What does DuckDuckGo’s Fire Button not remove and how does Fireproofing work?

1. What the Fire Button removes — the quick forensic sweep

The Fire Button is advertised to erase typical browser traces in one action: cookies, website caches, favicons, browsing session info (open tabs, back/forward history, visited URLs), and granted site permissions such as geolocation or camera access ^[1]; independent reviews and comparisons characterize it effectively as a single-click "clear browsing data" that targets these volatile artifacts ^{[4] [5]}. This is DuckDuckGo’s core privacy promise in the app: a rapid reset of ephemeral identifiers and session state so the next browsing session starts from a blank slate for non‑exempted sites ^{[1] [4]}.

2. What the Fire Button does not remove — intentional, user-facing exceptions

DuckDuckGo documents explicit exclusions: the Fire Button will not clear first‑party cookies and storage for Fireproof Sites, bookmarks, downloaded files, or DuckDuckGo Search settings and associated storage ^[1]. Multiple vendor and reviewer sources reiterate that Fireproofed sites retain login cookies and related data so users remain signed in after a purge ^{[4] [6]}. Forensics work on the Android app finds cookies as the surviving artifact for Fireproofed sites and notes that the app records which sites are fireproofed in its local database — an important detail for investigators and power users alike ^[3].

3. How Fireproofing works — practical mechanics and limits

Fireproofing is a site‑level opt‑in that preserves first‑party cookies and storage for that domain so session cookies and login state are not deleted by the Fire Button; users typically enable it after signing into a site when prompted or via settings menus ^{[4] [7]}. DuckDuckGo’s own help text emphasizes the user intent: Fireproofing “keeps some helpful data around, like 1st‑party cookies and storage that would otherwise be cleared,” with the explicit purpose of avoiding repeated logins while retaining broader protections ^[1]. Secondary sources claim Fireproofing still allows DuckDuckGo to block third‑party tracking on those same pages, though the preservation of first‑party cookies creates a tradeoff between convenience and the narrow retention of site-specific identifiers ^[2].

4. What survives technically and where uncertainties remain

Technical analysis shows cookies are the primary persistent artifact for Fireproofed sites; researchers found browsing history and cache can still be cleared even when a site is fireproofed, suggesting Fireproofing is narrowly scoped to cookie/storage retention rather than a full exemption from all data purges ^[3]. Public materials do not comprehensively enumerate every storage mechanism or edge case (for example, IndexedDB specifics, service worker state, or OS-level caches), so there is a reporting limitation: available sources confirm cookie/storage preservation and selective clearing of other site data, but do not fully map every possible artifact across platforms ^{[1] [3]}.

5. Tradeoffs, alternatives, and potential agendas

DuckDuckGo frames Fireproofing as a privacy‑friendly convenience — an opinion echoed by reviewers praising selective cleanup — but this design embodies a conscious tradeoff: convenience (staying logged in) versus absolute ephemeral browsing (full deletion) ^{[6] [4]}. Some third‑party coverage stresses that DuckDuckGo still blocks third‑party cookies and trackers even for fireproofed sites, positioning the feature as superior to mainstream browsers that lack this selective protection; that positioning also advances DuckDuckGo’s competitive privacy brand against larger browser vendors ^{[1] [2]}. Users and privacy advocates should therefore weigh the explicit exception that Fireproofing creates: it preserves certain identifiers by design, and forensic work shows those identifiers can be recovered on device ^[3].