I wanted to make this article to tell you about this amazing search engine called Ecosia, because honestly I love it, and I think more people should start using them. It seems like just yesterday I was watching a Shelbizleee’s video where she talked about them, and I decided to give it a shot. I can’t believe it’s been an entire year!
Ecosia is a search engine, like Google, but unlike Google (or Bing, or whatever search engine you use), Ecosia is well, an eco-search engine. For about every 45 searches, you help to plant 1 tree. Yes, you read that correctly: just by switching your search engine you could be helping to plant trees! How cool is that?
It’s super simple to switch to as well. You don’t even need to download the add-on (though if you want to, you totally can – it’s free!), all you have to do is set it as your home page, or go to ecosia.org every time you need to look something up, and then just use as normal. That’s it!
It’s funny, because before I made the switch, I was actually worried about using it. Yes, I was actually worried about switching my search engine. I don’t even really know why, it’s not like I couldn’t switch back if I didn’t like it. Luckily though, their search results are pretty good, and I haven’t felt the need to switch back, or even really felt like searching was harder at all.
The only ‘problem’ I’ve encountered is even my own fault. Because Ecosia needs to store a cookie (not the edible kind) on your computer to save your searches, if you are like me and use Private Browsing Mode all the time, or have your browser set to automatically delete cookies when it closes, your personal counter gets reset to 0. Like I said though, I know this is 100% my own fault and I could change my settings to allow my browser to keep cookies even after it closes, but for my peace of mind, I like having them dump each time.
That’s fine though, because all I’ve been doing, (that you can do, too if you have similar settings), is keep track of the searches you have before closing your browser. It’s actually really fast/simple to do. I’ve kept a running tally of all my searches on a sticky note on my desktop (along with the dates of when I had to close the browser), and then every few months I add them all up to get my total number of searches/planted trees.
As of Friday (Feb. 12th, 2021), I had a total of 1,638 searches, which is roughly 36 trees planted. Isn’t that crazy? From changing nothing significant about my routine, I’ve helped plant 36 trees!
If you care about the planet/helping the environment, please try out Ecosia, I promise you won’t regret it. It’s the perfect option for those who want to help, but who maybe can’t or don’t want to go out and be active helpers. (Especially now with the pandemic)
You literally cannot be more passive in helping the earth than this!
Want to see more ways to help the planet? Check out more articles here!
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