Unfortunately, there are no Canadian owned and operated search engines (they were all acquired by Americans! Yes really). The next best alternative is Ecosia, which is the only major search engine that actually invests to Canadians’ benefit. Ecosia partners with Tree Canada to regenerate Canadian forests.
In Canada, Ecosia’s reforestation project is located within the Acadian Forest and focuses on restoring its historic diversity in areas that have been degraded by centuries of intensive land use.
Video playlist: How Ecosia works.
Ecosia is also B Corp Certified. This means they have changed their by-laws to be mission locked, and are required to consider stakeholders’ interests such as employees, customers, and the environment.
Ecosia is a not-for-profit tech company that plants and protects trees. By dedicating 100% of its profits to the planet, Ecosia has planted over 214,229,374 million trees since its founding in December 2009. In addition to trees, Ecosia invests in environmental and social initiatives like regenerative agriculture, renewable energy and community-driven climate projects.
Getting Started
- 🦊Ecosia Search - Add-on for Mozilla Firefox
- 💻On Desktop: Make Ecosia your default on your browser
- 📱On Mobile: Use Ecosia App or make it your default search
- Ecosia Search Results: How to enable ads on Ecosia when using ad blockers
Manual configuration (advanced)
Using Mozilla Firefox:
- Search string URL:
https://www.ecosia.org/search?addon=Firefox&q=%s - Search suggestion API:
https://ac.ecosia.org/autocomplete?type=list&q=%s
As someone with ADHD, an ad-blocker is not a want, it’s a need, so I’d be using Ecosia with an ad-blocker, which defeats the purpose.
I have to say, I don’t really agree with the assertion that having ADHD indicates a need for ad-blocking. What happens if you see a couple of ads or distractions?
Even if ads are blocked, when you click on a link a search engine has provided, would you not realize if what you were looking for was there?
I suppose in theory, even if ads are blocked, there would still be some beneficial metrics that Ecosia could gather.
In any case, you are free to use whatever search engine you choose, without justification to anybody else. I do choose to keep the ads, because I feel the cause is more important than the “cost” incurred upon me.