The full guide to switching from big US tech to supporting more ethical and EU-based companies! (Redone with OSs added)
Some really weird suggestions.
Free Software does not have a country of origin.
Can you ellaborate the Linux Distros? I'm considering switching from Windows to Linux and currently informing myself about the different distros. Why are they better than Mint and Ubuntu or what is wrong with them?
Hi there, good luck! Maybe I can help.
I hyperfocused a bit on this question and made a structured post about it.
https://slrpnk.net/post/21305064
I hope you like it!
This guide is weird. It suggests to replace US products by other US products
sometime it’s better, for example signal is more popular as an alternative and value more privacy. But if you want to go a step further then you can go use less popular tools.
I didn’t switch yet because I don’t own replace messenger and whatsapp by 3-4 new product..
@FallenWalnut Great List! You can add Cozy Cloud (storage) and Mailo (email), very nice services.
I think federated vs cetralised should be a classification for social media platforms
Profit Share missing for Ecosia.
The incomplete guide...
Cryptpad, ONLYOFFICE, Fennec, Mullvad Browser, Librewolf, Thunderbird, FairEmail, SimpleX, Lemmy, Peertube
Bluesky? Wtf
Very true. Good products
I cannot recommend Internxt their software and servers are buggy.
The desktop app (on Linux at least) would give lots of errors and refuse to upload files. In addition some uploaded files were corrupted when trying to download them.
I like their idea and philosophy but at the moment their excecution is quite poor making the product unrealiable.
I prefer Only Office (Desktop Version) to Libre Office, because
I heared Only Office has some Russian connections. Otherwise it still is Open Source.
@Wrdlbrmpfd @FallenWalnut Why don’t you try Free Office? It has a free tier and it’s German.
Seems ok, but it seems to be a dowgraded version from a commercial product. If there is a good Open Soruce product, I prefer that.
SoundCloud always missing wtf???
WTF!!!!!!'
Lol 😂
You do a great job! 👏 Thank you!
I think the hardest part are mobile OS 😔
Beside : eOS, sailfish and postmarket we have a long way...
Yes, but it turns out you can do a lot of 'switching' even if you can give up on android or iOS straight away. I follesdd this guide for degoogling my Samsung, not done yet but feels like I made some good changes: https://androides.nl/degoogle-guide/
Though large part is already covered by switching services / apps
• Operating system
OpenSuse
👉Here is explained: https://privsec.dev/posts/linux/choosing-your-desktop-linux-distribution
• Messenger
Simplex
Isn't Waterfox quite slow on the updates?
I've been using LibreWolf, but I've been meaning to try out Zen
Zen has quite a steep learning curve, especially wjith workspaces and such. It’s a cool concept, but I switched back to Librewolf out of convenience and a leaner ux.
Sadly there's no librewolf on mobile.
there's IronFox
the legend is incomplete. what's red? what's the globe icon? how come some products marked not majority EU owned have the EU flag?
how come some products marked not majority EU owned have the EU flag?
The EU flag is used here for the whole Europe (see the top-right corner), but "not majority EU owned" is specifically looking at the EU, which is very confusing. So Vivaldi being Norwegian and Canonical being British stick out.
I will try to answer these, and hope someone corrects any potential innaccuracy:
what's red?
There is a comment there saying "see deep-dive for details" so the red-highlight caveat is likely explained there.
what's the globe icon?
My assumption is that icon just indicates Free/Open-Source projects which have no "owning company" (not "based" anywhere), just globally scattered contributors.
how come some products marked not majority EU owned have the EU flag?
My guess (merely a guess) is that those are run by EU-based companies, but which don't have a solid policy guaranteeing "majority of shareholders are in the EU" (...?)
Great guide, thanks! Will start converting (where not already through with it).
Maybe someone can help with this topic: Is there any EU-based live map service (including traffic jams and road work and the likes)? I already use OSM but that doesn't (can't by design as far as I know) include live information.
Try Here We Go (https://wego.here.com/), it is owned by a bunch of car companies.
@FallenWalnut
Bookmarked and boosted!
Is there a European Netflix or Youtube?
I think its called BitTorrent.
@FallenWalnut We cancelled our Netflix subscription yesterday. One of the relatively few US services we used. Maybe I will miss a few series but:
There is enough to fill a life of leisure without Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime and the rest of the brain time suckers.
@FallenWalnut
Fedora could also appear in user friendly Linux 😊
Edit: Argh ok Red Hat...
I wish I'd seen this in Feb when I started #DeApple -ing.
Kagi search engine is absolutely the best thing: you can sort results by RECENCY. And DDG's AI is dangerously wrong.
For phones, #GrapheneOS, just out of the box, is pretty darned good.
I found #Ubuntu had slightly fewer niggly-problems than #Mint. I'd consider that an equal endorsement of both, as my setup is weird.
All in all, a great list, sharing to my entire family.
Appreciate it! Makes putting these guides worth it.
Remember there are deep-dive guides for each category. I recommend that people take this transission one week at a time!
phones
GrapheneOS is for Google Pixels only, the ones with the questionable security chip: https://lemmy.world/post/27344091 (point 5). Of course you should install if you have one.
I went with /e/ OS in a non-American phone.
@FallenWalnut Tja. Only that couple of my favorite games are windows only.
I do not want to start a discussion about Linux since I'm no expert and a million of Linux experts will know better.
But don't all the suggested distros here (as well any user friendly ones in general) rely on the kernel written by Torvald's team. With that team being based in the US and at least Linus himself having acted as a three letter agency asset before, can they really be called privacy friendly or even secure? (I'm talking about the CIA or NSA having had a backdoor into Linux in the past and Linus also having banned Russian contributions last year while not banning American contributions, much less moving the operation outside of the US)