- Is Ecosia legit or a scam?
- Does Ecosia really plant all those trees?
- Ecosia vs Google
- Ecosia Privacy
- How to Uninstall Ecosia
- Conclusion on Ecosia as a Search Engine
What is the Ecosia browser?
A few weeks ago a Dutch friend of mine introduced me to Ecosia, the Berlin-based social enterprise eco search engine that uses their profits to plant trees (that’s a mouthful).
The idea immediately clicked with me for a few reasons I’ll discuss below.
Ecosia has a model that’s ripe to explode with a millennial generation that truly does care about how sustainable their products are. Unfortunately projects that set out to do great for the world often receive criticism, and the Ecosia search engine won’t be immune.
There were two major things that I wanted to learn about Ecosia:
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- Is Ecosia legit? Or is it a scam?
- Does it work as well as Google?
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Let’s make legitimacy the first thing we look at in this Ecosia critique because that’s the most important part.
Is Ecosia legit or a scam?
There are a few things that come to mind that they could be doing to try to mislead users if they wanted to, such as:
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- Not planting the trees they claim to
- Collecting user data to resell or other privacy issues
- Offering misleading search results for their gain
- Monitoring your data illegally with their browser extension
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I think the big concern here is that they might not be planting the trees they claim to be. In 2019 Ecosia claims to have surpassed 65 million trees planted.
While this is well shy of the ~1.5 trillion trees that experts say are needed to offset the carbon we’ve added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, it’s still nothing to laugh at. Ecosia after all is still a pretty small company with roughly 8 million users (although this is growing really fast).
As far as the misleading search results or collecting data go, this isn’t really something we can test. But given the track record of the team at Ecosia I’m pretty confident they aren’t out to scam people.
Ecosia does however get criticism from a few sites online, including an article from 2Spyware claiming that Ecosia is a browser-hijacker, and borderline virus.
While you can’t really dispute the claims made by 2Spyware, just keep in mind that literally everything they criticize about Ecosia is also true for Google, Bing, Yahoo, and any other search engine you use.
They claim that Ecosia may hijack your search results and place ads in them… ummm yeah that’s exactly the point, we’re trying to pay for trees here! But they do it in no way different than when Google places ads in your search results, Google just dishes out the profits to their investors instead of planting trees.
They even go as far as to say “getting rid of the Ecosia virus”, which is just absurd to me. I have a feeling this article was written by someone who hasn’t ever used Ecosia and was directed to write about Ecosia being a virus to get the search traffic.
While I do think those accusations against Ecosia aren’t based on rationality, I also have to acknowledge that they could be true, just like Google could be a virus.
My advice is to check out the Ecosia team and see if these are folks you’re willing to trust with your online data. Personally, I’m not concerned about an ecosia.org virus.
Is Ecosia fake?
Quite a few people have written in and asked if Ecosia is downright fake. A lot are even curious if there’s an Ecosia Snopes article to verify their claims. I’m doing my best to fill those shoes and more in this article.
Usually it comes back down to the four points I had listed above, but many who write in aren’t even sure if the extension is going to work properly. You’ll see in the coming paragraphs that of anything you can say about Ecosia, their product is definitely real, so I think we can lay that one to rest.
Does Ecosia Really Plant All Those Trees?
I can point you to two different resources for this. The first one is their financial reports, and the second is their tree projects. The financial reports will have to be taken at face value as Ecosia is not a public company, there is no Ecosia stock, or all the auditing and regulation that comes with it.
Ecosia Financial Reports
Update August 2019: This article was originally written in March 2018 so I’m updating the financial report as they have grown from investing €421,370 per month to a whopping €815,378 per month in July 2019 (nearly $1,000,000 per month on trees!).
Looking through the past 4 years of financial reports looks to be quite consistent. Don’t let the fact that €815,378 is only 52% of their monthly revenue of €1,567,995 fool you into thinking that they aren’t honoring their pledge to use 80% of profits to plant trees, you have to subtract out the expenses before making the calculation.
