i switched to ecosia
Most modern search engines are terrible. Google and Bing have both enshittified themselves with forced AI overviews and a constant push for users to talk to their chatbots (Gemini and Copilot, respectively). As a whole, these companies have both shown that they don't give a fuck about users as long as they continue to make money.
Ecosia promises to be an alternative to big tech search engines. They claim to be committed to climate activism, using much of their profits towards planting trees—rather than funding genocides. They are also transparent about their funding, releasing financial reports monthly. Because they are at least slightly more ethical than Google, Microsoft, etc., I switched months ago.
This isn't to say that Ecosia is some perfect company—in fact, they are far from it. Their search results still come from Google and Bing (mostly 1) and they also have included AI. In their defence, it is entirely optional, runs on lightweight Mistral-based models, and they produce enough clean energy to counteract it—but it's still weird to include being an environment-focused service.
So, I switched to Ecosia, and I suggest you do the same. Or, if you prefer, another search engine not run by big tech (Kagi is great if you don't mind paying). They aren't perfect, but they are better than big tech.
Ecosia is developing the EUSP in collaboration with Qwant, but it is limited to just France at the time of writing.↩