Privacy settings on the Ecosia browser
At Ecosia, we care about your privacy, in our search engine and our browser likewise. This article shows you how to manage privacy settings within the Ecosia browser.
In this article you can find:
Ecosia privacy panel
The Privacy Panel is a feature integrated into the Ecosia browser designed to enhance user privacy and their control over online activities. It serves as a centralized hub for various privacy settings and tools, allowing you to customize your browsing experience. It can be accessed via the address bar and in the browser settings under “Privacy and Security”.
Website security
The privacy panel will inform you about whether your connection is secure on the website you are currently visiting.
Anti-fingerprinting
Some websites use fingerprinting to uniquely identify a user's browser and track their online activity, even if they clear their cookies or switch to a different browser.
We can protect your unique browser fingerprint by randomizing it. This is done by changing the values of certain browser properties. It's important to note that while this can help to protect your privacy, it may also cause some websites to function improperly, as they rely on these properties to function correctly.
Ad blocking and Trackers
On the left side of the panel, you can see how many ads and trackers have been blocked. This is done automatically by us based on blocklists. It won’t break websites and we update the blocklists frequently.
Cookie blocker
The cookie blocker on the right side of the panel shows the number of third-party cookies that have been blocked on a webpage. The feature may not work on sites as some sites require the download of third-party cookies to function properly.
If you are unfamiliar with cookies, we invite you to read our guide.
For the cookie blocker, the ad and the trackers blocker, it is possible to whitelist some domains. All ecosia.org sites are whitelisted from the beginning.
Cookie manager
The cookie manager allows you to automatically accept essential cookies on every website. You'll see the cookie manager opt-in message on the first site you visit with the Ecosia browser.
If you turn on the cookie manager, it will attempt to reject on your behalf all non-essential cookies of sites that you visit. There is no 100 % success rate as there are some websites that don’t share the way their cookie banner is displayed.
You can always turn it off at a later stage in your Ecosia browser settings under privacy and security.
