Software alternatives

Lots of these are still American, and Bluesky isnt any-less of a walled garden, they just haven't reached enshitification-critical-mass yet.

OP, quite a few of these are still American, some open source, some not. It's more like a generic list of alternatives to mainstream.

Bluesky absolutely belongs in the left column.

It's not Transparent, Decentralized or Open Source.

It is a centralized social media network exactly like Twitter. The only 'open' part is a protocol that lets you interact with their, private, service.

The fact that it is 'open source' is largely a red herring, if Bluesky decides to no longer support their protocol then it is worthless. It cannot simply be forked and remain useful.

Bluesky is simply engaging in a PR campaign to steal customers from Twitter. It is exactly the same as Twitter in all of the ways that matter. It can be purchased by Musk or manipulated by the existing owner in the same way as Twitter.

Making a Bluesky account is simply trusting a new corporation to not act like a corporation in the future... which is a pretty naive position.

Ecosia is not open source, or decentralized. It is a private search engine based in Germany that provides search results from the major search engines and sells advertisements via Yahoo and Microsoft ad networks. These ad networks are part of Surveillance Capitalism and earn their money primarily by spying on you, collating your data and selling it/using it to place ads.

Stremio is largely a piece of software used to funnel people into paying for monthly for pirate streaming services. It's not getting rid of Netflix or Disney+, it's giving you the option of paying Russian or North Korean supported cybergangs instead of Netflix for access to streaming content.

The real open source alternative is Jellyfin. Then using qBittorrent along with Sonarr and Radarr to self-host your own media server.

The other suggestions are mostly okay with minor gripes.

• They could add GrapheneOS as an Android alternative.
• Linux Mint is not a bad option but 'What Linux Distro should we recommend to new people' is a contentious topic in the community, Mint is fine but there are other options (EndeavourOS is Arch Linux installed with the Calamares graphical installer and some sane options for a desktop PC, btw)
• While Signal isn't 'open source'. It is, for the moment, a secure option that doesn't require a lot of user knowledge to setup. It is a vastly superior choice than using social media for messaging without requiring a lot of technical knowledge on the user's part.

lol… Brave… Come on man.

Fucking brave shows it's ugly head again. The only thing worse than a browser owned by a greedy corpo is a browser that is owned by two greedy corpos, one of which is mostly a crypto scam corpo.

Revanced is just a cracked YouTube app isn't it?

I don’t think BlueSky is a great alternative, it’s still American and also still pretty big tech

Suggesting linux mint specifically is good. Linux is overwhelming to new users, don't give them choice paralysis too.

Ecosia is a German web search engine based on Bing and Google's index.
Qwant is a French web search engine based on Bing but which has been working on its own index for a while.
I just found out that Ecosia and Qwant started teaming up last year to build a European search index. I hope something will come out of it. https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/

PeerTub is developped by French non-profit Framasoft, which also develops multiple de-gooling apps: collaborative docs, forms, agenda, or host other open-source collaboration tools. https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/

I like how it starts with getting off Twitter and trying out Lemmy and ends with switching to Linux.

While this list is itself could use a major rework, I'm happy to see that this list, originally posted on reddit specifically, gives visibility to lemmy as a reddit alternative.

Lichess instead of chess(dot)com.

Thanks to another post in this community I found out about and it is great.

• Open source
• No ads
• unlimited puzzels from real games
• No constant message to buy premium
• All the finances are public

You can donate to the project, if you have the means and enjoy the app please do.

signal is a good option for messaging. it is technically american, but i feel like FOSS projects should generally get a pass.

also, as an american who is very not okay with what our (russia's) government (puppet) is doing, wouldn't supporting non-american businesses mean paying the tariffs and supporting the oligarchs? i'm not really sure what us yanks can do besides just trying not to spend ANY money.

Reminder: Stremio can use Torrents. Be aware of your local laws before enabling Torrent addons.

Threema is a swiss based messenger which e2e encryption.

Where is my beloved son f-droid?

Linux Mint is the simplest Linux distro if you come from Windows, unless there are others that recommendation is pretty much accurate.

