What Ecosia actually does
Ecosia is a search engine and, since April 2024, a Chromium-based desktop browser, both built by Ecosia GmbH in Berlin, Germany. Its pitch is less about the technology stack than about where the money goes: the company reports directing the large majority of its search advertising profit toward tree-planting and climate projects.
The core product
Ecosia is available as a web search engine, as browser extensions for major browsers, and, since 2024, its own standalone Chromium-based desktop browser for Windows and macOS, alongside native apps for Android and iOS. The company publishes regular financial reports showing income and where it went, which turns "we plant trees with ad profit" from a slogan into something you can actually check.
Ownership sits with the Purpose Foundation, a structure adopted in 2018 specifically so that no one, including the founders, can sell the company or extract profits from it for personal gain, which locks the tree-planting model in structurally rather than leaving it as a policy that could change with new ownership.
What's new or notable
The browser itself is the newest part of the picture. Prior to 2024, Ecosia was search-only, available as a set-as-default engine and browser extensions; the desktop browser is a genuinely new product line, not a rebrand of something older. That means its extension ecosystem and feature depth are still catching up to long-established browsers, even though the underlying search experience and financial model are well established at this point.
Who should use Ecosia
Great fit if…
- You want your everyday searching to fund something concrete — Ecosia publishes financial reports on how much ad profit went to tree-planting and climate projects, rather than asking you to take the claim on faith.
- You care that the company can't be sold off or have profits extracted by founders or investors — the Purpose Foundation ownership structure legally prevents that.
- You want the option of a full browser, not just a search engine — the 2024 Chromium-based desktop browser is a genuine alternative to switching just your default search engine.
- You're already comfortable with a Chromium-based browser — extensions and behavior will feel familiar if you're coming from Chrome or Edge.
Skip it if…
- You want search results from a fully independent index — Ecosia's results are sourced in part from Microsoft's Bing index rather than an index Ecosia built entirely itself.
- You want a mature, long-established browser — the Ecosia browser launched in 2024, so its extension ecosystem and feature depth are less mature than browsers with a decade or more of development behind them.
Pricing in detail
Both Ecosia search and the Ecosia browser are free, funded through search advertising rather than a subscription.
| Plan | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosia search & browser | €0 | Web search, browser extensions for major browsers, standalone Windows/macOS browser, Android and iOS apps |
Where it falls short
- Bing-dependent index — like several European search products, Ecosia's underlying results draw partly on Microsoft's Bing index rather than a fully independent index built from the ground up, so relevance for unusual queries tracks Bing's rather than Ecosia-only technology.
- Young browser — the standalone browser is new relative to established alternatives, so extension support and edge-case features are still catching up.
Privacy & data
Ecosia's headline differentiator is financial transparency rather than a specific technical privacy claim: the monthly financial reports are independently checkable in a way a plain privacy-policy statement isn't.
The Purpose Foundation ownership structure also matters for data practices indirectly, because the company can't be sold or have its profits siphoned off, there's no incentive path toward monetizing user data more aggressively to attract a buyer or satisfy investors, which is a real structural difference from most ad-funded search products. Being based in Berlin also puts Ecosia under EU/GDPR jurisdiction.
We did not find, on the pages checked, a published independent security audit of the search backend or full technical detail on data retention beyond what's in the general policy pages, so we're not able to confirm those specifics beyond the company's own published statements.
How we checked this
This entry is based on Ecosia's own site (ecosia.org), checked on 2026-09-04, together with the verified verdict, feature list, and known limitations compiled for this entry, including the documented reliance on Bing's index and the 2024 launch date of the desktop browser. We did not independently audit Ecosia's financial reports or run hands-on browser testing; claims here reflect Ecosia's own public disclosures and reporting rather than a testing session we conducted.