So basically:€1,567,995 – (€475,862 + €78,465) = €1,013,668 (Revenue – (Operating Costs + Spreading the Word) = Total Profit)
Then take €815,378 / €1,013,668 = .8044 or 80.44% (Tree Planting Spend / Total Profit = % of Profit Spent on Tree Planting)
So this means in July Ecosia claims to have spent slightly more than their goal on planting trees. They’re also being smart and packing away a significant amount of money for the future — with a reserve of €198,290 — because they’ve got a new initiative to make bigger investments like the solar plant in
Remember though, this is a self reported breakdown that as far as I can tell has not been independently audited. How do we actually know if Ecosia is planting these trees or not?
Tree Projects Supported by Ecosia
From what I’ve been able to find Ecosia is currently supporting projects in the following countries around the world:
- Peru
- Brazil
- Madagascar
- Nicaragua
- Haiti
- Colombia
- Spain
- Morocco
- Senegal
- Burkina Faso
- Ghana
- Ethiopia
- Uganda
- Kenya
- Tanzania
- Indonesia
Ecosia sent me the countries above in May 2015 as the complete list where their projects are. Hopefully they’ll keep sending updates as they come. You can also check out Ecosia’s tree projects blog to see some really cool content about what they’re doing with the money. The Tanzania post has some really cool footage!
I’ve also received quite a few messages from readers that are involved in Ecosia’s reforestation projects. Not that this couldn’t be faked, but they all seem very real.
I would love it if someone working with Ecosia would send some pictures from the front lines that I can put in this article. If that’s you, send me a message.
How does Ecosia make money?
Ecosia makes money in the same way that Google’s search engine makes money, through search engine ads. I say search engine because Google makes money hand-over-fist in a ton of other ways beyond its core search engine product.
So this means if you search for local plumbers on Ecosia and click one of the advertised services, 80% of the amount that the plumber pays for that ad will go to planting trees (after deducting expenses as pointed out by Lee in the comments), pretty cool huh??
One of the reasons I’m pretty excited for the future of Ecosia is because as of now it’s only a simple search engine and it’s making a pretty decent chunk of profit, imagine if they create a display ad network, video platform (like YouTube), data & cloud services, and everything else Google does. Ecosia could single handedly plant all the trees that the earth needs, and maybe even move on to support other good causes as well.
Ecosia vs Google
**UPDATE: Ecosia now has some cool shortcuts as pointed out by Felix in the comments. If you type in #g after your search it will take you straight to Google, #fb takes you straight to a Facebook search, #yt for YouTube, etc. You can see the full list of shortcuts on Ecosia’s support page on search tags.**
So there are a variety of ways to compare the two services. I’ll break it down into two main parts: utility and user experience. I want to make sure I’m setting realistic expectations here. Google is the 8 gazillion pound gorilla in the room. They’ve spent billions of dollars over more than 20 years making the best search tools imaginable.
We simply can’t expect Ecosia.org to outperform Google in just about anything besides doing amazing things for our planet by planting trees (although they do win at one other thing, check it out below).
What I’m saying is let’s keep in mind that the main goal is to do good for the planet, and find what level of sacrifice we’re willing to endure to make that happen.
Also, keep in mind that Ecosia does have a development team so their search engine should only improve with time. I wouldn’t expect it to ever beat Google unless there’s a sudden mass migration to the eco-friendly search engine, but maybe the sacrifices will diminish.
Lastly, Ecosia is built on top of the Microsoft Bing search engine so you’ll find that many of the core limitations of Ecosia are actually limitations of Bing.
Alright so let’s start off with the utility of Ecosia.org vs Google.com.
Utility of Ecosia vs Google
This is all about how much time each search engine is able to save and the quality of information delivered. Do you have to click through to an article to find out what time a show is at or will it be delivered in rich snippet like Google often does? Are relevant results being shown?
Let’s take a peek at what Ecosia is capable of. I think literally everyone reading this is familiar with Google so I’ll mostly only provide images of Ecosia unless the comparison makes sense.
