How do DuckDuckGo’s tracker‑blocking blocklists compare to those used by other privacy browsers and extensions?
Executive summary
DuckDuckGo maintains curated, app- and extension-focused tracker blocklists and uses them to stop many third-party requests before they load, mitigate CNAME cloaking, and apply additional protections like automatic 24‑hour cookie expiration when blocking would break sites [1] [2] [3]. Direct, evidence‑based comparisons to the blocklists used by other privacy browsers or extensions cannot be fully drawn from the provided reporting because those sources document DuckDuckGo’s design and policy choices but do not describe competitor lists or methodologies [1] [2].
1. How DuckDuckGo builds and publishes its blocklists
DuckDuckGo’s tracker-blocklists repository is explicitly described as “Web tracker blocklists used by DuckDuckGo apps and extensions,” and the lists are maintained in GitHub repositories that are not open to external pull requests, reflecting a centrally controlled curation process rather than a fully community‑managed list [1] [4]. The blocklist entries are derived from Tracker Radar signals—common third‑party requests that set cookies or use browser APIs in ways that suggest fingerprinting—and the repository maps trackers to entities to determine first‑ vs third‑party status for CNAME protections [2].
2. Specific protections and operational rules in DuckDuckGo’s approach
DuckDuckGo layers protections: it blocks most embedded third‑party tracker requests before they can create or access first‑party cookies via “3rd‑Party Tracker Loading Protection,” identifies and defends against CNAME cloaking by mapping DNS aliases, and, when blocking would break site functionality, applies mitigations such as setting a 24‑hour expiration on cookies rather than leaving them unrestricted [3] [2]. The README explains that when a rule isn’t matched, a default action applies and the lists include metadata like likelihood of fingerprinting to inform behavior [2].
3. Policy choices that shape trade‑offs—usability, simplicity, and control
DuckDuckGo frames its ethos as “deliver privacy, simplified” and explicitly accepts tradeoffs to avoid breaking web functionality; for example, exclusions like not treating Google Tag Manager as a universal block reflect a choice to balance blocking aggressiveness with site compatibility [3]. The blocklists are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution‑NonCommercial‑ShareAlike, and the project directs usability or breakage reports to a separate Privacy Configuration issue tracker rather than through open list edits, which signals an editorial posture geared toward centralized quality control [1] [4].
4. What can and cannot be concluded about competitors from the available reporting
The sources describe DuckDuckGo’s mechanics and governance but do not provide authoritative data on other browsers’ or extensions’ blocklists, update cadence, heuristic layers, or acceptance policies; therefore any precise claim about how DuckDuckGo’s lists compare numerically or operationally to Brave, Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection, uBlock Origin, or Privacy Badger would be unsupported by the provided documents [1] [2]. Independent comparisons require scraped rule sets, empirical measurement of blocked requests across a representative set of sites, or vendor documentation from those projects, none of which are present in the cited material.
5. Practical implications and recommended next steps for researchers
Given DuckDuckGo’s documented focus—curated, Tracker Radar–informed lists, CNAME mapping, cookie‑expiration mitigations, centralized governance, and an explicit usability posture—researchers seeking a comparative answer should collect competing projects’ public blocklists and run controlled browsing tests to measure coverage and breakage, or consult each vendor’s technical docs for analogous features; the DuckDuckGo sources outline what to measure (blocking before load, CNAME handling, cookie policies, and exceptions) but do not provide the cross‑project data needed for a definitive ranking [2] [3] [1].