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Benjamin Schiller, a good friend of mine from Munich, has developed astroCloud, a powerful astrological tool. He is offering it now for free. See below his announcement. By the way, the Anima-Channel recently published a video interview with Benjamin on YouTube. I posted here a short presentation.
astroCloud is a free, multilingual astrology platform for calculating and printing horoscopes. Suitable for beginners, professionals and spiritual astrologers. Natal charts, transits, progressions and directions are supported as well as the Seven Rays or Esoteric Triangles, Nakshatras and Padas, Sabian Symbols. Tropical astrology is supported as well as sidereal astrology.
Methods recommended by Master EK, such as birth correction according to the Hermetic Law or Bigger Day progressions, are available. Horoscopes can be shared in groups.
The Anima-Channel just published a video interview with Benjamin Schiller. Benjamin is a mathematician and an IT specialist, but also an astrologer and a mythologist. He has created smoon, a free app for the daily astro-data, and astrocloud, a powerful innovative astrological software.
Benjamin is a profound thinker living in Munich and he has published several books in German on mythology, astrology and symbolism. He is also a good friend with whom I can exchange in a humorous way.
In this interview, Joan de Bes and Cecilia Gonzales from the Anima team speak with Benjamin about his favourite topics: “The universe is a symbol and astrology is a clock – you always can see how the energy is flowing in the system.” “I don’t like making scientific people believe in astrology. But I guess that the universe, the world is not only existing and thrown away. It is much more. I believe in the idea that everything is a symbol…”
Some days ago, a friend and astrologer from Seattle sent me a photo of a letter of C.G. Jung from a correspondence with professor B.V. Raman, an Indian astrologer / editor from Bangalore dated September 6th 1947. I transformed the photo into a PDF for easier sharing.
In the letter, Jung does the following interesting statements: “Since you want to know my opinion about astrology I can tell you that I’ve been interested in this particular activity of the human mind since more than 30 years. As I am a psychologist I am chiefly interested in the particular light the horoscope sheds on certain complications in the character. In cases of difficult psychological diagnosis I usually get a horoscope in order to have a further point of view from an entirely different angle. I must say that I very often fund that the astrological data elucidated certain points which I otherwise would have been unable to understand. From such experiences I formed the opinion that astrology is of particular interest to the psychologist, since it contains a sort of psychological experience which we call “projected” – this means that we find the psychological facts as it were in the constellations. This originally gave rise to the idea that these factors derive from the stars whereas they are merely in a relation to synchronicity with them. I admit that this is a very curious fact which throws peculiar light on the structure of the human mind. What I miss in astrological literature is chiefly the statistical method by which certain fundamental facts could be scientifically established.
Hoping that this answer meets your request I remain yours sincerely C.G. Jung”
The letter reminds me of the explications Dr. E. Krishnamacharya (Master EK) in his book “Wisdom of the Heavens” (PDF), where he gives excellent explications on the nature of astrology. This might answer what Jung gives as missing in astrological literature about establishing certain fundamental facts statistically:
” ‘Is astrology a science or an art?’ You can further enquire. It is a science while learning and art while applying. It has the same position as that of medicine and law… Healing is an art though medicine is a science. Same is the case with astrology. … When a prescription fails to cure, when a legal advice fails to restore justice, or when a prediction fails to come true, the fault is in the practitioner but not in the science… Man can foresee that there will be a sunrise tomorrow and if he does not kill himself in the name of religion or politics. Such experience forms the basis for the Wisdom of the Heavens. Whenever the basis is illumined by the sacred lamp of pure perception through the torch of quest, there is the development of the astrological science. Through this wisdom, man can foresee the will of his Creator and await His command… We prefer to follow such sciences. We read the symbols of this science and interpret in terms of man’s tendencies, seeds, reactions and results. We teach what we know. We interpret what we see. If man were to talk to His Father it is through the vault of Heavens. The wisdom of the stars should be the language… Astrology is the true key of spiritual wisdom which we call the ‘Science of Man’.”
“…the Midnight Planetarium watch captures Earth and five of its neighbors in the solar system (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) as they revolve around a rose gold Sun. Each planet, represented by a meticulously fashioned ornamental stone, moves at its true pace relative to the Sun: Saturn will take over 29 years to make a complete circuit of the dial, while Jupiter will do the same in just under 12 years, Mars 687 days, Earth 365 days, Venus 224 days and Mercury 88 days. The wearer of the Midnight Planétarium watch can also choose his lucky day: on the selected date, Earth will move to a position directly below the star engraved on the sapphire crystal.”
