DuckDuckGo has announced that it has expanded its local search capabilities with a dedicated maps tab, map re-querying and local autocomplete.
Earlier this year, DuckDuckGo adopted Apple’s MapKit JS framework in order to power its map-related searches. Because the search engine is focused on privacy, it does not send any personally identifiable information to App or any other third party. It also doesn’t retain location information sent by browsers after a session end.
Before, users were only given a maps tab for queries that DuckDuckGo assumed were map-related. But now, the maps tab is a permanenet part of the UI, appearing along side the images, videos and news tab.
Ma re-querying (this can be useful to limit generic searches to a desired area) allows users to refine local searches while staying in the expanded map view. Previously, each new map-related search required users to return to DuckDuckGo’s regular search page.
While in the expanded map view, the local autocomplete feture will display search suggestions specific to the region of the map that is in view.
DuckDuckGo has also extended dark mode support to its maps as well.