DeepSeek: Is It Safe or Free to Use? & What Else to Know

Introduction:

The pace of innovation is incredible, and the prospect of significant efficiencies is exhilarating. Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are taking the globe by storm and sparking the latest sensation: DeepSeek AI, a Chinese-developed app that's quickly captivated the nation, piquing interest and attention globally. Are you excited to use DeepSeek to improve your workflow and productivity? Stay with us to learn everything about this platform.

This SwifDoo PDF article explains why DeepSeek is not working and how to use it without problems. We will also see whether it is safe (privacy and security), free, and good to use for technical performance and users from different fields. Let's begin!

What Is DeepSeek?

DeepSeek is a game-changer that is free, efficient Chinese AI and open source. It is particularly used for coding, matching, efficiency, and Chinese language tasks. Released in December 2023, Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek founder, privately owns the Chinese AI startup. It is owned and funded by the Chinese hedge fund, High Flyer, DeepSeek's parent company.

DeepSeek AI has become a notable challenger to other AI platforms, bringing a fresh perspective to AI language models. DeepSeek-R1, V3 has drawn significant attention for its impressive capabilities and cost-efficient approach, excelling in technical and mathematical domains. It is one of the excellent ChatGPT alternatives. 

DeepSeek is legit and uses a different approach to train its R1 models, involving less time, fewer AI accelerators, and less development cost. Its sole aim is to achieve artificial general intelligence using large-scale reinforcement learning focused on reasoning tasks. DeepSeek desktop app for Mac and Windows is available to install locally for free. As of now, you can chat with it but can't use it as an image generator through the API. However, its vision model, Janus-Pro-7B, released in January 2025, can understand and generate images.

Is DeepSeek Safe?

Generally, it is safe to use, but safety is always relative to anything in the world. You must understand that any product, including other AI services, is not 100 percent secure and has risks to some extent. What you can do is be careful while uploading their confidential files online to any server.

Recently, the DeepSeek app reported a data leak that included highly sensitive information, which was uncovered by WIZ - a Cloud security company. The exposed database was discovered on Jan. 29. The WIZ says that a misconfigured cloud storage instance without access controls causes sensitive data leakage like chat messages, device information, and interaction details such as system languages and stores them on its servers.

Don't worry. Once China's AI model DeepSeek noticed the privacy and security concerns about potential access, it reacted and took measures swiftly, securing the database to stop and prevent exposure. It will further secure the database, mitigating possible risks in the future. So, currently, it is basically safe.

Is DeepSeek Free?

Yes. Regarding DeepSeek's cost, it is open-source and free to use. However, the browser version of DeepSeek R1 allows for a maximum of 50 messages, while the API version has no such limitations; you buy the number of tokens you want to use. Here's a look at the DeepSeek pricing model, with prices listed in units per 1M tokens:

DeepSeek is so cheap because AI development in China is inexpensive due to lower wages, government subsidies, and electricity costs.

Is DeepSeek Down?

Lately, users have encountered issues with DeepSeek not working, making them wonder what happened with DeepSeek. Many users reported an ongoing problem with the website and app where they can't log in, as the login page gets stuck on validation or keeps saying, "The server is busy. Please try again later." Besides the server being busy and blocking problems, even the API may fail to work, giving an empty response.

It could be that the platform was hacked during an attack, and the Pentagon blocked the DeepSeek chatbot access as a precautionary measure to safeguard against potential risks. In such a case, you can check the DeepSeek live status on popular sites and maintain patience. Try using the AI at some other time without hassle.

Some other possible reasons like too many people flocked to test and use it, and the server was overloaded. You can talk to DeepSeek at times when people might be taking a break or sleeping. Or wait for days when it becomes less busy. 

How to Use DeepSeek: Step by Step

DeepSeek AI (R1/V3 model) can be used across different platforms through the app and web versions. You can log in via email, Google, or +86 phone number (country code in China) to experience the intelligent model for math, architecture, etc. Here's how to use DeepSeek.

