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.
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
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
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.