The website is very well done, with poetic video presentations, even if the prices of the astronomic watches probably will be “in the stars” for you – and me. The two pictures are from their videos (copyright Van Cleef & Arpels) And have a look at their videos – excellently done.
Such watches might also be spiritually understood not just a beauty accessory but as visualising the macrocosm reflecting in the microcosm, and keeping the relation visually present. It is the Science of Correspondences which is at the basis of our relation to the universe.
End of January Benjamin, a friend of mine, sent me a scanned version of a booklet of Master EK (Ekkirala Krishnamacharya) which is no more available in print, at least in the West: “Triangles. An Esoteric Approach”. It is a nice booklet; I had read it about 20 years ago.
I told Benjamin that before putting it online on the WTT website, I would like to speak to Kulapathi Editions, the Indian publisher of Master EK’s books. So I had a hearty Zoom talk with Raju, who takes care of the publications. He agreed that we might organise scans of Master EK’s books which are not digitally available and do as-is reproductions of the print version. And we said that M. EK’s “The Yoga of Patanjali” would be a good starting point, since it also contains the yoga sutras in Sanskrit.
I only had my private copy left; so I sent it to Benjamin. It wasn’t in a good condition. I scanned the cover, cleaned the artefacts and shared it with Benjamin.
Last Sunday we met in an online meeting. There was some noise and someone of the group asked, “Hey, Benjamin, what are you doing?” He replied, “Cutting the Yoga of Patanjali book.” Then he switched his camera on and showed the cover and the pages of the book – apart.
Last Monday, he sent the scanned version, writing:
I did a deep digitizing test with the EK book “The Yoga of Patanjali”. The original book came in a bad quality, but it was the last exemplar you could find. So better than none and a perfect test object for getting a good quality also with heavily used material. The goal was to find an automated process with a minimum of manual (time intensive) operations and most important: a high quality result. As predicted the scan without OCR produced huge files much bigger than 100 MB. With Ghostscript compressing techniques I got a 14MB PDF with a nice cover. I wrote down the complete process for imitation by others. Feel free to distribute the attached PDFs.
Since Benjamin always does things very carefully, he wrote a step-by-step guide to scanning the books. He mainly works on Linux systems, he used free software for the entire process – And the book was very well done; he had cleaned all pages automatically.
So I uploaded the PDFs of the two books – here is the one on Triangles – An Esoteric Approach, and here The Yoga of Patanjali. Profound food for thought. Let me know in case you want to scan another book as proposed – I might send you a copy.
Last Tuesday, I received a parcel from São Paulo, Brazil. It contained several books of Master EK, including a paper version of “The Yoga of Patanjali”. Six years ago, I had sent the books to a friend. She told me she no longer needed them and thus returned them, saying “Certainly someone will be interested”. An incredible coincidence.
With the growth of consciousness, we overcome our personality limitations. The soul breaks the boundaries and becomes limitless. As personalities we are different, as souls we are one. From individual consciousness we grow to group consciousness and to the consciousness of oneness, of BE-ness. BE-ness is beyond boundaries and beyond frames. Artists experiment with accessing to this reality in new ways.
The international art collective teamLab aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world. They want to “transcend the boundaries in our perception of the world, of the relationship between the self and the world, and of the continuity of time. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity of life.”
teamLab is a collaborative group of Japanese artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects. They call themselves “ultratechnologists”. Through collaborative practice they seek “to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, design and the natural world. Various specialists such as artists form teamLab.” (from their “biography“) See here impressions of their artwork.
I normally only post articles written by me. This, however, is an exception – sharing an article of a friend. It is published on the site Radiyam, administered by her. Also in French. Any comments please to her contact address. She wrote in her e-mail: ” Here is a new article to put things in real perspective about the climate change. Too many information are incomplete or distorted. Truth must be heard. Thank you for dispatching it at all levels. With cordial greetings sylvie touranne geographer, life coach, homeopath
“The «Friday strikers», the grouped activists, the young and old alike who are moving around these issues, actually form huge layers of glamourous clouds across the planet. Another pollution. They unfortunately undermine any true action. And this is a pity. For, among them, are innovative individuals with creative ideas and solutions. Those are able to find the right ground to the effective changes on harmful habits.
Talks and comments of all those crowds are quite childish unfortunately. When they are not instrumentalised. Through (pseudo) scientific, economical, or governmental information. It is true that we could forgive the very young pupils their lack of discrimination. But they take ownership of the public road in anarchic ways. And this is more serious. As they do know naught of what it is about. Or so little. Quite far from the right of expression, the right of opinion, and that of gathering in groups.
