Many Internet users today search and look up on the Ecosia tool to contribute to planting more trees in the Amazon and many other areas around the world. So, what is Ecosia, should we use Ecosia?
Many Internet users today search and look up on the Ecosia tool to contribute to planting more trees in the Amazon and many other areas of the world. So, what is Ecosia, should you use Ecosia? Please read the article below to find out the answer.
What is Ecosia?
Ecosia.org is a search engine launched in 2014 by Christian Kroll.
Christian Kroll was a stockbroker. After traveling around the world in December 2009 and witnessing the dire consequences of deforestation, he decided to dedicate his entire next career path to trees.
With experience building a few websites since his school days, Christian spent 5 years researching and building the search engine Ecosia.org.
Ecosia's search feature has a simple, friendly and fast interface, and returns fewer results than Google.
By 2019, five years after its launch, Ecosia had attracted more than 8 million users.
What makes Ecosia special?
How Ecosia turns your searches into trees?
When I first heard about Ecosia's tree planting claims, many people were skeptical. However, their business model is simple, as they make money just like Google, through ads displayed next to search results. The difference is how that money is spent.
Ecosia donates 100% of its profits to climate change efforts, with the majority going directly to tree planting projects. There's a counter in the browser that tracks your individual contribution. It's a small change, but seeing the number add up makes the experience feel less transactional.
Ecosia publishes monthly financial reports, breaking down revenue and how many trees it has donated. You can see the numbers for yourself at the bottom of its homepage. Ecosia also runs its servers on 100% renewable energy. Whether that matters to you depends on your level of interest, but it's a notable difference from the tech giants that dominate the browser market.
A browsing experience that feels surprisingly familiar
The Ecosia browser is built on Chromium, which means it looks and feels almost identical to Google Chrome . If you've ever used Chrome, you'll know exactly where everything is – tabs, settings, bookmark manager, it's all in the same place. No learning curve here.
This also means you can install your favorite Chrome extensions without any problems. Add your password manager and a few other tools you trust and they all work perfectly. You are not stuck in a limited ecosystem or forced to find alternative extensions that may not exist. Performance-wise, it is fast and lightweight. Pages load quickly and there is no lag or slowdown when browsing the web compared to Chrome.
Ecosia has dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android that work similarly to the desktop version. You can sync your tree counter across devices, so searches on your phone will contribute to the same running total. It's a small detail, but it adds a seamless feel to the experience!
The search results are pretty good.
The search results come from Microsoft's Bing, which is the first thing you should know. For most everyday searches—recipes, Wikipedia lookups, product reviews, news—the results are solid and indistinguishable from what you get on Google. You don't have to keep switching to Chrome to find better answers.
Bing is not Google, however, and that shows in some specific cases. Ecosia isn't as polished as Google's knowledge graph, so the instant answers and AI overviews you might be used to aren't always there. Technical queries are also less refined if you're looking for very specific programming solutions or troubleshooting steps, where Google still has the upper hand.
One feature Ecosia has that Google doesn't is the Green Leaf icon. It highlights environmentally friendly companies and websites, which is a nice bonus. If you're used to Google's instant gratification, it will take a little adjustment, but for most searches, Ecosia gets the job done without making you feel like you're being downgraded.
You get better privacy protection than Chrome
Chrome exists to feed into Google's advertising ecosystem, so your search history, browsing habits, and personal data are all part of the product. Ecosia doesn't create a permanent user profile based on your search history. Searches are anonymized for a week, and your data isn't sold to third-party advertisers. It's not as extreme as DuckDuckGo , which eliminates tracking, logs, and personal data, but it's a significant step up from Chrome's data collection methods.
If you've ever felt uncomfortable with how much information Google knows about you but find DuckDuckGo's interface too bland, Ecosia is a middle ground. You get better privacy without sacrificing usability.
The trade-off is that you lose some of the personalization that Google offers—like search suggestions based on your previous queries or tailored recommendations. But if you're okay with that (or prefer it), Ecosia handles privacy in a way that's reasonable, not overly restrictive.
Why use Ecosia.org search engine?
Christian's goal in developing Ecosia was to make searching, something most people do on a regular basis, more meaningful.
Ecosia, like other search engines and websites, makes money from selling ads. But the difference is that Ecosia donates 80% of its profits to organizations working for the environment to plant trees. Simply put, for every 45 searches on Ecosia.org, a new tree is planted.
According to Ecosia's 2019 report, their monthly revenue reached 1.5 million EUR and an average of more than 800,000 EUR was invested in reforestation projects. They have planted 65 million trees in many countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Peru, Madagascar, Spain, Nicaragua, Haiti, Colombia.
Does Ecosia really plant trees as promised?
On its website and channel, Ecosia regularly updates projects and videos showing how they have been working with people and organizations in each place they visit to fulfill their commitment. The types of trees are selected to suit the weather and climate in each area.
After planting, the trees are handed over to the people to take care of, harvest, and generate income for the family.
For example, Ecosia went to Senegal, where deforestation and monoculture are rampant, and mobilized people to plant more than 1.2 million trees and a variety of fruits and vegetables.
However, to join hands with Ecosia to plant trees, users not only perform searches on Ecosia.org but also have to click on advertising links. Only then can Ecosia generate money, and that money can be used to plant trees. In other words, if you do not interact with the advertised site (using ad-block, clicking on the wrong advertising link and then closing, not paying attention to the advertising links.) then no money will be generated. Simply put, searching with Ecosia does not help plant trees, but clicking on ads that appear on Ecosia does.