Cliqz

Cliqz

Cliqz browser start page
Developer(s)	Cliqz GmbH
Initial release	2015; 2 years ago (2015)
Written in	C, C++, JavaScript, XML User Interface Language, XML Binding Language, Rust
Operating system	Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, RISC OS, Android, iOS
License	MPL/GPL/LGPL
Website	www.cliqz.com

Cliqz is a web browser developed by Cliqz GmbH. It is a fork of the Firefox web browser with privacy-oriented changes, among which are a crowdsourced anti-tracking mechanism, and an in-house search engine embedded within the browser, utilizing its own index of web pages to produce suggestions within the address bar dropdown menu rather than on separate pages. The browser's developers argued that other privacy-focused search engines may still pass the user's IP address to third-party search providers. Cliqz is available as a desktop and mobile web browser, as well as an extension for Firefox itself.

Cliqz is majority-owned by Hubert Burda Media. In August 2016, Mozilla, developer of Firefox, made a strategic investment in Cliqz. Cliqz plans to eventually monetize the software through a program known as Cliqz Offers, which will deliver sponsored offers to users based on their interests and browsing history. However, these recommendations will be processed locally based on a remote repository of offers, with no personally identifiable data sent to remote servers.

On 15 February 2017, Cliqz International GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cliqz GmbH, acquired the privacy-oriented browser extension Ghostery.

The Human Web is the open source and GDPR compliant data collecting mechanism developed by Cliqz GmbH used to gather data about trackers, websites and non-personal usage data.

The Human Web builds the foundation of the built-in search functionality in the Cliqz Browser and the Cliqz (and Ghostery) plugins.

It has been built from the ground up based on Privacy by design principles and consists of two core components:

The Human Web data collection framework strips all data points contributed by users that could be used to directly or indirectly identify the user. The Human Web client also filters out non-personal but potentially unsafe data (e.g. the path from an url www.twitter.com/{username}", before sent to Cliqz, because the aggregation of data over time could be used to identify a single user (see also K-anonymity).

The transmission to the Human Web Server is realized via a proxy network. The clients (either the Cliqz Plugin for Firefox, the Cliqz Browser for Desktop or Android) data sets hourly and at fix times to the proxy network. The proxies collect data sets from many different users and relay the batches to Cliqz. The IP used for the transmission from the client to the proxy network will not be collected.