Ecosia launches a cross-platform browser, starts an affiliate link program

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 Chromium. That’s why there aren’t many feature differences compared to Chrome. The company sees this as a good thing because people might be tempted to change sites without abandoning their web browsing routine. However, you can customize the landing page and remove sections, such as top sites or climate impact, that don’t suit you.

Image credits: Ecosia

Michael Metcalf, Ecosia’s chief product officer, told TechCrunch on a call that the company built a browser to expand its sustainable presence.

“The main reason we’re building a browser is we want to go to where our users are and start expanding their footprint to where they can be sustainable. Right now our main use case is search, but we want to expand parts of the browsing experiences,” Metcalf said.

Ecosia is also launching an affiliate shopping program with the launch of this new browser. Users will see links to shopping sites like Amazon, eBay and Decathlon in the sponsored links section.

The company said all money earned from its affiliates’ earnings would be used to plant trees and support other green projects. Thanks to this type of investment, Ecosia is committed to generating 25 Wh of clean energy per user each day of navigation.

Metcalf said that while the company encourages reduced consumption, it recognizes that people shop frequently and with the affiliate program they have the opportunity to give back.

In the future, the company wants to improve the affiliate shopping interface, integrate its AI chatbot, and add more customization to the browser.

Asking people to switch browsers is difficult, so the company is initially aiming to target its current user base of 20 million, as well as targeted marketing to casual green users. The company said it was pleased with the retention rate during its initial beta testing. However, it has no data on whether there has been an impact on the number of Ecosia searches when a user switches to the company’s browser.

Ecosia made some structural changes to its search engine last year. After years of using Bing as its sole search provider, the company began experimenting with Google Search in markets like 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 reached the milestone of planting more than 200 million trees in 95,000 locations around the world.