Skip to main content

OK, Ecosia is a bit less good than Google, but I'm gonna keep with it..

I came across this video about Ecosia, a tree planting search engine:


Short synopsis:

Participate in reforestation by changing your default search engine to Ecosia. Really, that's all it takes!
http://ecosia.org
Ditching Google Search is also a good idea because they block independent sources.
#boycottgooglesearch
Let's not only raise our voice, but take part in changing the world. Thank you for caring AND sharing.

My experience

My friend told me then that Ecosia is too bad from google that he had to return to google, though he admitted that was some time ago and was curious if it is still so.
So, I kept my attention high since seeing that video and putting my default search engine on ecosia and I compared. I am not sure it is as bad as it was then, but here it is...

  • Ecosia often doesn't put the things I am really looking for on top of the results as much as google does. They appear very low, sometimes even not on the first page of 10 results.
  • Also, they don't have certain features.. 
    • ..like translating words directly
      Google: "translate xxx from English to Portuguese"
    • ..like asking the definition of a word
      Google: "define:Rayleigh Scattering"
      ... like looking for images of certain type
      Google: "horse filetype:png"

Ecosia does, however, do a lot! Like asking for time, weather, using it as a calculator, some filters in images and offering the wikipedia as the definition for a word nonetheless (in Google it displays the definition text as a result you can see directly and you don't have to click on the link, unless you want more detail).

So, I must say, Ecosia people have done quite a bit of features in a short time! (When google has had 3 decades and gigantic financial resource due to it's somewhat monopoly!). That is really fantastic. Trust me, I'm a programmer and a DB expert. This is deep level technical and trial-and-error heavy code-lifting!
Small side-note to that is that maybe they will grow better than Google (if enough people use it so they can stay financially healthy?).

My decision

I am gonna leave my default engine on ecosia, even though it's a bit annoying sometimes. When I need google, I just paste the keywords on the Firefox search bar and click the Google search option at the bottom of the suggestions on the location bar. It's only 3 seconds work! A bit annoying, but maybe worthwhile the trees I plant. I just hope I don't get too much annoyed on the long run...

P.S. I planted 334 trees meanwhile. Wooooow!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The paradox of authenticity

ChatGPT just presented me with the a word that describes what I have struggled with a lot throughout my personal enlightenment path. I'll give you my versions, respectively ChatGPT's version: --- My XP: I have often witnessed that the quest for freedom from shame and social punishment or judgment actually comes with extra social judgment and punishment, because trying to not care about what people think, so you do just your stuff, and very often actually that is interpreted as showing off. I hate it, and most people do it, especially whenever I feel free and by doing so making it more difficult to feel free (around them or in the future). Even more, in the past I held off from doing stuff that could be seen as showing off, but sometimes those exact things are pleasant to do for yourself and not to show off and people can't make the difference or forget to put their biases aside or forget the benefit of the doubt. --- ChatGPT: What you’re describing is a very common and s...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Journey Into Modern Video Compression

And Why I Ended Up Using Shutter Encoder,  AV1 and opus After testing many tools to compress my album/personal videos from the last years, I use AV1 + Opus + MKV with Shutter Encoder as my daily workflow. It keeps things practical while giving modern compression, metadata preservation, filter preview, and predictable results. AV1, Constant Quality, VBR, and Variable Framerate (VFR) AV1 is already supported by most modern devices and will remain standard for a long time. Its main advantage: AV1 lets you decide how much quality to preserve while greatly reducing file size, so the loss becomes dependent on your preference of videos. AV1 also supports variable bitrate (VBR) , where the encoder automatically uses fewer bits on simple scenes and more on complex ones. Combined with constant-quality (CQ) mode , this lets you target a consistent visual quality across the file without worrying about a fixed bitrate. It works very well with variable framerate (VFR) , where f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Let it (not) be

For 5 months I wished to write a resistance version of " Let it be " from The Beatles , because every time I sing it, I feel there is something wrong with it *. First 5 months was a disaster! "The Doors" and "Curt Cobain" kept making me rape Mother Mary, and although that's strong language to start a resistance, it sounded a bit too wrong..This and other dead roads kept it to only 3 words all that time! :-) Today: All words came at once! YES! Chords are like the normal version, but I advice one change in vocals. See bottom. I hope you enjoy this version of "Let it be"! Let it (not just) be! When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Poison comes to me, urging me to drea-eam and let it be. And in my hour of wakings, she is standing right in front of me, shrieking words of authority: Let it be! Let us sleep, let us sleep, let us sheep, let us sheep, buying things of promise: Let it be. And we're the broken harted peo...
Post a Comment
Read more