Whenever you search for something on iOS or macOS using Safari, by default it uses Google. It makes sense given that Google is the world’s largest search engine, although we had heard that Google had also apparently paid Apple billions of dollars to remain its default search engine across its products.
That being said, if you’re not a fan of Google tracking you and your search activities, you’ll be pleased to learn that Ecosia is now one of the default search engine choices on iOS and macOS. For those who are unfamiliar, Ecosia is a search engine that prides itself as being privacy first.
It offers features like not tracking users, encrypting searches, and also anonymizing data so that users don’t have any identifiable information that can be tracked. The company also claims that the revenue it generates from ads from iOS users have allowed them to plant over 7 million trees in 2020 alone, with a total of 115 million trees having been planted to date.
Ecosia now joins other search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo as being alternate default search engine choices aside from Google. Do note that when changing default search engines, it will apply the change across the device except when using Siri, so that’s something to take note of.
Filed in . Read more about iOS, macOS and Privacy. Source: appleinsider