Mozilla invests in German privacy browser Cliqz

Mozilla has invested an undisclosed amount in Cliqz, the developer of the privacy browser of the same name. Together, the companies want to bring the browser, which is still mainly aimed at users in Germany, to other countries in the future.

Mozilla announces the investment in Cliqz GmbH on its blog. 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 features like quick-search, a proprietary search index that predicts queries and loads results instantly to save time. This is an advantage over other browsers that try to preserve privacy but don’t have their own search index; they have no control over what the administrator of a search engine does with the entered data. The results are improved using user data, but the company guarantees that it is anonymized. In addition, there is the option of an opt-out.

In addition, Cliqz sends as little user data as possible to web servers and trackers. Users can see which tracking instances are blocked next to the address bar in the browser. In addition, it has technology on board to detect phishing websites. For users outside Germany, Cliqz’s software seems to work normally, although it is clearly geared to German users.

The revenue model of Cliqz is, according to TechCrunch, which spoke with the founder of the company, a Cliqz offers app. This unreleased app analyzes users’ browsing habits and comes up with relevant offers. To remove the privacy problem here, the company will have the analysis of the user data done offline, after which the browser only downloads the relevant offers. The actual user data is not sent according to Cliqz.