Tree planting search engine Ecosia today launched a new cross-platform browser to increase its online footprint.
The new browser, available for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android, is built on top of Chromium. That’s why there aren’t many feature differences from Chrome. The company sees that as a good thing, as people may be tempted to switch without abandoning their web browsing routine. However, you can customize the landing page and remove sections — such as top sites or climate impact — that you don’t like.
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Ecosia Chief Product Officer Michael Metcalf told TechCrunch after a call that the company built a browser to expand its sustainable presence.
“The main reason we’re building a browser is because we want to go where our users are and start expanding the footprint of where they can be sustainable. Right now, our main use case is for search, but we want to expand into parts of the browsing experience,” Metcalf said.
Ecosia is also starting an affiliate shopping program with the launch of this new browser. Users will see links to shopping sites such as Amazon, eBay and Decathlon in the sponsored links section.
The company said all money earned from affiliate revenue will go towards planting trees and supporting other green projects. Through this kind of investment, Ecosia is committed to generating 25 Wh of clean energy per user every day they browse.
Metcalf said that while the company promotes lower consumption, it knows people shop often and with the partner program, they have an opportunity to give back.
In the future, the company wants to improve the affiliate shopping interface, integrate its AI chatbotand add more customization to the browser.
It’s hard to get users to switch browsers, so the company is initially aiming to target its current user base of 20 million, along with marketing to casual green users. The company said it was pleased with the retention rate in early beta tests. However, it does not have data on whether there was any effect on the number of Ecosia searches when a user switches to the company’s browser.
Ecosia did some structural changes to its search engine last year. After years of using Bing as its exclusive search provider, the company began experimenting with Google search in markets such as Canada, New Zealand, Brazil and the Philippines. The company uses System1, which aggregates search results from Microsoft Bing, Startpage and Info.com in other geographies.
Earlier this year, Ecosia also passed the planting mark more than 200 million trees in 95,000 locations worldwide.
