Ecosia, an environmentally conscious search engine company that prides itself on both transparency and its efforts to curb environmental damage, has put the finishing touches on a new cross-platform browser designed to cater to a sustainable audience.
Ecosia has already planted north of 205 million trees as a result of users’ online browsing activity, and Ecosia’s latest effort includes a browser that works on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.
Similar to the search engine’s similarities to Google, Ecosia’s browser is built on the open-source Chromium project, giving it similarities to Google Chrome, making it easier for people to consider switching.
Ecosia launches its own browser
According to the company blog postUsing the “world’s greenest browser” will lead to trees being planted in biodiversity hotspots worldwide. The company has also committed to producing 25 Wh of electricity for every day a user surfs, which equates to about three hours of power for a light bulb.
Some other benefits that should help users make more environmentally conscious decisions include the ‘Green Leaf’, an icon that has appeared alongside plant-friendly organizations in search results since 2019, and a climate pledge that rates a company’s impact on nature conservation. to minimize rising global temperatures.
Users of the new browser can also use AI Chat – an OpenAI-based generative AI chatbot that works in a similar way to ChatGPT or Google Gemini. However, because artificial intelligence is such a data-intensive technology, it has been criticized for its use of natural resources and energy.
Ecosia also sees its browser as an option to “move away from Big Tech” in its effort to create a fairer and more sustainable internet.
The built-in ad blocker and tracker blocking help maintain some privacy online, but also promise to speed up the browsing process, which in turn has a beneficial effect on energy consumption.
The Ecosia browser can be downloaded on all of the company’s popular desktop and mobile operating systems website.