Browse Green

In honor of Earth Day today, I have been exploring what is being touted as the new eco browser: Flock Eco. That's right, the creators of Netscape and Flock have brought us an ecologically friendly version of the popular social browser. The premise is that you can help the planet while you surf the web.

It works using the same basic concept as the original: the Mozilla FireFox engine with a Yahoo search component and social elements. Flock Eco comes with several popular and useful ecologically friendly sites pre loaded, however. From top green site feeds to green shopping such as hybrid cars and all natural clothes, as well as green advice from sites like Treehugger showing right as you log in, Flock Eco goes out of its way to make green web surfing easy.

As you use Flock Eco, ten percent of any proceeds on the browser go to the eco-charity of your choice. That's a nice incentive for green shopping, and a great way to get people to give back to the planet by purchasing green products and benefitting others at the same time. think of what ten percent of an organic lotion or other small purchase can add up to if you do all of your ecologically friendly shopping using Flock Eco (and think of the contribution if you used it to buy something larger, like a hybrid car).

You can download the version appropriate to your computer over on the official Flock Eco site. It is currently being offered for both Windows and Mac. I've been using it all day, getting the latest Earth Day news from sites like Ecorazzi and tips and advice on how to go green from Treehugger. I am loving the pre loaded sites - for someone like me who is not as well versed in green issues, it is like having a shortcut to the best ecological knowledge on the web without having to wade through mountains of unrelated information searching for it myself, plus, with Flock I can share what I find with my friends and spread the green awareness.