So, let us be clear and let us start by so-called scientific utopias, relayed by the media in unfortunate «fake news»: struggle against the climate is not possible. To protect the climate is not possible. Lower the mean temperature is not possible. Those talks are an implausability with no scientific substantiation. For scientific measurements, statistics and resulting theories m do not take into account the the time required for realistic values.
Climate is not meteorology.
Climate is not only CO2 in the atmosphere.
Climate and planetary variations must be evaluated upon dozne of centuries, and millenaries.
Planet Earth climate has its source in the Sun evolution and its structure.
The Sun is the key to the climate cycle lived on the ground of Planet Earth.
The Sun is alwas the key when we speak about Life.
The Sun is always the key, when we speak about consciousness and illumination.
Those scientists who avoid the Sun datas and its actual cycle, are not in the stream of real truth.
We are now in a major threefold cycle: terrestrial, solar, galactic.
Which involves multiple changes. In all Life Kingdoms on Earth. And the basic universal law that applies is always the same: conscious advancement, rejuvenation, rebuilding can only operate after the destruction of old forms. What we are witnessing every day. Until we can adapt. The quicker the better.
What MUST CHANGE upon our planet, which plan stops at letter A, regards the environment that we modify by our acts and habits, to overcome. So then the activists are right to move. But with appropriated datas and information that suit such an engagement.
Environmental pollutions and their following disasters are the avoidable consequence of economical and industrial development of the nations. The risks involved are related to the ingorance of functionings, that must be better managed and assured.
But some have understood that they could easily use without restriction nor morality what Nature offers freely, and drain it the most possible: this is the environmental crime !
It exist internationally at all levels.
A gainful economy, so close to the big business of drugs, that reaches amounts around 200 billion dollars… Practices like wood industries (deforestation), pharma and agro-food industries, oil (continental and oceanic), bio technologic industries, waste industry. Benefits have no more limits. But above all, the actors of this criminality gather together very openly at the «must» international reunions, where hyper powers are packed to deliberate on possibilities of «raising the number of zeros» to their criminal practices and growing sales figures, regardless of the environmental impact. This is called the «Green Finance».
Environmental criminality is very mobile, for it follows the national laws, to bypass them easily. More, those organisations assign wherever possible the patenting of Nature’s products for private use. And therefore cut the access of those same products to the populations that live on the concerned territories. The well known examples are the deforestation in Indonesia (huge palm oil plantations) and Amazonia (fields of GMO soja damaging human and animal DNA), and perhaps one of the most serious, the monopolisation of thousands of water sources in a growing number of countries, to manufacture bottle waters, that let the populations without the main life resource. And we can add the «international logistics of waste», contaminated culture soils with pesticids and other chemicals, seed patents for single use, and housing land expropriation for the flourishing extraction of oil from bituminous shale gaz. All those industrial practices are supported by governments. In those conditions, environmental degradation is truly a crime, organised by economical, political, law and scientific actors.
As regarding the individuals, they are more aware of their personal impact and make efforts to change habits daily. But shouting in the street does not change anything so far.
The environmental international criminality (eco-crime) is a planetary open wound. A major harm with total impunity, that affects the general consciousness and creates victims everywhere. And Planet Earth rebells with its instruments: fires, storms, earthquakes.
The interdependence of those illicit activities needs the indispensable and continuous work of a supranational legal frame, concerning the massive violation of environmental laws, directly damaging human rights. The International Criminal Court (ICC) could well be more engaged, since Interpol (International Police Service) has a hunt down and detection department for those environemental mafias.
This is the major way to fight against environmental pollutions and illegal actions, to be removed worldwide.
As for the climate, it will change the main planetary water cycle, inviting us to change again our habits. Because after the repeated raise of temperatures, it will be cold.
It’s a complex matter – best told in story-form. It is not so easy to understand, and when you read it on the web, it is very probable that you quickly scan the text but not read, and when you read, you might just take it in with your cognitive brain, maybe quickly putting a “like” on “social” media but not letting it in. No time! the mind runs like crazy… Recent brain research showed that digital reading is good for cognitive reception but reading on paper is better for transformative knowledge, transforming one’s life. Enough foreword…
The pictures of mobiles in this article are no criticism but done with a smiling eye. I’m also photographing a lot – with a camera. In case of personality complaints, please let me know and I will exchange the photo….
