Is Ecosia Legit or Scam for Browsing? Ecosia Reviews

Ecosia is a Berlin-based social enterprise eco search engine that uses its profits to plant trees. But how does a search engine do this? (safe-t-plus.com) Ecosia’s business model is simple: donate 80% of their profits towards planting trees.

So, to further explain how it works, we’ve reviewed it. This review will also show if Ecosia is a legit platform for browsing or just a search engine scam.

Trees mean a happy environment, healthy people, and a strong economy. Besides being the most effective CO2 absorbers, trees help mitigate climate change, restart water cycles, stop deserts from spreading, and turn barren grounds back into fertile woods and farmland.

So, by making Ecosia your default search engine, you are joining the millions of active users who are helping to create a happier environment.

Here is a table of what to expect in this review:

What is Ecosia?

Founded in December 2009 by Christian Kroll, Ecosia is a search engine that lets users plant trees by searching the web. It became Germany’s first B Corporation in 2014, leading the movement that is now inspiring social businesses to join forces for a better world.

Microsoft Bing and Ecosia power the search results of Ecosia plants over 55 million trees.

As of the time of this report, Ecosia had the following numbers:

Why Choose Ecosia?

Here are some reasons you should use Ecosia for your browsing:

  • Completely transparent
  • More than CO2 neutral
  • Privacy-friendly

#1 Completely transparent

They publish their monthly financial reports, so you see exactly where the income from your searches goes.

#2 More than CO2 Neutral

Their servers run on 200% renewable energy, and every search request removes 1kg of CO2 from the atmosphere. Additionally, the millions of trees they have planted fight the climate crisis by removing thousands of tonnes of CO2 from the air — every day.

#3 Privacy Friendly

They don’t sell your data to advertisers, have no third-party trackers, and anonymize all searches within one week. Add Ecosia to Chrome.

How Does Ecosia Work?

Ecosia business model is quite simple. Here is how it works:

  • You search the web with Ecosia.
  • Search ads generate income for Ecosia.
  • Ecosia uses this income to plant trees.

When you use Ecosia, they show your total number of searches on the counter. On average, you are contributing towards planting a tree with every 45 searches that you make on the Ecosia platform. That is to say, every time you use Ecosia to search, you are helping to plant more trees.

Tree Projects Supported by Ecosia

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

How Does Ecosia Compare to Google?

As a Google user, you are probably worried if the quality of search results on Ecosia is the same as Google’s. There is no need to worry because to date, you’ll hardly spot the difference between the two.

You’ll get great quality search results and also a sense of satisfaction knowing that you’re helping impoverished communities and helping to stop climate change.

How Does Ecosia Make Money?

Ecosia makes money in the same way that Google and other search engine make money – that is through search engine ads. Note that Google makes money hand-over-fist in many other ways beyond its core search engine product.

Now back to Ecosia…

If you search for local carpenters on Ecosia and click one of the advertised services, 80% of the amount that the carpenter pays for that ad will go to planting trees.

It’s that simple! Now let’s find out how legit the platform is.

Is Ecosia legit or a Scam?

From what we’ve seen so far, we can say that Ecosia is a legit browsing platform and not a scam. If it was a scam, there are a few things that come to mind that Ecosia could do to mislead users if they wanted to, such as:

  • 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

But from the Ecosia report, they claim to have planted over 113,420,82 trees. Also, regarding misleading search results or collecting data (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 Reviews – What The Users Are Saying

Reviews help us decide if we should use a particular product or service. Hear what some Ecosia users are saying:

Raul Garrido

Great idea for your project hope we can do altogether a little for the planet and the communities to may live on their land.

ShadowHunter9909

I just found this site and I’m in love with it. Trees are my favorite thing in the world.

GRE-1625 (on TrustPilot)

Fabulous privacy search and engine’ works much better than Google in my experience. I love the fact that you can see the profits go to planting trees (you get several trees you have planted from your individual searches in the top right of your screen). I cannot understand why anyone would continue to use other search engines when this is perfect and gives profit to the environment.

They have an App for both Android (I use this) and Apple (I haven’t tried this)

Jody Goodrich (on TrustPilot)

Ecosia is a great search engine. Though it may not have the same image results like google, it is reliable and actually plants trees! I’m thrilled that they have found a creative way such as this to save the environment. But the search results are not the same as Google’s, and if I were to look up something specific I would use Google, but overall it is a great search engine, and I recommend it to all who believe there is hope for our planet.

Click on the link below to use the Ecosia and get more reviews about the platform:

Ecosia Website

In Summary

Ecosia is a search engine that uses the profit from your searches to plant trees where they are needed most.

So, get the free browser extension and plant trees with every search.

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