Anyone else who uses other distros on a daily basis will simply skip that recommendation.

This is the pic that made me join

Brave 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

I strongly support Homeassistant. The sheer amount of features they've added and the community built around it make it a no brainer for home automation.

Why are brave, lineage os and youtube revanced there, but not aurora store

I feel like there would be value in having a "self hosted" column or tag. Like I think jellyfin should be on this list but if I went to switch from a streaming service to a self hosted jellyfin I'd be immediately upset that this list isn't offering alternatives that are "ready to play" so to speak.

Just a friction point deterrence.

Maybe add Signal; It’s easier than Element, but it’s also centralized

signal runs on amazon servers. Anything that can't self host and isn't federate isn't worth it. Matrix (and element) fill this requirement. But IMHO, the best is XMPP where you can self-host or use federated servers located in other countries.

Maybe add Delta chat

Delta chat is basically email.

Remove Stremio

Why? Because it's torrents?

Other alternatives would be viaplay or britbox. Unfortunately there's no legal alternative that's available in all europe.

Add aurora

Aurora is just a front-end for google playstore. You should add f-droid

I saw a different one recently on Reddit:

By this user.

Add SearxNG as a search engine option.

Self hosted software shouldnt be on the list. Self hosted software is its own glorious list which can be used by the technically inclined. The average user is not going to run a server at home, nor should they without knowing what they are doing.

And why is revanced here? Thats just youtube with removed ads. Thats not moving away from youtube, its youtube with extra steps. Its going to hurt but we will have to move away from youtube, not just squint and pretend we did.

fuck brave

Lineage OS doesn't support Bootloader Re-locking (well tbf that's a manufacturer issue) and Verified Boot, so its a huge security issue. Like, if you want to avoid google and have security, Graphene OS is the only real option for a phone, which ironically, is only available on a Google Phone 🙃

Netflix... ---> thepiratebay[DOT]org (replace [DOT] with a dot) 🏴‍☠️😉 (might need a VPN since some countries block it, and you wouldn't want to torrent without a VPN anyways)

And Briar for messaging (Android Only). It's all Peer-to-Peer, and doesn't go through ANY central servers, maximum independence. And censorship resistant because of default Tor usage, and also local Bluetooth synching for like mass protests, in case your government also gets a bit... fascist... and shut down the internet.

if you know its a faulty picture, why didnt you edit it?

Omg, Stremio without VPN is the worst advise ever. This graphic could do get innocent pirates fined and then they'll just think there was no alternative!!

I get the desire to post "simple" answers like this. And while some of the recommends do make sense... I believe the lists should be better researched. A few other comments also pointed out some of the issues already.

I've noticed with a lot of these lists that worse/unreasonable/less private/less secure/not even European or FOSS are being recommended as alternatives and I think they do more harm than good for people that might need genuine help making this process more simple. They also tend to miss a lot of excellent alternatives.

For what it's worth, these lists oversimplify and can't take into account individual needs, so own research is always necessary IMO.

For me, it's paramount that the software we use is secure and privacy respecting / transparent. A great resource for good recommendations is: privacyguides.org .

I see that this is focused on foss alternatives streaming wise I would suggest mubi and your local library which often include streaming services. At least here in Germany.

The phrase about freedom and convenience in the OP image reminds me of what France's foreign minister recently said about Europe's relationship with the USA:

We are faced with a choice that is imposed on us, between effort and freedom, or comfort and servitude

Nextcloud is not the same as Google Drive. Element is not the same as Netflix. Recommending bluesky as a replacement for X is at least misleading, it is neither European nor free nor is it anywhere near better than X.

Edit: Stremio comparison with Netflix wanted to say

Why is blue sky in the right side column? It’s the same thing as X.

Revanced is cool and all, but there are alternatives. One of them is Newpipe and its forks, it's my personal favourite. Pretty sure 95% of people here already know it. But fyi, they have their own associated little nonprofit organisation based in Germany, the Newpipe e.V., which I found out about only recently and thought was pretty neat.

Currently on mobile and hardly working. Can somebody please do an edit removing fakeogtwitter and the homophobecrytofascistbrowser from this list? The send it to op for replacement. Please and thank you. Cheers.

