11 votes

Ecosia - The search engine that plants trees

3 comments

  1. Micycle_the_Bichael
    (edited )
    Link
    I use these guys!! :D In general, I feel pretty good about using them. I don't feel like I get that bad of search results and I use it for both work and personal use. I would suggest it to people...
    • Exemplary

    I use these guys!! :D

    In general, I feel pretty good about using them. I don't feel like I get that bad of search results and I use it for both work and personal use. I would suggest it to people who are neutral on their search engine or are in the market to get away from using default-google. They also have some nice privacy features they describe on their website as well.

    As far as an environmental solution, I like them for what they are. I don't see my use as ecosia as my way of saving the world or even doing my part to minimize environmental impact. I see them as an enviromentally-friendly solution to something I do every day. I am going to be doing internet searches one way or another, I might as well use the one that is planting trees vs the ones not planting trees. I hope people don't see using ecosia as a fix-all for climate change, but I think its a very minimal switch that most people (I want to emphasize that if you're in tech or tech is one of your hobbies, you fall outside "most people") wouldn't notice and would do a lot of good if adopted large-scale. I think for me ecosia falls into a second, still important category of environmentalism that gets forgotten because of how much "climate change" is/is going to fuck us up, which is "making your day to day life more environmentally friendly". Changing search engines, not using straws, avoiding plastic bottle use aren't things that are going to save us from climate change. That doesn't mean that they don't impact the environment and help create a healthier and better ecosystem for all species to live in.

    Edit: I wanted to link really quickly, Ecosia is dedicated to planning trees, and on tildes we currently have this article (link to tildes post) discussing how planting trees is one of the best ways to fight climate change. So maybe large-scale adoption of Ecosia would go further than I expected.

    9 votes
  2. Neverland
    (edited )
    Link
    They seem to use Bing as the underlying engine. They claim that more than 61M trees have been planted so far. What do you all think about efforts like this? To me it seems like a relatively...

    They seem to use Bing as the underlying engine. They claim that more than 61M trees have been planted so far. What do you all think about efforts like this? To me it seems like a relatively elegant, if only partial solution.

    related research:
    The Effect of Internet Searches on Afforestation: The Case of a Green Search Engine

    I also find it interesting that they are a B Corp.

    3 votes
  3. StellarTabi
    Link
    Waterfox is a firefox fork that uses Ecosia by default.

    Waterfox is a firefox fork that uses Ecosia by default.

    1 vote