Türkçe çevirisi
With the widespread use of the Internet, people started to browse this wired/wireless network that surrounds the world almost every day. When I was little, I thought the internet was Google 😁 but when I grew up and became an engineer, I realized that I was surfing the internet thanks to programs called "internet browser" and websites called "search engines".
Programs such as Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera ... are popular internet browsers.
Internet sites such as Google, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo!, Yandex ... are common search engines.
Although most internet browsers and search engines (all of the examples above) are free, they can earn billions of dollars by advertising. They achieve this by keeping records of their users' searches and personal information, using various algorithms. For example, Google generated more than $200 billion ad revenue in 2021.
Ecosia
Ecosia is a search engine just like Google. Unlike Google, Ecosia claims to spend all its net profits on planting trees. I have no affiliation with this company and I cannot give any guarantee of reliability. I have been using Ecosia for about 1-2 years and I am generally satisfied. I trust Ecosia because they have a transparent structure, financial reports and social media posts sounded convincing to me.
Why do I use Ecosia?
- It does not collect personal data. Ecosia does not keep logs of previous searches like Google. It returns results exactly based on the words I'm looking for. This allows you to both protect your personal data and find more relevant results.
- It shows a lot less ads.
- You only see what's more relevant, not what's more popular, as you search based on the entered text. Google's famous algorithm named PageRank aims to top the already popular results.
Is it really better than all mighty GOOGLE?
Finally, there may be parties where Google excels. For example, if you want to buy something, Google provides much better access to the products you want to buy. Google's map service is pretty good too. Of course, sometimes Google can show more relevant results.
Finally, there is Ecosia's mobile application, that is, an internet browser that works on mobile devices. I used a little bit, but frankly, I didn't use it because I like other browsers more.
You can also record the number of calls you make with Ecosia. I made more than 1400 searches with my phone and more than 2700 searches with my computer. Honestly, I'm not sure how accurate these numbers are.
OceanHero
You can customize what you see when you open a blank tab in your internet browser. OceanHero claims to be showing you ads and clearing plastic waste from the oceans with ad revenue.
They explained how it works with a 1-minute short and explanatory video.
It also offers a search engine service on OceanHero. I can't comment much since I don't use it much, but I can say that the ocean mode ("Ocean Mode") looks very nice.
Brave
This time I will talk about a tool that has nothing to do with ecology. Brave is an internet browser. Although it does not directly contribute to the physical livability of our planet, Brave makes a great contribution to the livability of digital life thanks to the great importance it gives to privacy. Recently, giant companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft have also brought privacy to their agenda and started to make more effort in this regard.
Why am I using Brave?
- Blocks advertisements and trackers. Some sites may say that you are using an ad-blocker and not show you any content. In this case, you can disable your "shields" and allow ads and trackers.
Brave, which I use on my tablet, claims to save 2 GB of data and 1 hour of time in 1-2 years.
Brave, which I use on my phone, claims to save 3.8 GB of data and 1 hour of time.
If you're using YouTube, I'm pretty sure you'll save a lot more time. Rather than using YouTube's official app, I use YouTube with Brave because I haven't watched YouTube ads for years. (Yes, they are wasting money on YouTube Premium :)
Faster. Is it really even faster than Google Chrome? I think yes. I didn't make very serious measurements, but it is quite normal that it is faster as it blocks ads and trackers. When using Brave, I clearly feel that it is faster than Google Chrome, but of course, engineers should not act based on their feelings. Brave claims it can be up to 3x faster than Google Chrome.
Open source code. Even if you're not going to read and rewrite the code, it's a nice opportunity to be able to do it or have other developers do it.
You can earn "BAT" token. If you want, you can get the "BAT" crypto-asset by being exposed to some advertisements with Brave. Brave claims that the ads shown are privacy-respecting. I didn't get much use out of it as I was tempted to not see any ads.
Finally, let's give some interesting information about Brave. Brave's CEO Brendan Eich is the creator of the JavaScript language and co-founder of Mozilla.
Finally, I have not received any financial support from any of the companies mentioned here. I am not working with anyone. I cannot make any warranties about Brave, OceanHero or Ecosia. I just like and use them.
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