Google Chrome adds DuckDuckGo as search engine option in 60 countries, Qwant in France

Ben Schoon | Mar 14 2019 - 8:08 am PT

For the vast majority of users right now, Google is the go-to search engine on the web. There are a number of other options, though, and after some antitrust complaints in the past few years, Google is making some changes to promote healthy competition. That now includes the arrival of DuckDuckGo as a default search engine provider on Google Chrome.

As first reported by TechCrunch, Google recently made a silent change to Chrome which enabled two new default search engine providers — DuckDuckGo and Qwant. Available now in Chrome 73, which just hit the stable channel this week, users can now select the privacy-focused search engine as their default.

Not long after Google turned over the “duck.com” domain to DuckDuckGo, the search engine was added to a list of localized preferences over on Github. One Google software engineer explained that the list was based on “recently collected data” which created new usage stats for Google to work with. Previously, DuckDuckGo wasn’t an option at all.

From Chrome 73 onward, DuckDuckGo will be available as a default search engine option for users to choose from in 60 different countries. This includes the United States, but the full list follows.

Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Bolivia, Brazil, Belize, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Germany, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Faroe Islands, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Iceland, Italy, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Moldova, Macedonia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Paraguay, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Switzerland, U.K., Uruguay, U.S. and Venezuela.

Gabe Weinberg, the founder of DuckDuckGo, commended Google on recognizing “the importance of offering consumers a private search option.”

Notably, one other big local option was added with this same update. In France, the popular local search engine Qwant has been added as a default option. While Qwant’s co-founder still recommends Firefox or Brave to its users, he “really and sincerely appreciates” Google’s gesture in Chrome 73.