Unit Conversions
One of those things that I’ve really come to take for granted with Google is being able to quickly rattle off one unit and ask for another. Ecosia does a decent job at this. They’ve got most of the basic conversions, like inches to centimeters:
Distance Calculation
As a frequent traveler I use this feature a lot. Unfortunately Ecosia isn’t able to calculate simple distances in the search engine results page (SERP) yet. This is a pretty big bummer:
Ecosia Maps
Currently when you want to use the maps feature on Ecosia.org it will take you straight to Google Maps. In my eyes this is way better than trying to hack together some in-house solution that really doesn’t work well (looking at you Apple).
I wouldn’t even dock them any points for this because they send you to the best service available and there isn’t much lag time in the redirect.
Definitions
Here’s another area where Ecosia is trailing behind Google. I love how when I google a single word Google seems to know if I’m searching for a definition. I tried typing in “social enterprise” and “define social enterprise” and neither of them brought up that incredibly useful rich snippet definition that I’ve taken for granted on Google.
Then take a look at what happens if you type the same search in on Google. You don’t have to click through to get the full definition. Often times the rich snippet on Google is even better than this one, saving you from having to click through to another page:
You also get that awesome frequently asked questions box with Google, I haven’t seen that at all in Ecosia.
User Experience of Ecosia vs Google
As much as I love what Google is able to do, I have to admit over the last year or two I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with how aggressive they’re getting with their advertising. I’m a digital marketer by day so I saw first hand the effect of Google’s rollout of the Local Service ads last summer.
Basically they introduced an entirely extra set of ads when someone searches for local service providers, they just package them in a cute new way:
Notice anything funny about that page? Literally everything that shows up on the screen when searching for a local service provider is a paid advertisement. Then, you scroll down and see the map with listings below it which are NOT paid, but still not totally organic results (you have to register with Google to be in this). Only when you scroll down to practically the bottom of the page do you see organic search results.
Compare this to Ecosia when searching for a local service provider:
I mean there are still a lot of ads. But at least I can see some results that weren’t paid to be placed. This seems like a fundamental freedom of using the internet. I understand that Google’s search engine is a product provided by a company and they’re free to do whatever they want with it, but honestly I think that they’re pushing it too far with this.
How can they claim that they’re following their mission statement to..
“Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Ecosia Privacy
A lot of people seem to be asking about this recently. To me that’s good news. It means more and more people are waking up to the fact that we need to take some action for the environment and do something simple like use an alternative search engine.
I’ve read through Ecosia’s privacy policy quite in-depth and have found:
- nothing that isn’t standard in privacy policies
- a lot less scary stuff than Google has
I will say — you aren’t getting the same kind of pro-privacy with Ecosia as you would with something like DuckDuckGo — but for me it’s a happy middle ground. Your tolerance will vary based on how hardcore you are for protecting your online privacy.
How to Uninstall Ecosia Extension
As great as Ecosia’s mission is to solve many of the world’s greatest problems by planting trees funded with search revenue, it’s understandable that for some the convenience of Google’s advanced features will prevail. If this is you, then have no fear because it’s pretty easy to uninstall Ecosia at any time.
Assuming you’ve installed the Ecosia extension on Google Chrome follow these instructions:
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- Go to the drop down menu with three dots in the top right of the browser
- Hover over More Tools
- Click on Extensions
- Find the Ecosia extension and either click the toggle switch to deactivate it, or Delete to completely uninstall it
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That’s it, now you’ve uninstalled the Ecosia.org extension and all your settings will go back to what they were before. Hopefully you’ll reconsider in the future for the sake of the planet :)
Conclusion on Ecosia Search Engine
As of now Ecosia falls short of Google in certain areas. The question of whether or not it’s still worth using Ecosia will depend on your level of dedication to protecting the environment. Eventually we as a society will have to begin making lifestyle compromises if we don’t want our grandchildren to end up living in climate controlled glass bubbles.
What I’ve decided to do is have Ecosia as the default and if it doesn’t give me the results I’m looking for I just use the awesome shortcuts pointed out by Felix in the comments.
I’m really hoping that Ecosia builds out some new features in the coming years so I won’t even have to think about Google though.
