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From September 2023, we will be gradually rolling out our new unique search offer. This will happen over several months and won’t apply to everyone at the same time. This means that when you search through Ecosia, we work with either Microsoft Bing or, with your consent, Google to provide you with search results and ads. In order to do this, we automatically collect data required by search partners to prevent bot attacks and ad fraud - which includes your IP address and search terms.

For a growing number of users we can now provide Google results and advertisements. In order to supply these results and ads, Google requires a cookie to be set on your browser and access to your device’s local storage to store information. We will ask for your consent before doing this and if you do not agree, we will provide non-personalized results from Microsoft Bing.

In order to provide non-personalized Microsoft Bing results and ads, we are contractually obliged to implement Microsoft Clarity to capture how you use and interact with our website through behavioral metrics, as well as sharing your IP address and search terms. This behavioral data is captured in individual search sessions and is not tied to a user profile unless you consent. The processing of this data is necessary for the provision of our service. Although Ecosia does not use this information, it is used by Microsoft Bing for site and advertising optimization, as well as fraud protection. For more information about how Microsoft collects and uses your data, visit Microsoft’s privacy statement and Microsoft Clarity documentation.

Microsoft Bing does also offer personalized search results and ads. This service requires a cookie to be set on your browser which creates a personal profile. We will ask for your consent before enabling this and you can change your choice at any time in your cookie preferences. More information on cookies and how to take control of your preferences can be found in the “What about cookies?” section.

  • macallikOP
    2•9 months ago

    I used it as my primary browser on my laptop/desktop. I supported the cause and through my usage I planted +150 trees, but the trade-off is steepening so I’m going to have to jump ship.

    I’ll be pivoting to DuckDuckGo as my main search engine, and use Brave for more nuanced/specific results.

    • Magnor
      25•9 months ago

      Yeah, I would recommend you ditch brave while you’re at it : link

          • @FIST_FILLET@lemmy.ml
            3•9 months ago

            DDG is untrustworthy because it is US-based, and because its CEO and founder is also the founder of “The Names Database”

            • Magnor
              1•9 months ago

              I’ll have to look that up, never heard of it. Looks bad.

          • UnfortunateShort
            1•9 months ago

            That guy created and then sold a social network. He’s being criticized as being in privacy-tech only for the money, although besides the aforementioned fact there seems to be little evidence for this claim.

            What is true however is that DDG had some privacy whoopsies in the past, whereas they always claimed those were accidents or not abused (by them). Again, benefit of doubt, but their trackrecord is not clean.

            I don’t see a better alternative for search tho.

      • macallikOP
        4•9 months ago

        Wooof. I’ve started using Brave for less then 24 hours and I’m already jumping ship. Anyone backed by Peter Thiel is an immediate ‘no’ for me.

        I’ll have to try Whoogle or SearXNG but search engines seem to regularly block my queries so that I only get random results from wikimedia. Maybe I can resolve the issues w/ self-hosting? Otherwise, I might just try to redirect most of my questions to open-source LLMs

          • macallikOP
            2•9 months ago

            Was struggling through an attempted self-install of SearXNG. So far so good, w/ this one, thanks for sharing

        • @namnnumbr@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3•9 months ago

          I strongly advocate for Kagi. Yes, it’s paid search, but it means that there is no tracking or ad revenue concerns obfuscating the search results.

          • @kraniax@lemmy.wtf
            3•9 months ago

            until you release that due to needing an account, all your search queries are tied to your account and even if they claim not to, it would be trivial for Kagi to associate all of them with you.

            and we don’t have the code of their servers, we know nothing of how they handle this critical information, other than their “trust me bro”.

            (and even if they are not directly associating this information, if they store some kind of logs, it would probably be trivial for any third party that gets access to their servers to make the association. an again, we know nothing about their procedures)

            • @namnnumbr@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1•9 months ago

              That’s fair; I guess it depends on what your threat model is — kind of like how using a vpn can just expose you to your vpn service while ostensibly protecting you from your service provider.

              To me, the improved search results from kagi and the disconnect between search and ad-and-tracking companies are worth it. But that may not be a fit for anyone else.

        • wynar
          1•9 months ago

          I selfhost SearXNG via Unraid and have it plugged in as my default search engine in Firefox. Occasionally there might be an issue with one of the providers but I’ve found there’s usually an update pending that I just need to run which fixes the problem. I haven’t heard anything negative from my users as of yet though.

    • Southern Wolf
      3•9 months ago

      Say what you want about Brave, but at least they are moving to their own indexing. Where as DuckDuckGo is just Bing…

      Also I’d take that anti-Brave link with a grain of salt. I’ve got a hunch it’s somehow connected back to a Vivaldi dev. So I’d view it as highly untrustworthy.

      • macallikOP
        0•9 months ago

        Anyone backed by Peter Thiel is guilty by association at this point.

    • FarraigePlaisteach
      2•9 months ago

      With DuckDuckGo we get zero trees planted. It’s outside the EU too so although they have a relationship with US companies I hope that there are some protections around data transfer.

      • @kraniax@lemmy.wtf
        2•9 months ago

        I don’t think so. They have commercial agreements with Microsoft that forces them to not block their trackers, so who knows what else they are obliged to by contract

        For non-search tracker blocking (eg in our browser), we block most third-party trackers. Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevents us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon.

        https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/duckduckgo-browser-allows-microsoft-trackers-due-to-search-agreement/

        • FarraigePlaisteach
          2•9 months ago

          The Microsoft one does concern me. The Google features are optional to the user, but not the MS ones.

          Funny. MS used to ridicule Google for being an “advertising company”. Probably said in jealousy since they’re no different now.

    • Possibly linuxEnglish
      -5•9 months ago

      A browser isn’t a search engine A browser isn’t a search engine A browser isn’t a search engine A browser isn’t a search engine A browser isn’t a search engine A browser isn’t a search engine A browser isn’t a search engine A browser isn’t a search engine

      • @wreckedcarzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3•9 months ago

        Tell us that you know absolutely nothing about Brave without saying that you know absolutely nothing about Brave

        above

      • @noodlejetski@lemm.ee
        2•9 months ago

        look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search look up Brave search