The group travelling to Bangalore airport
An introduction
This is not a private story about an aspect aof my life, but I use this perspective as an intro for the main story, which comes later:
I stopped seeing TV around 9/11, in 2001, sometimes seeing a movie in a plane, very little YouTube. I prefer reading newspaper articles, going into what I read. I intensely follow what is going on in the world. Already as a child, I had very strong inner images which later led me to painting; when reading a book, I quickly “fell into it”. And when looking a crime story, the suspense frequently made me run out of the room.
Selfies in Pithapuram
In my former profession as head of web office of Swiss Red Cross, I was responsible for all digital communication instruments as per their content side – internet, intranet, central photo archives – until I was “set free” seven years ago, free for my way. There already, people used to run around with mobile. I felt, it would be too overwhelming for my perception, blurring my discrimination. As an excuse, I used to tell that my hearing was not good – it was only half true. I didn’t want to get into “digital morphine”, putting people’s inner side with hyperaction to sleep. Now they talk in the media about the need for digital detox, offering courses for managers about digital fasting.
During the last decade, mobiles made a triumphal march over the globe, entering into remotest corners. I could not escape, didn’t want to be a dinosaur refusing it. I’m extremely active with PC and, when travelling, with laptop. No quick photo publication – selected views, images cut-out and processed. Since some years, we have a family mobile, we just use it “immobile” at home, as a “modem” to enter into WhatsApp. My wife using it as a means for her trance therapy work, working remotely with people who don’t have a computer or don’t physically come. And me for interacting with family members and WTT. Since years, however, I’m studying the digital marketing tricks of big data business and follow the latest developments via a daily newsletter. So I came to see the big players as monsters, some of them massively manipulating, with a mask of innocence, elections and political decision. Making big money with little to no ethics. “Do no harm” of early Google is no longer at use.
No need for fear when reading the following passages, it will come to a good end of the story!
Fire ritual
In Europe, governments and data privacy protection offices are trying to fight the supranational Hydras, often without success. The big players are very powerful. Especially the Mark Zuckerberg Empire stands foremost in the manipulation game, from the very beginning, – denying it in public, putting on a smiling face. And everybody uses WhatsApp – in WTT it is used especially in India for bringing plenty of pictures and information “for free” to the members, who need to join to “follow”. You cannot escape when you want to follow.
Nobody thinks of what is being done with the data – things which are directly opposite to the principles the WTT stands for: Big scale image recognition, profiling people, targeting ads, delivering content individually tailored for the personality profile of the receiver to most effectively manipulate on a mass scale. Yesterday, the media reported: “Facebook policy chief Nick Clegg reaffirms the social network’s decision to continue allowing advertising with political content. Twitter and Google, however, have banned politically motivated ads on their platforms.” Not to speak of what China, the biggest player, does. Incredible “total immersion”, keeping over a billion people under central control – for the “well-being of the state”.
One of the latest developments is voice recognition based marketing, analysing all what is communicated via speech – for better targeting ads etc., combining mobile data with the behaviour portraits of the surfers.
Distribution of sewing machinges to unemployed women
About two years ago, while uploading photos to Google Photo, I saw a function for identifying friends. I wrote the name of a friend – and I got hundreds of photos with her in most intimous situations, at group lives, while travelling – often, I did not recognise her face at first sight, but Google did. And these were not pictures she had uploaded. Data protection, privacy? A joke. Digital profiling in a mass scale. Yesterday, the media reported that 3 billion photos were sucked off the web by a private Silicon Valley company with a big investor. We try to comply on WTT related websites with European data protection standards but these trends go directly against.
Ritual at a Ganesha statue at Tekkali Village
At the recent seminars in India – like at the last international group lives – the entire ongoing group communication was done via mobile and WhatsApp – when, where, what is happening – it is so practical, and all have a mobile. Except me, I think. I didn’t want to be washed away by an overkill of information, not only via this channel but by other people trying to contact me this way. They can do it via e-mail. The triage of relevant and irrelevant information needs time and energy and deviates the focus I’m trying to uphold. At the seminar, I told two friends to keep me updated. It worked fine. I even once spoke with my wife via mobile WhatsApp of a friend – my laptop didn’t get connection or only a very low one, for a week. (Later, I got a mobile internet connection from the group of WTT India for the communication activities, a great help.)
