Ecosia Browser released for Windows and macOS – Ghacks

Ecosia, the eco-friendly search engine, celebrated Earth Day by launching its web browser for desktop operating systems. The Ecosia browser is available on Windows and macOS.

The German company claims that the browser is powered by the sun and will produce 25 Wh of solar energy when you use the app. Ecosia invests all its profits in tree planting and renewable energy projects. The company recently announced that it had successfully planted 200 million trees worldwide.

TechCrunch notes that the Ecosia browser is based on Google’s open source Chromium project. Unsurprisingly, the interface is quite similar to that of Chrome. That said, Ecosia’s browser is not open source.

New Tab Page

The New Tab page is colorful and you can customize the background. Ecosia has its own set of wallpapers, from its tree planting projects, and they’re pretty cool.

The new tab page has a search box that you can use to search for items on the web. There’s also a handy import button to import your browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, and autocomplete data from other browsers, including

You’ll also notice that it has a section for sponsored links, also known as shortcuts. The company claims that when you make purchases on these websites, the profits it makes through commissions are used for Ecosia’s climate projects. This is good, but I feel like it’s not ideal for a user’s privacy. If you would like to know more about Ecosia’s privacy policy, please visit this page.

The new Ecosia browser tab also shows statistics about its climate impact, such as the number of trees planted, the amount donated, as well as shortcuts to the company’s financial reports and its tree planting projects. Want a cleaner new tab experience? The quick settings panel allows you to disable Ecosia’s Top Sites, Sponsored Links, Climate Impact, and About sections.

Default search engine

The browser uses Ecosia as its default search engine, this is no surprise. But you can change it to Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo or Brave from settings.

Built-in ad blocker

Ecosia Browser comes with a built-in ad blocker that can prevent ads, and it has filter lists such as Anti Adblock, Easy Privacy Anti Tracker, EasyList, and some uBlock filters. “Acceptable ads” are enabled, you can enable them.

Note: Ecosia Browser is configured to send anonymous data such as browsing usage and error reports to help improve the app. You can disable these options in the Settings > Privacy & Security section.

The browser supports Chrome Web Store extensions, and if you want more control over the content blocker, you can install the uBlock Origin add-on and disable the browser’s built-in ad blocker.

Ecosia AI Chat

All browser manufacturers seem to focus on artificial intelligence features, and the Ecosia browser is no exception to this rule. You can access Ecosia AI Chat from this page. It is currently in beta and available in select countries. You can use it to generate answers to your queries, summarize text and other content. Ecosia AI saves your chat in the browser and you can delete the history at any time.

The chatbot is powered by OpenAI’s language model and your chat data will be stored in OpenAI’s database for up to 30 days for internal and legal purposes. Ecosia AI Chat is also supported on third-party browsers.

You can download Ecosia Browser for Windows 10 or later and macOS Catalina 10.15 or later from the official website.

Note: The download is a web installer, remember to uncheck the option to run the application when your computer starts. The browser is also available for Android and iOS.

You can also find most of Chrome’s features in Ecosia Browser, including memory saver, power saver, tab hover preview, accessibility options, and more. The app has a light theme and a dark theme. The Ecosia browser is quite easy to use, especially if you are familiar with a Chromium-based browser. The climate change projects are interesting, but the problem is that the app doesn’t really offer much to stand out from other browsers. It could therefore be difficult to convince users to turn away from their competitors. But more competition is always welcome.

If, however, you are looking for more privacy-friendly browsers, you can take a look at DuckDuckGo, Brave, or Firefox.

What should a browser developer do to convince users to migrate to their application?

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