I just learnt about the search engine Ecosia which claims to use its advertising revenue to plant trees. I was going through their website and they seem legitimate on the surface but I wanted to check if its bs or not before using it.
Apparently they are legit. But it’s important to remember that this is the tiniest of tiny good deeds if you’re really concerned about the environment.
Yes, that’s obvious. But the cognitive fallacy of small gestures is a real issue, i.e. the problem of people changing their lightbulbs and calling it a day. Especially since there are things we can do that really do make a difference. For example, cutting down on red meat, dairy, and flying. Any one of those will have more impact than decades of using Ecosia.
Privacy is a better reason to use Ecosia.
Privacy? Ecosia literally forwards your information to Bing. They’re also behind Cloudflare.
So we’re running out of reasons to use it. Personally I find the “planting trees” USP to be a potentially risky gimmick for the reason outlined above, but that is just my perspective.
Didn’t they just sign a deal with a European privacy company?
Yeah, Qwant. Their own index plus bing. Information is still sent to Bing, plus Qwant.
Yes I have! And no idea if they are. Their search is just better than google, and doesn’t freeze like yahoo, isn’t Russian like yandex, isn’t a privacy nightmare and lying about it like duckduckgo, isn’t chinese like baidu, isn’t bloated like bing, and isn’t slow af like searx
Most of those search engines just mentioned are just bing with a wrapper tho
Duckduckgo is lying? How so?
They’re not nearly as private as they say, but that’s big tech in general
Thanks. I’ve only used for the second today but so far it’s pretty good so far
Here’s my guide to alternative search engines that discusses all the different search engines and how they differ under the hood. I wrote it to be understandable to everyone not just tech nerds.
This is fantastic!! Thank you so much for writing it and sharing it.
One question, if Ecosia uses Bing + Google, does this mean using Ecosia indirectly generates revenue for Bing and Google?
You are welcome. Im happy if my writings can inform a few people from time to time. Yes thats absolutely what it means if you read the fine print of ecosia they tell you how they collect your data including IP address+ search terms and share it with google and Microsoft’s ad network to show you ads through ecosia. So your data is still coming back google and Microsoft to be sold to the highest bidder. Everyones gotta get a cut profititing off your data, except for you. At least a small bit of that profit goes to the trees I guess.
Didn’t they start shoving AI bullshit into it? Kinda undermines the point.
Yes. But of course you have to enable and interact with the ads.
Use different search engines for different things, spread your data around.
I looked into them a while ago, and from what I can find, they seem to be legit in that they really do use the profits for tree planting.
Thanks for the answer! They seem to be transparent, and even have a breakdown of they use their money by month, which I appreciate. Just wanted to make sure there weren’t any huge news stories that blew the lid on this and said it was all fake or something. Thanks again
As long as you dont mind trading your privacy for the trees
For the promise of trees.
Even better
Based company policy
I’ve been using ecosia for the past 3 or 4 months now and it works really well, especially if you’re googling for information. Feels like going back to the old internet, where you actually get some real sources and websites you don’t see around anymore. If I’m searching for something scientific I can actually get the whole study rather than some awful summaries of the study that leave out important parts.
On the other hand if I’m looking for restaurants or placss to eat or stuff like that Google is still a better source because you can link to the map easily and the functionality is just a bit better still.
Thanks for the answer! I’ve been using DDG for the last few months and it is also bad anything map related or at localizing things (DDG also bad with news, it reverts to MSN alot as a news aggregator) )I will have to use Ecosia to real compare the two but their tree planting idea has made curios enough to try it. Thanks again
Yeah the tree planting and the fact that they seem very open about their funding and where it goes drew me in. I Google random shit all the time so I figure might as well do good for it rather than using Google search and all the crap AI that comes with it that uses absurd amounts of energy and fuel.
They seem pretty legit based on the research I’ve done. With a small niche program like that, they kind of have to be because one misstep and they would lose their entire base.
I’ve been using that for years. They do good work around the world, and it’s much more sophisticated than “planting trees”. They’re great, go for it.
