Ecosia funds tree planting with a portion of revenue from search ads. The “green” search engine has now proposed a cross-platform browser to expand its online presence.

The new search engine is based on Google’s open source browser Chromium, TechCrunch knows. This immediately explains why the browser is visually reminiscent of Chrome. This comparison is a positive point for the German company. In this way, Ecosia wants to attract as many users as possible by offering them a familiar experience. These users can customize the landing page to their own liking.

Sustainability promise

The new browser is cross-platform, i.e. available for Mac, iOS and Android. By operating on multiple platforms, Ecosia aims to further expand its sustainability promise. “We want this browser to go where our users are and increase the footprint in the places where they want to be more sustainable,” says CPO Michael Metcalf. “Right now our main use case is searching for information, but we want to expand even further into sharing browsing experiences.”

According to Ecosia, these new experiences also include an adapted shopping program. Among the sponsored links, users see, for example, links to shopping sites such as Decathlon and Amazon. The company says that most of the money from these advertising revenues will go towards planting trees and supporting “green” projects. For example, Ecosia is committed to generating 25 Wh of clean energy per user every day. This year, the company planted more than 200 million trees in 95,000 locations worldwide.

Customization in the browser

The CPO revealed that Ecosia has recognized that consumers enjoy shopping online, even as the company encourages reductions. With the partner program, Ecosia has a tool to give something back. In the future, Ecosia wants to improve the customer-oriented shopping interface by, among other things, integrating an AI chatbot and introducing additional customization options in the browser. Initially, Ecosia will target its existing user base, which includes approximately 20 million people. In addition, marketing will be increasingly targeted at consumers who demonstrate an affinity for the “green” cause.

Last year, Ecosia made a structural change to the search engine. After years of using Bing as its sole search engine, the company began experimenting with Google in markets such as Canada, New Zealand and Brazil. Now Ecosia has launched its own browser based on Chromium. Management was satisfied with the retention rate from the beta tests.