Mozilla is investing an as-yet undisclosed amount in Cliqz, the developer of the privacy browser of the same name. The companies want to bring the browser, currently focused on Germany, to other countries as well.
Cliqz is currently available as a Firefox add-on, as a Firefox-based browser for Windows and OS X, and as an app for iOS and Android. Cliqz offers quick-search, its own search index that predicts queries and loads results directly to save time. This is an advantage over other browsers that aim to protect privacy but do not have their own search index, as they have no control over what a search engine operator does with the entered data. The results are improved using user data, but the company guarantees that this is anonymized.
In addition, Cliqz sends as little user data as possible to web servers and trackers. Users can see next to the address bar which tracking entities are being blocked. It also includes technology to detect phishing websites.
Cliqz’s business model lies in the Offers app. This as-yet unreleased app analyzes the user’s browsing behavior and presents relevant offers. The company performs analysis of user data offline, after which the browser downloads only the relevant offers. According to Cliqz, the actual user data is not transmitted.