Already at December Call celebration in Bangalore, Master Kumar said:
“The teachings of every hierarchy member shall have to be related to. You have no more time for mobile, for silly messages. They are all silly messages from people with experience. There are very silly messages through WhatsApp. You are wasting your time and wasting others time. It is meant to send a simple communication, not to use it because it is free. If they charged 100 rupees for every message, everything would stop. Calls also have become free with WhatsApp. So you call to America and speak for 30-40-50 minutes. Sheer waste of time and energy. Instead why can you not relate to this which is the higher dimension relating to Hierarchy. Hierarchy is the highest dimension relating to humanity and we think we are following some kind of discipleship.”
Recently, a scientist wrote in a Swiss magazine: “When you want to do something effective against global warming, stop taking selfies” – all the infrastructure behind consumes tremendous amounts of energy. Especially the endless Netflix etc. stream entertainment – an easy way to anesthetize your brain.
An Indian group member at Tekkali photographing the group of Westerners
At the January WTT seminar in Visakhapatnam, things got more intense for me, utmost intensity. Most sublime teachings, multi-directional inputs from people, intense talks with key persons, developing ideas for future developments, for projects. At a question-answer session, I gave a strong word of warning to the group as per the use of WhatsApp etc. There was a good reply by Sri Kumar, here are my notes:
“In humanity there is always an abuse; abuse is common because there is ignorance. Men of knowledge are few, people are stuck by one side or the other. A roller-coaster situation, abuse is about to happen… Humanity is the only species which has discrimination. See what is relevant to us; whatever is relevant to us is not relevant to others. We might be in a huge jungle, we can’t change the whole jungle except by prayer. Immediately it will have an impact on us. It will take time from humanity.
There is some negative coming out of humanity, very few use discrimination. We see what is relevant and what is irrelevant. It is very well possible. That is why we need to grow with discriminative will. We get more guided by conscience, discriminative will.
At Tekkali Village
Whatever Ludger said is in every dimension of humanity, not only in internet – gold invented, misused, slowly balanced. In the 2nd half of last century, the use of fertilizers, they did great harm to the agriculture. Sometimes we learn through ignorance, through foolishness, we make experiments, experiments settle as wisdom. We keep learning by this example, … health is gone from humans and animals, we realise, slowly there is a direction in the production into another direction. Now they have realised that smoking has a very negative impact on health, still some are smoking, smoking; non-smokers were more affected by smoking. We need to change the planet to an understanding what is a right understanding. “I don’t use it” – not using is not a solution, right use is important.
The world offers many things, be discriminate, develop the conscience, don’t send messages of WhatsApp, when there is no relevance for you, don’t look at it. That is how we use discrimination, use meditation as means to calm down, to develop inner consciousness, the antaratma (inner self), that will help to eliminate certain activities in relation to us and to the group.
We don’t have to criticise, that is Aquarian. We get into the subtler side, it is Aquarian. Make an appropriate use of the right side and don’t get into the (wrong one). The more and more you are negative, judgemental about others – we don’t touch what is black – the more and more we discuss about it, we strengthen it. Don’t get into the path of ignorance, look for light everywhere and don’t get into darkness.
The black ones try to use the others to propagate them. The negativity in us is a deception. … We as students of goodwill see the light side of it, don’t criticise the dark side of it. … You slowly disassociate from people but do not entertain the negative side, if you entertain it it is in you. Be neutral to the negative and be attractive to the positive side. That is how we need to take to the positive side. Make a good use of the good side of the developments coming to us, it is contributing to human progress. In science there is open thinking, but the sciences are under the thumb of the barbarians on the planet who control the whole of humanity. We don’t have to deny the sciences; take the positive side of all the science. Let it be so with all of us.”
At Tekkali Village
A member from Spain introduced me to Microsoft Teams, explaining to me how he uses it for his course organisation and interaction, the structure set up by a friend. Chat and collaboration instruments, file sharing, and video calling. And it runs on PC/laptop/mobile without being bound to mobile. I found it thrilling, thought, “what’s the catch for Microsoft to give the basic version for free?” I know that Microsoft is a much more integer player when it comes to dealing with data. I had several discussions with IT specialists of WTT. It seems to be a way out of the challenge of using digital instruments for group work, interchange and collaboration. Of course, there are also other tools. Plenty of ideas rushed in. It will take time to evaluate and test. I started testing the app but: “Take to turtle speed, not the speed of a rabbit.”
Last year, I had a strong warning as per my health with a brain bleeding. I realised, I have to slow down, take away pressure. This is most needed, especially in the present time and with the present challenges. I’m daily walking for a while in nature, ponder and observe. Keeping longer times of silence to centre inside. The inner guidance will lead through the times of rough weather.
