Start Page suggestion: Add Ecosia as search engine

First of, let me just say that the UM 17.10 is amazing, i have been playing around, setting it up and making it how i like for an hour or so and i am so pleased with all the new changes.

Now to get back to the topic, i really like the idea behind default default start page, having the search bar and all Ubuntu Mate related links in one place is great!
The only thing stopping me from using it is lack of my default web search engine Ecosia, so i would like to suggest the addition of it.

Ecosia is a german based company which donates 80% of all the profits ecosia search engine makes to help funding tree plantations where it is most needed.
They also publish their financial reports openly to public, which is very much in the spirit of open source!
You can read more about Ecosia here.
Did i also mention that it has a little counter which counts how many trees you have helped fund with your searches, so you can feel good about yourself every time you search something!:grin:

I would really like this search engine to be added besides Google and DuckDuckGo, i would personally enjoy it very much, and i think that it would be a good deed to expose people to an alternative which is helping people in need.
(Also their main color theme revolves around green so that could integrate well with Ubuntu Mate colors huh?! :smiley: )

That would be all from me, i am sorry if my sentences are worded weirdly English is my second language, and i am new to writing forum posts :sweat:

I hope to hear back from the developers and the community.
What do you think about my suggestion?
Is it any good, is it worth adding, do you like it, do you hate it?
Reply so we can talk about it!

2 Likes

Really good suggestion! Hoping it gets some traction with the developers! (Absolutely loving 17.10 Ubuntu Mate, it’s absolutely the best OS I’ve ever used.)

I’ve heard of this search engine, I like the idea that they are open and something as simple as searching the web helps the earth, so I’ve noted it as an idea, alongside a few other little things to spice up that simple and light search page. :slight_smile:

However, if we’re not careful, we may end up with loads of requests for other search engines.

It may be 2 years since your suggestion, but I'm pleased to say the start page now includes more search engines - including Ecosia! :evergreen_tree:

https://start.ubuntu-mate.org

(Search engines can be changed from the upper right wrench :wrench: )

1 Like

Unrelated, but what happened to dark mode for that page?

It's part of the CSS spec - so if a compatible browser reports the OS as using a dark theme, then the page automatically switches to the dark theme.

Works perfect on Firefox, but doesn't seem to work on Chromium (Linux) - if it's not playing ball, I'll bring back the manual toggle under the :wrench:.

:bug: I've created an issue so I won't forget.

1 Like

Sweet, it works. Consider that issue closed if you had not already.

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