I worry that if a person isn’t willing to have a little sacrifice in the utility of their search engine for the sake of the environment, are they willing to sacrifice anything?
Join 8+ million of us saving the world with Ecosia:
**FYI -- this link has patharoundtheworld in it but it is NOT an affiliate link, I do not earn anything for you installing. Ecosia simply gave me the link so I could know how many trees this article has helped plant.
I really liked this article. I’m working with Ecosia since a few month and I really feared, that you found real points of critic. But I’m very happy to continue to use Ecosia with a good feeling. A do it like you do: I first ask Ecosia and when I didn’t find the answer I go back to Google.
Thank you, Ecosia and thank YOU for this analysis and encouragement.
Sabine
Glad to hear it was helpful Sabine!
Thanks for breaking it down. I’m an eco driven person with zero tech knowledge- the pros of this search engine outweigh the cons for me. I’m going to give Ecosia a chance
Good to hear Allison the planet is thanking you.
I really like this article! It was really helpful and written nicely as well! Thank you!
Glad to hear you liked it Shreya.
I guess the only way to be sure is for them to set up some legitimate oversight on the money, privacy and actual tree planting.
Then just to be sure perhaps they should include some independent directors to be a part of the decision making process right down to which planting projects should be supported and with what conditions.
I am wondering why we should install the extension when we can simple set Ecosia as our home page?
Hello,
Many thx for this article, useful. Some are saying their carbon footprint is higher than google as they base their results on Bing and Yahoo which are doing less on this than Google. Do you have any idea/ data on this ?
Thx again
Hi there!
Good thought, but it turns out that Ecosia’s carbon footprint is actually much lower than Google’s. It is true that Google is carbon-neutral, but Ecosia is carbon-negative, meaning that they actually remove more carbon from the atmosphere through the trees they plant than they emit through other means. Ecosia’s estimate on this is that each search removes 1 kg of carbon from the atmosphere on average. https://ecosia.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201531072-How-does-Ecosia-neutralize-a-search-s-CO2-emissions-
Even if you ignore the whole idea that trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere (which I don’t suggest you do), Ecosia is still carbon-neutral because they have their own solar plant to run their servers. So, even though they use Bing to power their searches (Ecosia doesn’t use Yahoo anymore), they are independent of Bing’s energy sources. Effectively, this means that the amount of renewable energy Ecosia is responsible for adding to the overall mix of energy is greater than the amount of energy they take out of the mix to power their own searches.
Also, on their FAQ, Ecosia says that Bing is carbon-neutral. https://ecosia.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204798431-Is-Ecosia-s-search-partner-Bing-CO2-neutral-
They actually address this problem in their FAQ- The entire Ecosiaservers are based on renewable solar energy and they buy back carbon credits for any harm done by Bing. To add to this they obviously plant trees as well which definitely outdoes Google.
Nice thanks for your comment Claudio! That clears up that whole issue.
I couldn’t find where they said this. There does seem to be quite a lot of hostile comment around about the fossil-fuel base of Bing, and Ecosia rest their case on an unverified claim from Microsoft that they haven’t got that far with – only about 60% renewable overall by 2020, I think. So it doesn’t seem as clear cut as i want it to be. Anyone got anything more definite?
I think Ecosia is the wave of the future. Google obviously doesn’t give a shit about the environment and most assuredly should. Imagine how many trees they could plant?! Well, for now as I do care I’m gonna download and keep on canvassing for Bernie. He is the only woke apolitical leader that will get us green and fast. I am thankful for this article it clarifies quite a bit and knowing you can always access google is the data icing on the environmental cake. Peace to you the writer and to all who have empathy for a planet in the throws of death.
I liked what I read, but I think there was an error in this:
So this means if you search for local plumbers on Ecosia and click one of the advertised services, 80% of the amount that the plumber pays for that ad will go to planting trees, pretty cool huh??
I think that, “… the amount that the plumber pays for that ad …” would be the REVENUE, but the %80 figure applies to the PROFIT.
Just trying to help.
Thanks!
Hey Lee — you’re totally write that was a major oversite. Thanks for pointing that out!
