I personally been using it for almost 5 years. I heard about it from a colleague a few years before that but I forgot about it, and then an online ad reminded me to check them out again.
Came as a recommendation from a personal friend who finds a lot of cool sites/services/apps that I might be interested in. Started using it about 5 years ago. It is my default search engine on my phone. I have been too lazy to make it my default on my computer, but I do most of my searching on my phone anyways.
I used it for many years but stopped when I got my new phone and reimaged my desktop. But I’m back into it now because of this community!
I get that. It’s a pain to set everything up again.
Which is why I’m glad that, in the EU, Android phones ask you which search engine you want to use. Most people don’t overcome the inertia of changing the default.
I have first used Ecosia in 2018 but then quit because I wasn’t so used to it.
Fast forward to 2023 where I heard the team donated some of profits to assist the morocco earthquake victims. That’s when I decided I try again and now I feel completely at home.
My story sounds just like yours haha.
They also have added way more features between 2018 and 2023 so it’s easier to commit.
Their goals have gotten more impressive so far so I feel more excitement around the project.
The last video said they are 300% carbon negative through solar panels installed which is awesome.
The family is growing nicely here!
When I gave my brother an iphone I put on Ecosia as the default engine. Hopefully he uses it and that plants a seed like how your coworker did ;)
I do that whenever people ask me for phone help. Guerilla envagelism 😂
I think I started using it around 2018-2019. I liked the fact that they plant trees based on how much you use the browser, so I made it my default.
Then they added the ad blocker, and that made it my favorite for everything. If there’s ever a site I need to look at without ads, I just paste the URL into Ecosia and boom.
