Forestle facts for kids

Forestle was a special website that helped people find information on the internet. It was created in 2008. What made Forestle unique was its mission to help save the rain forest and reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) pollution. It also had cool features, like showing you a small picture of a website before you clicked on it.

Forestle: Helping Our Planet

Forestle helped protect the environment in two main ways.

Saving the Rainforest

For every search done on Forestle, about 0.1 square meters (or 0.1 square yards) of rain forest were saved. Forestle earned money from showing advertisements next to search results. They promised to donate 90% of this money to buy parts of the rain forest. Their partner organization for this was called The Nature Conservancy. By October 2009, Forestle had helped save almost 2 million square meters of rain forest!

Reducing Carbon Dioxide

Using Forestle for your searches was also essentially CO₂-neutral. This means it didn't add extra carbon dioxide to the air. Of course, the computers and networks used for searching need energy, which can create CO₂. But Forestle bought special certificates for renewable energy. These certificates showed that an equal amount of clean energy was put back into the system. This made Forestle one of the few "green certified" search websites.

Forestle offered a simple way to search the web while also helping the environment.

Cool Features of Forestle

Forestle had some neat tools to make searching easier and more fun.

Website Previews

One special feature was the website preview. When you searched, Forestle would show you small pictures of the websites it found. This way, you could see what a page looked like before you even clicked on it. It helped you decide if it was the right link.

Simple Search Page

The main search page for Forestle was very simple. It had a clear box where you could type your search words. Below that, you would see your search results. There were also a few links to other helpful services, like Google Maps, and explanations about how Forestle worked.

Browser Tools and Languages

Forestle also offered special tools called browser plugins. You could add these to your internet browser to make searching with Forestle even easier. It could also be added to iGoogle. Forestle was available in English and German, and partly in Spanish and Dutch.

Forestle's Search Partners

When Forestle first started, it used the search services of Google. However, after only four days, Google stopped working with Forestle. Forestle then partnered with Yahoo.