It's worth noting that the "trees planted" counter is basically an estimate as to how much ad revenue on average is generated from a user based on their number of searches. If you block ads at all, you're probably not contributing to their revenue at all, thus planting nothing.
I like the idea, but don't see it as worth sacrificing privacy or allowing ads. Tossing a few bucks every now and then to a charity might be a better option for some.
Been using it for over 10 years. I have loved the transparency reports, and only wish there were other social and environmental programs we could help with an idea like this. You know, other than freerice.
Its powered by Bing which is meh but I don't mind it so much. If I don't get good results I throw in "#g" in my search and it will run the query with Google.
honestly, i'm using for a week and i'm a pretty technical person, i always get good results searching about technical issues and linux(thats a pretty niche too) i can't complain, but maybe with others affairs it's isn't so good?, anyway good to know about that shortcut
The first 20ish results of Google are either shops, YouTube or Google just struck out words of my search on it's own. Google search has already been ruined by them.
And I will never click on ads, I can't even stand seeing them, so there would be no revenue anyway. I want search results, not what some algorithm thinks should become my next shopping trip.
i very well understand the sentiment but there are exceptions, this is one kinda clever way to make money without relying on someone emptying their wallets for the sake of trees, which, considering they may be already donating to other sources, could be an addition.
I moved to Duck Duck Go a while ago, partly for privacy reasons and partly because Google was becoming very top heavy with ads. It’s still a better search engine so I’ll use it occasionally, but only if DDG is really not getting what I need.
Do you know how good Ecosia is in terms of privacy? If it’s as good as DDG, then sure I’d use it.
But it still doesn't solve the issue though of being required to look at corporate ads which are designed to increase consumption in order to solve climate issues. We will never be able to advertise our way out of this.
I know it's not a perfect solution but considering the options, it's better to "sell" my attention to corporate ads in exchange of planting trees than nothing. Even then, I rarely see ads after whitelisting the site.
As far as my research goes, Ecosia seems quite reputable and I support their mission. If they're proven to be otherwise in the future, I won't have a problem to jump ship.
Are the results good? I looked into it recently and thought the sample results on their webpage were poor. For their example “Steve Jobs” Search three of the top results where just the same Wikipedia page but in different languages
Psh, nah I don't care, and I don't think this person was intentionally reposting. I think they just had the same idea. Plus, this post is more popular, and I want everyone to plant as many trees as they can!
I was thinking about it because I recalled people using it, and was wondering if it had its own search engine or they were just embedding Google or Bing in their page. Apparently it is the latter.
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