In all of this, I had to think of the story from Puranas of Aghasura, the enormous serpent-demon which wanted to devour Krishna and his friends. The cowherd boys innocently entered its mouth, mistaking it for a mountain cavern. After seeing this, Krishna then came to their rescue, killing Aghasura. In a way, the mobiles look like the many heads of a serpent devouring the attention. But help comes, when you turn inward and stay strongly aligned to the soul.
The last months, many roads and footpaths in our community were digged up. Also the pavement in front of our house was opened for a while: A fiber optic cable network is being installed successively in all quarters: ‘fiber to home’ – also to our home.
The marketing slogans highlight: “With fiber optics you surf faster and more stable; you can consume data over several devices at the same time – watch movies, play games or book holidays…”
Consuming data – until indigestion? Yes; I will also profit from it. And I observed what was going on – with the streets and with me.
The roads were opened, work was going on, the cables installed,the roads were closed again. And you could see some traces on the roads.
A little later, the roads and pavements were tarred and the wounds of the surface disappeared again. The cables were inside, ‘implanted’.
It made me think of the nadi system, the subtle energy network in our body which is not visible to the physical eye but which you can trace in meditation. Medical science considers them as inexistent but yoga science explains their details – if you try to dissect a magnet, you won’t find the magnetic field nor see any electron-magnetic waves but you can discover their functioning.
Of course, the fiber optic cables are more dense than the nadis, you will find them in the streets. But just like the subtle lines of force the cables are part of a great network of intelligence steering our consciousness.
The flood of stimulations is increasing. Information and the stories of the next generation multi-channel entertainment will do their best to keep us attracted – whereto?
Reflections of oil after tarring on a gully
It is difficult to withdraw the attention, to find the way through the hyper-active vibrations inside and outside. To discover the inner light and life.
But that is what is nourishing, not the maelstrom of busy-busy-busy. We need to learn swimming against the stream which is powerfully rushing from all sides. To turn inward, again and again, regularly and persistently .
A kind of wilful stimulation fasting helps keeping away from unnecessary pace-makers. You will be rewarded with experiencing your Self and the greater whole of life.
Oil reflections mirroring the sky – and me photographing
Yesterday, a friend from Germany rang me up and enthusiastically told me about Ecosia, a free search engine that uses its profits to plant trees. Their business model: “You search the web with Ecosia. Search ads generate income for Ecosia. Ecosia uses this income to plant trees.”
I first was a bit sceptical – it sounded interesting but what is behind and how does it perform?
I looked up in Wikipedia: “Ecosia is an Internet search engine based in Berlin, Germany, that plants trees by donating 80% or more of its surplus income to non-profit organizations that focus on reforestation and conservationism. Ecosia considers itself a social business, is CO2-negative, claims to support full financial transparency, protects the privacy of its users, and is certified by B-Lab as a benefit corporation.The website maintains a running total of the number of trees planted. According to their website, as of 14 August 2019, the search engine had been responsible for the planting of more than 64 million trees.”
Photo (c) Ecosia
I wondered how they can manage to present a search engine powerful enough in the competition with the big data octopus Google, which has gone far away from their earlier motto “do no harm”. But they have a strong partner- the search results for Ecosia are provided by Microsoft Bing, the second largest search engine in the US, after Google, enhanced by the company’s own algorithms. By the way, when you search on Ecosia “xxx #w”, it directly gives you the related Wikipedia article.
Other questions of mine were answered in their FAQ section: Ecosia’s servers run on 100% renewable energy, and every search request removes 1kg of CO2 from the atmosphere (also Bing is carbon neutral). They don’t sell the user data to advertisers, have no third party trackers and anonymize all searches within one week. They even publish their monthly financial reports, so you see exactly where the income from your searches goes.
Easy removing of traces, by water…
So, I have now changed to Ecosia in my browers and bookmarked it. If you are using Android devices, you might have difficulties of setting Ecosia from 2020 on, as Wikipedia informs:
“As of 21 August 2019, Search Engine Land reported that Ecosia will not participate in the “search-choice” auction to appear on Android devices led by Google. This means that in 2020 European Android phone users will not have the option to set Ecosia as a default search engine. Christian Kroll explained the boycott decision saying: “We’re deeply disappointed that Google has decided to exploit its dominant market position in this way. Instead of giving wide and fair access, Google have chosen to give discrimination a different form and make everyone else but themselves pay, which isn’t something we can accept.” Applications to participate in the “search-choice” auction are due in mind-September.” (2019)
