If you told me a week ago I wouldn’t be using Google anymore, I would laugh. I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of Google, but I do have a folder across all my devices with Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Photos, Translate, Gmail, and even just the regular Google search engine app (which I use to read The Cut, after I’ve surpassed my free monthly allotment of five articles). I even have a Google Home Mini. Like most people, the phrase “Google it” is in my vernacular, and I wouldn’t have ever imagined I could switch to a different search engine, but here I am.
Ecosia was introduced to me as “similar to Bing,” which is an absolutely terrible way to market something. In the one month I rocked an Acer, I was never able to adjust to using Bing. Ecosia, however, was a one day transition for me. For Google fans, it definitely will take a few searches to get used to, but think about all the good you can do with it!
Ecosia plants a tree for every 45 searches you do with it. It’s headquartered in Berlin, Germany and considers itself a CO2-negative company. As of right now, Ecosia users have planted over 84 million trees.
Not only is it environmentally friendly, but it also does a lot more than Google in terms of privacy. According to Ecosia, they “only collect a small amount of data to be able to improve our services,” but you can turn off all tracking if you’d prefer.
For me, I don’t notice much of a difference between Google and Ecosia, but the environmental impact is markedly different. In the world we live in, I think it’s great to have companies like this that’ll pioneer environmentally sustainable efforts and only require everyday actions from the general population.
Using Ecosia is such an easy way to help the world—all you do is search as usual, and every so often, they’ll plant a tree in exchange for those searches. As busy college students, it’s the perfect way to get work done while doing our part to save the Earth.
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