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Tell HN: DuckDuckGo's privacy extension is adding an inline popup to web forms

I didn't really believe my eyes when I saw it the first time, I thought it had to be some ad specific to the website.

But it appears every form accepting an email on any website I visit now gets a small duck icon next to it that pops up a big bold-print message box to "Protect your inbox " complete with a cheeky prompt to either "get email protection" or "maybe later." Refusal is not even an option. This is definitely new for me as of today.[0]

I found DuckDuckGo via Hackernews and have generally been a happy user of both the search engine and the privacy extension. Why could they possibly be doing this? It seems like a self-destructive act from a branding standpoint, I can't imagine their target customer demographic is amicable to this kind of thing.

[0]https://i.redd.it/p1tcoikka0ka1.png

Edit: It's even on Hackernews! I genuinely can't recall a browser extension acting like this since the mid-00s adware toolbar days. https://i.imgur.com/vYjZAUK.png

Edit again: This post originally just said "injecting ads into web forms," I edited the title to clarify - apologies if that was misleading.

180 points mustacheemperor 3 years ago 100 comments

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