So as someone who recently went from MacOS to Linux (at least partially) Mint is terrible for macOS users. It is like going back to windows. I get it is the easiest for Windows users but maybe add a row for Macos to Fedora or something (but maybe it is too complicated, I just know most mac users would scoff at Mint's interface).

I would add SimpleX, Session, Threema, and Signal. Telegram sucks, and while I love the stickers, it sucks. As the other person said, Stremio is torrenting, which puts your IP address on as billboard. Don’t do it without a VPN or running it through Tor or I2P. I would add every Proton/Tuta product as an alternative to one of the 3000 Google products, like Gmail and Drive. However, I will ALWAYS recommend privacyguides.org ;3

Delta Chat is European and is better alternative for messaging apps

Fun that Element is on the list, while there is a 3rd bill attempt in a year to forbid or bypass encryption in instant messaging. Europe maybe not as fascist as US or Russia, it's still is a shitty capitalist and imperialist place.

Also add Fairphone (Netherlands) and Nothing (UK) as alternatives to iPhone and other Androids.

Any good euro alternatives for adobe suite?

Seriously add Signal, seconding your bullet point. It hits a great sweet spot of privacy and convenience for convincing people who are hesitant about new apps.

https://simplex.chat/

This is the alternatives that I use:

X - Mastodon | YouTube - PC Youtube with uBlock Origin, android ReVanced | Netlix, Disney+ - Stremio (With VPN!) | Google Search - Qwant Startpage | Google Drive - Proton Drive | Google Chrome - Mullvad, Librewolf and Brave (with crypto stuf disabled) | Messaging apps - Session (<3) | Google Android - LineageOS | Windows, MacOS - Linux Mint or Fedora with KDE | Microsoft Office - LibreOffice | VPN - Mullvad (or proton vpn) | Google Maps - Wego.here.com or en.mapy.cz | Google Maps Navigation (Waze) - Sygic or TomTom AmiGO | Google Translate - DeepL | Google Gmail - Tutanota or Proton Mail | Google Authenticator - Ente Auth or Aegis | Password Manager - Bitwarden or KeePass | ChatGPT - Mistral Le Chat |

I recently moved Gmail, Google Docs and Sheets, Google Keep (tasks) and Drive to Mailbox.org. It's super affordable and works really well. You can edit docs/sheets online or offline. No self-hosting required. I recommend it. It's located in Germany.

Yeet Brave & element. add jabber and irc. Swap mint 4 fedora atomic.

I recently found edupad.ch for collaborative writing.

It's very simple, and - most important of all - doesn't require an account.

I'm using it for the first time, so I don't have much of a review, but the first impression is very good for my use case.

I use Nextcloud as a similar way as Google Drive or Google Photos. But it's self-hosted and not for the mass.

I would recommend a mail service for drive. Most are quite stingy with storage. Mailbox.org or Infomaniak.

My problem with Jellyfin is that I'd need something like Google Chromecast for it. AFAIK all those dongles are American. Raspberry pi doesn't cut it unfortunately.

Signal and US based non profits are not ok. their gov can still access data and chatgpt used to be non profit now majorly owned by Microsoft and privately. Just find full European alternatives

I want to see Koofr up there among the clouds.

Element is owned by a company and likes to collect a shit load of data... i'll never understand people that vouch for matrix

It doesn't show in this list, but I recently found Odysee. Can it be also an alternative to YouTube?

Why is no one mentioning Delta as alternative chat app? it is neat, has bots and mini apps, multi device too.

Mojeek for search

So that includes Firefox- their privacy rules have recently changed. We need a Europe based Europe made ideally non profit so can’t be sold to US browser and search engine. Chromium based or Firefox forks don’t count because they can claim some ownership or take data. We want full quarantine separation, it’s like a disease

pCloud and pCloud pass to replace Dropbox and 1Password respectively… They also offer a lifetime paymeny option, less subscriptions!

Maybe add Delta chat SimpleX (and Signal of course)

What's the alternative for gmail / Google calendar etc.

Where Google maps?