Do you have any comments as to which to choose (for mac):
(1) Install the add-in for mac
(2) Set Ecosia as default search engine
…and thanks for the review, most informative
Nick, I think your criticism of the definitions and travel distance is correct, but I actually don’t appreciate that Google subverts my choice of dictionaries. I call this being overly helpful. Like Macs not giving me access to my library. How hard is it to select the dictionary? One click – that’s how hard. And you get more nuanced answers which all of us need in order not to rush to judgement.
Thanks for this article. I was actually going to do a review of it on my website, and was trying to figure out if it is legit or not. Even if it’s not, it’s no skin off my back which search engine I use–and if it plants some trees too that’s great.
My only real beef with Ecosia so far is that I’d like to support it by advertising my blog, Rinexii, on it. You have to go to Bing ads, filter for Ecosia, and really go out of your way to support that particular search engine. It’d be great if I could just be like, “Take my money and plant some trees!”
Helpful piece and I’ve just switched to Ecosia. Thanks!
Thanks for writing this, Brother. Appreciate the candor/transparency and, as a digital marketer myself, I appreciate the deep-dive on the search engine features. Will give Ecosia a shot for sure—please keep the content coming.
Glad you enjoyed it Jimmy!
According to the Ecosia plug-in for Mac/Safari – which I haven’t clicked “go” on yet – it can “read sensitive’s information from web pages, including passwords, phone numbers and credit cards on • all web pages”. Shouldn’t this be a cause for concern?
Short answer not really.
If it’s not too much, could I get a long answer? Also, does Google have access to the same things when using Chrome? I’m a Firefox user personally to avoid Google when I can.
That warning is a blanket warning indicating that the extension has those permissions if they wanted to use them. It doesn’t mean they actually are reading your passwords/credit cards.
There’s absolutely cause for concern giving out those permissions to any random extension on the app store so I think it’s great that it sets off a red flag. But at the end of the day it comes down to trusting the individual company and their employees’ intentions on a case-by-case basis.
I am probably biased from all the research I’ve done on Ecosia and talking to their team and seeing they’re a bunch of great people with great intentions for the world, but if I hadn’t had all that contact I would still take a look at the fact that they’ve got a way bigger mission and are building a way bigger product than a scammer that was trying to scrape your passwords/credit cards would ever do.
They’re now over a decade old and have been churning along with the exact same mission to help the planet from day one.
Life is full of little risks and granting those permissions to an extension is one of them, but bringing the long story down to short, I think it’s a little risk worth taking given their track record, who they are and what they’re doing.
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Regarding your second question, yeah Google has access to the same and significantly more permissions if you’re using Chrome. Also if you’re using an ad blocker like uBlock, Grammarly, digital marketing/SEO tools, coupon extension, etc.
Almost all of these require the same permissions and some are much riskier because they are only a few months old, don’t have known developers and don’t have a known revenue model (Ecosia makes their money from search ads, definitely not selling user data or hacking credit cards).
Hope that helps.
What would be the long answer ? This is a key sticking point from my perspective.
Hey Jay, see the reply below it was equally addressed at you.
Hey Nick.
I referenced your article in a Green Stars Project post looking at the social and environmental impact of Ecosia:
https://greenstarsproject.org/2019/10/12/green-search-engine-ecosia/
Quick summary:
The Green Stars rating looks at various social and environmental factors to award an ethical score.
I’m awarding Ecosia a score of 5/5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact based on the following:
1. Ecosia uses 80% of revenue (after operational costs) to fund tree-planting operations.
2. Advertising revenue from around 45 searches is sufficient to fund planting of one tree.
3. It’s certified by B-Corporation for social and environmental impact, with a good score of 113.
4. Ecosia’s servers are powered by company-owned solar plant.
5. These solar panels produce twice the solar energy required for search; excess electricity is supplied to the grid.
6. They do not use tax-avoidance strategies, unlike most other tech companies.
7. Ecosia has better privacy terms and supplies fewer ads than major search engines like Google.
Your article was very helpful for research – Thank you!
