Many companies have They lost a lot of money Thanks to Apple’s new anti-tracking feature ATT, which was previously written by Digi. Job assigned Chef’s Minds, especially for those who are making a lot of money from information that is now hampered, but users have largely welcomed the feature with open arms. according to apps.
This has led to the presence of advertisers The transition to Android has begun, since there is no similar antidote available there. For now at least. You can opt out of personalized ads and a certain amount of tracking on Google, but it still is much that remains – Including through third-party applications on Android phones.
And that’s exactly what DuckDuckGo now wants for life. The search engine with a somewhat funny name has always been known for its focus on privacy and anti-tracking, but now they are launching a new feature in their Andoid app that will stop being accurately tracked by these third-party apps. That is, it’s still in beta, you have to be on hold to use it, and there are still some things that can’t be stopped, according to DuckDuckGo.
This is how it works
Apple’s ATT works so that data sent is overwritten by a string of only 0 if you choose to prevent tracking. Thus, bytes and bytes are transmitted, but there is no real information. Google is said to have plans for similar functionality, and in both cases it is possible because these companies have deeper access to the features of the operating systems.
However, DuckDuckGo does not have such access and therefore had to find another solution.
“Application Tracking Protection” (ATP), as the new feature from DuckDuckGo will be called, Android will view as a VPN, but it really isn’t, as no data is actually sent through remote servers. It works somewhat like a VPN, but only internal to the phone, and will prevent tracking apps from “calling home”. Exactly this can cause them to try again automatically, because they don’t connect to their home server, so it can look as if there are more tracking attempts than there actually are, he says Peter Dolangsky and DuckDuckGo Sesame wire.
DuckDuckGo uses lists of apps, and what they send where, to decide what to block. So this list should be updated from time to time, just like a normal antivirus does. You can also put apps in a separate whitelist if you find that they are not working optimally with blocking. This can apply, for example, to games and other things where data transmission is part of the primary functionality.
ATP won’t stop apps’ tracking data – for example, Google will receive data from Google apps – but apps that try to forward data to a third party will be prevented from doing so.
Although ATP is in beta and still far from finished, there is a lot to prevent:
According to DuckDuckGo’s own surveys, up to 96 percent of the most popular free Android apps send tracking data to various remote servers. Of those, 87 percent sent data to Google and 68 percent submitted to Facebook.
DuckDuckGo revealed in its research that third-party tracking can contain highly personal information, such as email addresses and GPS coordinators. ATP will not yet show the information the tracking apps have attempted to forward, but Dolanjski told Wired that they plan to show this information in a public outline to users in a later iteration of the program.
Waiting list
As mentioned, ATP is still only in beta, but it’s easy and straightforward to put yourself on hold. All you have to do is install the DuckDuckGo app on your phone, or update to the latest version if you already have it installed. Then go to Settings and find App Tracking Protection. There you can put yourself on the list, or enter an access code if you’re lucky enough to receive one.
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