Does ecosia work free#

We're in it for the trees, not your data. That’s why Ecosia has become one of the most privacy-friendly search engines out there – which means we don't do creepy things like selling your data to advertisers and or creating a personal profile of you. We might be an open book, but you shouldn’t be. And to be completely transparent, we publish monthly financial reports that tell you exactly how much money we made from your searches, and how we spent it. So there’s no way for us to ever sell Ecosia or take money out of the company. So a few years ago, Ecosia's founder and CEO, Christian Kroll, signed an irreversible contract that requires us to stay true to our purpose. We also know that trust has to be earned. So no matter what you search for, you are fighting global warming by removing CO2 from the air. Being 200% renewable means that every Ecosia search is crowding out dirty energy from the grid. That way, we're not just producing enough energy to power all of your searches with renewables - we are producing twice as much. Speaking of good decisions: We’ve built our own solar panels.

To help you make better decisions, we’ve added a little green leaf next to planet-friendly organizations, and a little coal icon next to the world's most destructive companies. The remaining 80% goes towards planting and protecting trees around the world.īut our not-for-profit business model is not the only thing that makes Ecosia a somewhat unusual search engine. We invest 20% in renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, and grassroots activism. Everything else, so all of Ecosia's profits, go towards climate action. This includes things like improving the search results and covering our rent. That’s how Ecosia makes money.īut instead of wasting this advertising revenue, Ecosia uses it to fight climate change and environmental injustice. Like other search engines, we display ads alongside your search results.

We’ve spent the last decade building a search engine called Ecosia. In this explainer video, we explain more fully. Is Ecosia a virus? Are Ecosia’s tree-planting projects legit? Does Ecosia produce renewable energy? Is my private data safe with you? Who is Christian Kroll? In short: No, yes, yes, yes, our CEO. Without knowing how Ecosia works, this may sound too good to be true. Our 15 million users have planted over 120 million trees, for free. It’s so easy that I don’t even need to think about it.Ecosia is the search engine that plants trees: I’ve been using Ecosia for a few years now, and I’ve planted over 200 trees with my daily searches. What are you waiting for? Using Ecosia is a quick and easy way to make a difference with something you already do every day. Read more about Ecosia’s privacy policy here. They also have a “do not track” feature that stops them from collecting analytics data from you. Despite any settings you can choose in your Google account, they’ll always be tracking your information.Įcosia does not sell your information to advertisers. Ecosia is run through Bing, which might make you cringe, but consider all the things that make Google search results so convenient. You might also be concerned about the quality of the search results. While Ecosia does make a profit, they are committed to using those profits for their mission rather than a CEO salary. They also describe themselves as a “social business”, which is a hybrid between a non-profit and for-profit company.

The company publishes monthly financial reports that show where all of their money is going. On paper, Ecosia might sound too good to be true. It’s super easy to make the switch- there’s a chrome extension, as well as an app that’s compatible with iOS and Android. When you pair that with the tree planting initiatives, searching on Ecosia is carbon negative. On top of that, the search engine is run with 100% renewable energy. So not only is Ecosia planting tons of trees, but those saplings have a high chance of survival to live a long life of absorbing CO2! They work with local communities who want trees in their area, but don’t have the financial resources to plant them at a large scale.

Does ecosia work free#

With the click of a button, this free and easy switch offers you the chance to make a difference in your everyday lifeĮcosia’s team does extensive research to ensure that they’re planting native trees in the areas that need them most. Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees from the ad revenue they earn.