Today, we have switched the default search engine in Web from Google to DuckDuckGo. This change might come up as a surprise, but there are a handful of reasons why this actually makes sense:

Privacy: the GNOME project has decided, since that enlightening keynote by Jacob Appelbaum in GUADEC 2012, to make an extra effort towards ensuring users' privacy, and we, the Web developers, believe we need to align with this goal. Using Google's search engine by default is counterproductive to this effect, unfortunately. I assume I don't need to go into details on the many ways in which Google tracks what their users do. DuckDuckGo, on the other hand, does not collect or share personal information.

Cooperation: It's been some time now since we were first contacted by DuckDuckGo regarding the possibility to partner with them in order to share a percentage of the revenue that they make from the traffic originated on their search engine links, should DuckDuckGo become Web's default search engine. We discussed this possibility extensively, among the Web maintainers, within Igalia, and with the GNOME Foundation Board. In the end we all agreed that Igalia was the most suitable partner for this cooperation due to its commitment not only to advancing WebKitGTK+ and Web, but also to enabling the community through events like its yearly WebKitGTK+ hackfest. We believe that whatever revenue that might result from this partnership with DuckDuckGo will surely be a contribution to these efforts. Then again, knowing the humble size of our userbase, we should let neither our expectations nor our imagination run wild on this front.

It works: as this is something that we've been debating for pretty long, I've spent this time using DuckDuckGo as the default search engine on my own machines, and I am happy with the results it gives. It even has pretty handy keywords that you can use to directly search in Wikipedia (!w), Amazon (!a), or even Google if you still need it (!g). I do believe the Spanish translation of the website could use some love, but their community platform is probably a good starting place for anyone interested in contributing with more and improved translations.

As is usually the case with noticeable changes, I expect that not everyone will be entirely happy with it. But that is no reason to panic:

This partnership is for a limited time, and we will evaluate whether its continuation makes sense, in the long-term. The feedback we receive from our users will naturally have an impact on whatever decision we make in this regard.

If you can't stand this, you can always customize the search engine used, choosing whatever suits you best. Simply follow the instructions as documented in the wiki.

If you have already customized your search engine, don't worry, this change won't affect you unless you go back to the default.

This change, already in master, will only affect Web from 3.10, to be released in September. Now I should go back to merge a few more changes and make a beta release. Enough said, happy browsing!