You're being tracked online most of the time. Just about every website you visit tracks you, logs you, and profiles you for various reasons—serving you personalized ads is just one of them. To enhance your privacy protection from online tracking, you can install DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials on your Safari browser. This easy-to-install browser add-on for Safari will help you escape advertising trackers and keep your search history private.

So what is DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials? Should you install it on Safari?

What Is DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials?

DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials is a browser extension that allows users to browse the internet privately. The extension is available for all leading web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Safari.

The following are ways DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials enhances your privacy online:

• The browser extension will block all third-party trackers on sites you visit.
• You can see the Privacy Grade of a website that indicates how much you can trust the site before and after the implementation of DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials' protection.
• Your search history will remain private if you make DuckDuckGo your default search engine.

Most browsers block third-party trackers once they load in your browser. But this method may send your IP address or other identifiers to the third parties when trackers load.

However, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials doesn't let third-party scripts (i.e. trackers) from Google, Facebook, and other companies load, preventing those companies from collecting your IP address or any other type of identifier.

Smartphone users can download the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser on their devices to search and browse privately. Android users can download DuckDuckGo Privacy browser from GooglePlay, and iPhone users should visit App Store to download it.

Why You Should Care About Your Privacy

When you visit a website, it's likely that first-party and third-party trackers are active in the background, monitoring and profiling your behavior.

The first-party trackers, which enable the site owners to track users, are helpful to both users and website owners. This is because first-party trackers help site owners improve the user-friendliness of websites.

However, third-party trackers, which belong to services other than the websites your visit, are creepy. These trackers collect your personal data for multiple reasons, such as analytics, advertising, social media, and more.

Worse, third-party tracking can also collect your personal information. Facebook can act as a third-party tracker. Think about what Facebook might know about when you are logged in.

In short, third-party trackers are like someone who makes notes on what you do when you visit somewhere. Would you let anyone do that in real life? If not, why do we let them get away with it online?

So you should do everything within your power to amp up your privacy while browsing online. And installing DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials is one of the best ways to do it.

Should You Use DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials on Safari?

To demonstrate how DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials works, we're focusing on Safari, Apple's default web browser.

Safari does well when it comes to privacy as it has many essential features to enhance privacy. Users have options to block cross-site (i.e. third-party) tracking and hide IP addresses. Safari also allows users to make DuckDuckGo Search a default search engine.

The Safari browser is already providing users with options to browse privately. So should you install DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials on Safari? The answer is simply, yes.

DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials browser extension will enhance Safari's tracking protections on sites you visit. And it will allow you to access the DuckDuckGo Privacy Board within the Safari browser.

This privacy board will let you know the Privacy Grade and other privacy metrics of the websites you visit. The Privacy Rating Grade goes from A to F. The Privacy Grade "A" means the websites you are visiting are excellent at protecting your privacy. And the Privacy Grade "F" represents the poor performance of websites in terms of protecting visitors' privacy.

In a nutshell, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials makes privacy simplified on Safari. Two private tools, Safari and DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, working in tandem, can better protect your online identity.

How to Install DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials on Safari

Close the Safari browser, and open the App Store on your Mac. Search for "DuckDuckGo Privacy for Safari". Click on the DuckDuckGo Privacy for Safari app, then click on the Get button.

Click on Install. Your Mac will ask you to either use your Touch ID to authenticate or type your password, depending on your Mac's settings. Once the authentication is done, the installation process will commence and finish quickly.

Once the installation is done, the Open button will appear in the browser extension. Close the App Store.

Open Safari, and go to the Settings menu. Click on the Search tab, and make DuckDuckGo your default search engine to search privately if you haven't done that already. You can get faster results in DuckDuckGo with search operators.

Click on the Extensions tab, and enable Privacy Dashboard and Privacy Protection by checking both boxes. Close your Safari browser.

Open the Safari browser and visit any website. You will see the Privacy Grade of the website in the Safari browser itself. Click on the Privacy Grade of the website you have visited. The Privacy Dashboard will open to show you details about how DuckDuckGo privacy essentials is enhancing your privacy.

How to Uninstall DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials From Safari

So what if you decide it's not for you? You can easily uninstall DuckDuckGo Privacy essentials too. Go to Safari's Settings menu, and click on the Extensions tab. Uncheck Privacy Dashboard and Privacy Protection in the left sidebar. Then close the Settings window.

Go to the Launch Pad, and find the DuckDuckGo Privacy for Safari app. Drag and drop it on Bin to delete the app.

Keep Your Browsing Private

With tech giants ferociously tracking users, keeping your browsing private is your right. Using DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials can help you do that.

Along with Safari's in-built privacy protection (as well as the privacy controls other browsers offer), this easy-to-add browser extension will offer you reliable privacy. Consider using a reputed Virtual Private Network (VPN) on your device to improve online privacy and security further. You can also explore other anonymous browsers like Tor for private browsing.