Earlier this week I read a very interesting article written by my colleague Davey Winder about the new search engine Ecosia. After reading Davies article, I decided to do some research comparing Ecosia vs. the monster search engine Google. Ecosia claims that one search via Google uses around the same amount of energy as it would take to power one light bulb for an hour.
I found Ecosia’s claims very interesting so I decided to do some research. A non-eco-friendly light bulb usually uses about 60 Watts of energy with that said, if Google received 1000 searches in an hour that would use approximately 60,000 watts of energy.
I find it needless to say that Google probably receives tens of thousands of searches per hour, so what are they doing to counter act their massive use of energy? As far as I know they aren’t doing anything at all, unlike Ecosia the newcomer to the game who donates a big portion of their profits to organizations that help save the rain forest.
I had trouble believing that Ecosia was as good as it sounds until I noticed Bing owned by Microsoft is helping power this new search engine. I don’t think Microsoft would take part in a company that they thought would fail. Actually I’m sure they wouldn’t, I know not many people like Microsoft but you have to admire their business strategies Even if some of them are unethical.
Okay so I've said how eco-friendly ecosia is but what else do they offer? They offer privacy unlike other search engines. According to their video they delete your searches after 48 hours and does not inspect your searches or sell it like some search engines. If Ecosia is really doing everything they claim that they are, Google will have to step up their game if they want to stay in the game.
