DuckDuckGo blocks all Google sign-in popups

DuckDuckGo extensions and apps are blocking Google Sign in pop-ups for all of its browser extensions and apps. This is to remove what the company considers an irritation and a risk to privacy.

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused . It also offers and . There are data-protecting extension for browsers . A standalone browser for web is in development, but it’s only currently available in beta.

today announced that its Chrome, Firefox and Brave apps as well as browser extensions, will actively prevent Google sign-in prompts from being displayed on websites.

Google provides this one-click sign-on feature on all websites. It allows users to sign in quickly to new platforms with their Google accounts for unified control and convenience.

Rather than creating new accounts or managing multiple passwords across different sites, users can sign in to Google whenever it is possible and avoid the headache.

Google can track the apps and websites that users log into, which is a problem for them.

Although Google explicitly states that “Data from Sign In with Google is not used to advertise or for other non-security reasons,” DuckDuckGo claims their testing show that Google does still collect data.

The attached image shows our testing, which shows that Google collects data from sites when users sign in to Google. For example, on investing.com, many requests are made to https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?.,” DuckDuckGo told BleepingComputer.

This includes the page URL in the request parameters. If we are not signed in to the site with Google, then the DSID cookie that was sent along with these requests had a value NO_DATA. The DSID cookie that is sent along with these requests has a long hexadecimal number if we have Google accounts.

You can see it in the attached picture – we are signed in to Google on the left and we aren’t signed in on Google on the right.

DuckDuckGo is concerned about privacy threats and has taken the extreme step of blocking Google sign in prompts. Users will never be able to accept the offer from the tech giant.

BleepingComputer discovered that this option was embedded into the browser extension’s general protection feature, which means all Google prompts will be blocked when it is activated.

This is also true for the DuckDuckGo macOS browser. The Google blocking feature has been integrated into “Protection” and you cannot disable it without disabling all privacy protections.

However, DuckDuckGo did this to protect privacy, but it could cause problems for users of Google Sign-in websites, as they won’t be able log in.

These situations will require the user to create a local account on the site, or deactivate the privacy protection features in the DuckDuckGo browser extensions.