. In 2019, apparently in an effort to shed its image as a simple search engine, the company entered the world of mobile browsers by launching iOS and Android versions of a privacy-focused browser. As with its search engine, privacy was at the heart of DuckDuckGo’s mobile browser business.

In 2022, DuckDuckGo took another step in that direction by launching its first-ever privacy-focused browser for desktops. However, until recently, only the macOS version of DuckDuckGo’s desktop browser was available to consumers. That is changing today, as the company announced that it is opening beta testing of the Windows version of the DuckDuckGo browser to members of the general public. Given the sheer number of computers running Windows, this decision opens up a huge market for the company.

The Windows version of the DuckDuckGo browser has the same features as its mobile cousins and macOS.

The DuckDuckGo browser is now available in beta for Windows computers, allowing you to try out the browser and all its private and secure features. It includes many additions that might interest you, even if you don’t care too much about your privacy. For example, there is a private “Duck Player” that allows you to play YouTube videos in a sandbox, without ads or impacting your recommendations.

You also get improved website tracker blocking and encryption, as well as better cookie and website data management, and even a “Fire” button that allows you to delete data from a website in seconds with a single click. The browser also incorporates email protection with duck.com addresses for one-time logins, for example.

The company claims that its desktop browsers consume on average 60% less data than Google Chrome. With features like one-click password and bookmark import, it’s relatively easy to switch between browsers.

Designed by DuckDuckGo engineers

Unlike most other browsers that rely on existing code, DuckDuckGo is supposed to have been designed from the ground up from code written by DuckDuckGo’s own engineers. For rendering web pages, the browser uses the native API of the operating system, in this case Windows WebView 2, based on the Blink rendering engine, so it should load pages in the same way as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.

If you want to try it and you have a Windows PC, you can now download the beta version to try it. Keep in mind, however, that this is a beta version: while it has many interesting features, it can also have many bugs.