James
Nice! Love the idea of your site, I think readers of this article could get lost on there!
Glad the article was helpful for your research.
Thanks Nick – I appreciate it :)
Feel free to share any of it here if you like.
Cheers!
James
Happy to read that I have contributed with 387 new trees on the planet!
I think more people should do the same. the browser works fine and search is comparable to the one provided by Google. So, why not to keep it on your computer?
Thanks for the hard work doing the research and publishing the article.
Good work Al! Imagine how many that will be after a few years using it.. you’ll have planted an entire forest :)
I’m so glad I took the info from the Youtube advert and started to go with Ecosia. This article is fabulous and I’ll definitely direct people here. Also glad James responded about the Green Stars Project. I didn’t know about that and I think I’ll get some good use out of it. For me, so far, I haven’t found the functionality to be a sacrifice at all and, as noted, the shortcuts work really well when you need them.
Is there a particular reason to install Ecosia as opposed to just using it as my default search engine instead of Google? I’m certainly interested in helping the environment, but I’m pretty hesitant to trust anyone. It’s obvious that Google isn’t to be trusted, but I’ve used their service for years at this point and they haven’t screwed me yet so I would rather take baby steps with something like this.
My friend began using it after Southend on sea council’s green forum. Having read your article I will spread the word and use Ecosia now too
Awesome!
Fantastic article, thank you Nick. I am new to Ecosia and will be using it from now on
I’m looking at this article in Ecosia right now!
I use Ecosia and it works great! I hope that more people will start using it. You probably look stuff up quite frequently, so it’s great to plant trees while doing so.
Awesome!
Thank you for this clear article! I do have one question: how can Ecosia (as well as DuckDuckGo) protect the user’s privacy if it relies on Bing’s research results?
Hey Flavie,
Ecosia isn’t pitched as an privacy-heavy search engine. With that said, they’re only cross matching your interests with advertisers to show you more relevant ads so that they can earn more to plant more trees :)
Sounds a lot less evil than Google
This entire article is negated by the fact that ecosia is simply Bing which is simply a Google feed. There is only one search online currently with a bunch of parasitic third parties. Until someone does something new, its all google.
Hey Shizart,
Not sure what you mean by “Bing is simply a Google feed”
Could you elaborate?
They have a YouTube channel! Some of the videos show how they plant the trees and everything!
I actually just noticed this today, and it’s why I ended up searching, finding and reading this article (done on Duck Duck Go to avoid search bias). Anyway at the bottom of your search on ecosia, if you scroll down to the very bottom of the page when you search it says: “Results by Microsoft,” which is also a link that brings you to M$’s privacy policy. So you can’t help but wonder if now you need to worry about how Ecosia is dealing with your data and how M$ is dealing with your data.
there are a billion search engines. yahoo uses it’s own crawler, so does ask! and yandex i think
It seems like there is a point to the article & this search that really don’t rely on whether Google gets a piece or not. The result is real & Google isn’t providing that result. Everything we buy or support gives support to other entities. I totally get of you dislike the big multinational corporations controlling everything. I also get that if they still do their thing, but a few trees get planted and a few hearts get warmed, I’m in.
Ecosia is also trying out 0-fee debit cards that plant trees with 80% of their merchant interchange rates. If interested, you can sign up here: https://vrlps.co/PoYWcwF/cp
Great article! Out of interest do you know how many trees you’ve helped plant with this article or how many people have installed ecosia via your link?
Glad to hear you liked it Sarah! They really only gave me a link to track how many trees have been planted a few months ago so I haven’t checked in on it yet.
I’ll follow up with them now to see and update the post!
If you search Ecosia in Ecosia, Ecosia will suggest “ecosia scam” and “ecosia browser scam”. Which I think is pretty funny. They are either very honest on their suggestions or trying to manipulate new users into using Ecosia by proving Ecosia is not a scam (less likely, as I’m already using the engine). Ecosia (yes I said it yet again).
https://imgur.com/atkqYZ6
OR they use algorithms that are inherently unbiased towards attitudes, even to their own creators. Not everything you don’t immediately understand is a conspiracy…