Step 1: Log in to DeepSeek

Launch DeepSeek on your web browser, click Start Now and sign up to create an account. Or install the DeepSeek AI app on your iOS or Android phones from the App Store/Play Store. Sign up or log in with your active mail ID and proceed.

Step 2: Enter your prompt or upload an attachment

When you enter DeepSeek's main interface, type your query, prompts or questions to ask AI to get the necessary answers. DeepSeek offers a Search option: type your question, and the platform will open all the web-based results to respond.

For Web:

Users can click the Clip icon on the main page and attach the desired images and documents to get answers.

For DeepSeek App (iOS and Android):

Users can click the + icon to see all the available options on the main page. For example, they can tap Photo OCR (to capture and upload a picture from their camera), Image OCR (to upload a photo from their phone's gallery), or Document (such as HTML, DOC/DOCX, PDF, etc.) to seek relevant answers.

Step 3: Send and receive a response

Once done, enter your query, and DeepSeek will generate a response within seconds. You can copy and use it anywhere you like.

How to Run DeepSeek-R1 Locally

When users run the DeepSeek platform locally, they have complete control over model execution without depending on external servers. They benefit from privacy and security, uninterrupted access, faster responses, customization, and offline availability.

Here are the streamlined steps to install and run DeepSeek R1 locally.

Step 1: Download and install Ollama from the official website. Test the setup and download your model. Launch the terminal and type:

ollama run deepseek-r1

To run DeepSeek-R1 continuously and serve it via an API, start the Ollama server:

ollama serve

Step 2: After downloading the model, interact with DeepSeek-R1 directly in the terminal.

Step 3: To integrate the DeepSeek AI chat (DeepSeek-R1) into apps, use the Ollama API using curl:

curl http://localhost:11434/api/chat -d '{

"model": "deepseek-r1",

"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Solve: 25 * 25"}],

"stream": false

}'

Step 4: You can run Ollama in any desired integrated development environment (IDE). Install the Ollama Python package by typing the code:

!pip install ollama

Step 5: After installing Ollama, use the script below to interact with the model:

import ollama

response = ollama.chat(

model="deepseek-r1",

messages=[

{"role": "user", "content": "Explain Newton's second law of motion"},

],

)

print(response["message"]["content"])

The script will extract and print the model's response.

DeepSeek Review: How Good It Is

After learning about DeepSeek, you may wonder, "Is DeepSeek really that good?" Well, according to user reviews across the internet, DeepSeek is really good at reasoning and real-time thinking. Considering DeepSeek training uses reinforcement learning. It clones the model and makes it play against itself until it learns to play well, resulting in many benefits, like no limit to how good it becomes.

DeepSeek may find new techniques that humans have yet to figure out. Plus, inputting this data doesn't require substantial training datasets or even humans. Here, the neural network learns to solve the problems in a logical, sequential manner that is cheaper than other AI models.

Bonus: Best DeepSeek AI Alternative for PDF Documents

DeepSeek has addressed cybersecurity concerns, but many users face growing demands for efficiency and ease in managing digital tasks. Here's where SwifDoo AI can be your best bet. It steps in with advanced AI-driven solutions for managing documents and boosting productivity. SwifDoo PDF AI is a powerful tool and part of a comprehensive PDF solution, SwifDoo PDF.

It can accurately and quickly summarize, translate, rewrite, proofread, explain, or analyze PDF documents to improve productivity and speed up workflow. It helps explain complex concepts from PDFs in simple terms for easy understanding.

Benefits and valuable features of SwifDoo PDF

• View, create, edit, and convert PDFs
• Summarizes key information from lengthy PDF documents
• Change font style, size, and color of the text
• Compress, merge, and split multiple documents for enhanced efficiency
• Electronically sign and password-protect PDFs

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Final Wrap

DeepSeek is an efficient and cost-effective open-source AI model that excels in technical tasks, mathematical computations, and more. Developers and data practitioners can use it for coding and structured queries; however, novices may require expertise in customization and implementation. This article has covered different aspects of DeepSeek in detail for your convenience. If you seek its alternative, SwifDoo AI can be your ultimate solution.