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Jerry Krinock
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Re: DuckDuckGo browser
Reply #5 - Feb 3rd, 2023 at 5:58am
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Five years later…

Now there is a DuckDuckGo browser for Mac. 

SHORT ANSWER:

It looks like our apps could never import/export with DuckDuckGo because, being designed for extreme privacy, the DuckDuckGo browser does not support, and makes it extremely difficult, for any other app to dig into your DuckDuckGo bookmarks.  It's a feature of DuckDuckGo.

LONGER, TECHNICAL ANSWER:

There are two techinical questions here.  Can we access DuckDuckGo bookmarks when DuckDuckGo is not running, and/or can we access DuckDuckGo bookmarks when DuckDuckGo is running.

When DuckDuckGo is not running, we'd need to access their files.  DuckDuckGo stores your bookmarks in a Core Data store, ~/Library/Containers/com.duckduckgo.macos.browser/Data/Library/Database.sqlite > ZBOOKMARKMANAGEDOBJECT.  This is not the way the other browsers do it, so it would require some reverse engineering to hack into.  More importantly, all entries in this database are encrypted, and I presume that DuckDuckGo has made it very difficult to reverse engineer and find the encryption keys.  It would be an interesting science project to try and hack this, but not a good use of our resources.

When DuckDuckGo is running, we would access its bookmarks via a browser extension installed into DuckDuckGo, as we do with Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera and Brave.  But there is no apparent way to install extensions into DuckDuckGo.  This is probably intentional, since allowing extensions increases the surface area of a browser's security envelope, and as you know DuckDuckGo is all about your privacy, which requires security.  (You can read that duckduckgo.com does offer their extensions to be installed into other browsers.  But that is something different.)

  

Jerry Krinock
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Jerry Krinock
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Re: DuckDuckGo browser
Reply #4 - May 26th, 2018 at 5:38pm
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Thank you for the follow-up, Eric.  I missed the word browser in your original post.  My mind was too fixed on DuckDuckGo as a search engine and I was not aware of their browser until now.

Anyhow, I just did the same search you did and came to the same conclusion.  It does make sense that a iOS version would appear first, because iOS apps are simpler to develop.  Do let us know if a macOS version appears.  Because of the restrictions Apple has placed on entries in the Mac App Store, it may not appear there.  (Our apps are not in the Mac App Store, for this reason.)
  

Jerry Krinock
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Eric Weir
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Re: DuckDuckGo browser
Reply #3 - May 26th, 2018 at 5:32pm
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Near as I can tell, the DDG browser is available only for iOS and Android. Strange. But perhaps it is coming.
  
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Eric Weir
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Re: DuckDuckGo browser
Reply #2 - May 26th, 2018 at 5:28pm
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Thanks, Jerry. There is a DDG browser, at least for iOS. If there is one for desktops/notebooks it's not available in the Apple App Store.

If I find that there is one, just not available in the App Store, I'll report back.
  
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Jerry Krinock
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Re: DuckDuckGo browser
Reply #1 - May 26th, 2018 at 3:06pm
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Hello, Eric.

Thank you for the question.  Please read the answer by crazedpsyc in this thread.  That would be my answer exactly.

Please reply and tell us: Does that answer by crazedpsyc make sense to you, or is there something that crazedpsyc and I are missing?
  

Jerry Krinock
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Eric Weir
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DuckDuckGo browser
May 26th, 2018 at 1:11pm
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I have just started using the DuckDuckGo browser. Seems at present that Safari bookmarks cannot be imported into it. Wondering if Smarky might support management of DuckDucGo bookmarks.
  
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