What's the difference between using duckduckgo with !google bangs and using google directly?

Question

Is there any security advantage in searching on duckduckgo using !google? Or is it effectively the same as searching directly on google?

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 09 '19 at 18:33

There's no difference: DuckDuckGo doesn't offer any privacy protection when redirecting the search to another result page with a !bang. E.g. !google foo (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!google+foo) just redirects to https://google.com/search?hl=en&q=foo using both

meta refresh

<meta http-equiv='refresh' content='0; url=https://google.com/search?hl=en&q=foo'>

and JavaScript

<script language='JavaScript'>
    function ffredirect(){
        window.location.replace('https://google.com/search?hl=en&q=foo');
    }
    setTimeout('ffredirect()',100);
</script>

...but not with an actual HTTP redirect, probably in order to hide itself as the referrer:
```
<meta name='referrer' content='never'>
```

On the other hand, it prevents Google from getting direct information on the keystrokes and typos through Ajax queries:

What's the difference between using duckduckgo with !google bangs and using google directly?

1 Answers1