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DuckDuckGo, Inc. · Utilities

What’s the catch? Tracking and data collection concerns — 2 independent sources agree, backed by user reviews and the app manifest.

Analyzed automatically from 6 independent signals that had to agree — not a hands-on test, and not human-reviewed.

1 on the catch list · analyzedConfidence: Low6 signal sources5,973 reviews scannedNot human-reviewedas of 2026-10-06
 Which version this describes

App Store

This analysis describes version 7.239.0 of the app, analyzed 2026-10-06 . The app may have changed since.

The store currently lists version 7.239.0, updated 2026-09-28.

Google Play

This analysis describes version 5.296.0 of the app (the version number recorded inside the package we inspected), analyzed 2026-10-06 . The app may have changed since.

The store currently lists version 5.296.0, updated 2026-10-05.

What the analysis found

Each finding shows what agreed and how strongly. Automated analysis

The catch list 1

Charges we publish at a strength we stand behind: measured from an artefact, agreed by independent sources, or reported by enough users to clear that charge's own published bar.

Tracking and data collection concerns
2 independent sources agreefrom user reviews and the app manifestartefact f1dbb757436c…
The app ships session-recording or a wide tracking stack, holds permissions that read personal data, or is reported by users to sell, leak or over-collect it. The evidence line says which of those was observed.
What we saw: The app requests QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES, which lets the app enumerate every other app installed on the device.

One source only — shown, not confirmed 3

A single kind of evidence. We publish these because withholding them would be the bigger distortion, and we do not treat any of them as a finding we stand behind.

Reported by users: Aggressive ad load
One source onlyShown, not confirmed — the only source is user reviews.view evidence
Advertising volume or placement that interrupts normal use: ads between every action, unskippable or forced full-screen ads.
What we saw: Aggressive ad load: raised by 23 distinct reviewers (1.1% of 2000 reviews scanned)
In the app's own text: Trial terms not stated in the app's own text
One source onlyShown, not confirmed — the only source is the app's own on-screen text.artefact f1dbb757436c…
The app's own screens offer a free trial without stating, beside it, what happens when the trial ends. Read this as context rather than as a charge: renewal terms are normally shown on the store's purchase sheet instead, which we cannot see, and we can only observe one kind of evidence for this — so it is shown, but never counted as a charge.
What we saw: Offers a free trial ("Try Free") with no renewal price, renewal date or auto-renew notice anywhere in the app's own text
From the store listing: Usable without an account
One source onlyShown, not confirmed — the only source is the store privacy disclosure.view evidence
The app's own screens offer a way past sign-up — guest access, skipping, or browsing before registering — rather than gating the product behind an account. The store's privacy disclosure is checked alongside it: that disclosure is self-reported, so it corroborates this credit rather than establishing it.
What we saw: The store privacy disclosure (3 entries) links no contact details or identifiers to the user — consistent with an app that does not require an account. Self-reported by the developer.

What reviewers said

Verbatim excerpts from public store reviews, shown as corroborating user reports. They are not Appworthy audit evidence, and a quotation is not proof of the finding it sits under.

Tracking and data collection concerns

แนะนำให้ทุกคนใช้กันเยอะๆครับ ตัวบล็อกตัวติดตามทำงานดีมาก ตั้งแต่เปิดมาเน็ตทำงานดี การทำงานเบื้องหลังน้อยลงเยอะ รู้สึกว่าเปิดอย่างอื่นที่ใช้บริการติดตามเราเร็วขึ้นอย่างเห็นได้ชัด แล้วก็ Email Protection ทำงานดีมาก…

5★ · Google Play · 2026-10-04

Every bit as good as Google except it doesn't store or sell your info to marketers. Stops pop up ads effectively also.

5★ · Google Play · 2026-10-03

Long time private user — DuckDuckGo has had a good reputation to making data anonymous by qualified website experts for years. I trust this secure browser for over ten years with private financial transactions. I don’t trust the major…

5★ · App Store · 2026-09-24

Aggressive ad load

Every bit as good as Google except it doesn't store or sell your info to marketers. Stops pop up ads effectively also.

5★ · Google Play · 2026-10-03

Best Browser w/ Best Features — DuckDuckGo is easily the superior browser available. I can finally use YouTube without have to skip ads every 5-10 minutes, and literally after the first 48 hours of using DuckDuckGo, I was notified that…

5★ · App Store · 2026-09-08

Did not work — There was this website with a lot of ads and this app did nothing

2★ · App Store · 2026-09-07

What this app sells

Every purchase the store discloses. Store listing
 What this app sells
Google Play doesn’t publish per-purchase prices, so this list covers the other store only.

How the automated analysis works

Automated, corroborated, and never human-reviewed without a person.

This assessment is produced automatically. Six independent signals are read — user reviews, SDKs in the app package, the app's own on-screen text, the app manifest, the store listing and the store privacy disclosure — and each candidate finding is filed under the sources that support it.

No charge stands on one kind of evidence — with one published exception. A finding is either a measured fact that anyone can reproduce (an ad SDK is in the package; every subscription bills weekly; the privacy label omits a tracker we can see), or it is an interpretation — and an interpretation needs independent sources to agree before it reaches the catch list. The exception is a harm only users can see: a charge may publish from reviews alone, as “Reported by N users”, once enough reviewers raise it to clear that charge’s own published bar. That agreement rule is what replaced the human reviewer, not a model’s confidence.

There is no overall score, on purpose. A 0–99 number was published here until 2026-09-15. It was withdrawn because it discriminated too weakly to be the instrument — 44.7% of every pair of apps tied — and because a single number is a verdict where a count is an observation. What publishes instead is a row of measurements, each of which says what was counted and, where we could not look, says that instead.

Findings under One source only are real reports we do not stand behind as findings. They are shown because withholding them entirely would hide a genuine complaint, and labelled because publishing them as charges would be an accusation off a single source.

 Not yet human-reviewed

Several measurements above say “Not assessed” because no artefact we hold can answer them. A human review is what resolves those — and it can remove a favourable band as easily as add one.

Hands-on inspections are not yet open.

 How this page was produced
Analyzed 2026-10-06 Version analyzed: 7.239.0 (App Store), 5.296.0 (Google Play)6 independent signals5,973 reviews scannedConfidence: LowNot human-reviewedVocabulary v1.13Methodology v1.3
Signals run: user reviews, SDKs in the app package, the app's own on-screen text, the app manifest, the store listing and the store privacy disclosure.