Poster found on /r/BuyFromEU

Never would I have thought Lemmy would advocate installing Linux.

Why?
- It meme

Signal is American

Opt for a Matrix or XMPP provider in Europe (magicbroccoli.de is a genuinely great XMPP provider)

While Signal's home base is the US, they are a non profit org that doesn't operate in the same way as for-profit corporations. Also, Signal collects basically zero data so there's no incentive to sell out, and who would want to buy them anyway when they have no data and the server and client are open source.

Matrix is great, but I wouldn't compare it to Signal. I use both for very different purposes.
- Agree with the sentiment against signal. However, Matrix is terrible for anyone who doesn't want to bother with reading up on several hours of information just to use a text messenger. I will start reccomanding Matrix the moment someone actually manages to produce a feature complete client with usable UI/UX.
- XMPP is more comparable to Signal, yes.
  
  Signal does need (yes, need) a phone number, and most people only have one so that is identifiable info.
  
  This puts it at mostly the same level as some competitors, including WhatsApp which is often advised against.
- Signal will operate until Elon Musk decides that everyone has to use X to communicate.
Also simplex is a good alternative, it's decentralized:)
- This? https://https/://simplex.chat/
  
  FWIW Matrix and XMPP are also decentralised, much like e-mail is, which is why I recommended it. I'm immediately skeptic about SimpleX's premise of having no user IDs; they'll likely need some unique field for each user, this might as well be a UUID or something like that... So what's the benefit?

librewolf is still dependent on firefox for development, just like vivaldi is on chrome. there is no european web browser.

For FF and Chromium to, their source is open so if there ever was a need to make it fully European, it would be doable. Or did I miss something? (novice question, here)
- in addition to the other reply, the teams working on browsers are massive. over 500 developers for each, and that's only the core teams without external contributors. you don't just put together a team like that in an afternoon.
- The problem is that Librewolf, ungoogled chromium etc are soft forks, meaning they are completely dependent on the original projects. If for example Trump made a law banning releasing software as open source because that’s communism, Librewolf would likely cease to exist
- Every branch of engineering and design has technical cultures. In most kinds of engineering, the unwritten traditions of the field are parts of a working practitioner's education as important as (and, as experience grows, often more important than) the official handbooks and textbooks. Senior engineers develop huge bodies of implicit knowledge, which they pass to their juniors by (as Zen Buddhists put it) “a special transmission, outside the scriptures”.

Threema is a European secure messenger.

It's also a paid product with multiple flaws found in a recent-ish audit:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/01/messenger-billed-as-better-than-signal-is-riddled-with-vulnerabilities/
- Paid means you’re more likely a customer than the product.
  
  I can’t verify the security claims either way, but this article is a counter point to the one one linked: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/threema-claims-encryption-flaws-never-had-a-real-world-impact/
  
  "While some of the findings presented in the paper may be interesting from a theoretical standpoint, none of them ever had any considerable real-world impact. Most assume extensive and unrealistic prerequisites that would have far greater consequences than the respective finding itself." - Threema.
@Zachariah It is worth it?

@Blaze

Startpage? (based in Netherlands). I mean it’s a frontend for google, but ecosia is a frontend for bing. And startpage has a no log policy which beats ecosia.

System1 acquired Startpage and they are based in the US.
- Well that's a bummer, but at least the company who owns Startpage will remain in the Netherlands for now it seems.
  
  https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/4521498779156-What-it-means-for-Startpage-now-that-System1-is-a-publicly-traded-company
Startpage gives very good results, I recall reading somewhere that they use search results from Google, but I honestly don't know. I use it over Ecosia because it has slightly better results and is more privacy focused. Plus I never click any adverts, so Ecosia wouldn't generate an awful lot of trees from my usage haha.

I also used Qwant, but the search results weren't great for more complex search queries.
Yeah, websearch is a huge undertaking, there is an European initiative but it's not ready for use ... Can't find it now though, ironically. It wasn't the one by Ecosia and Qwant but a European Union initated research project.

Isn't ecosia paying ~~Google~~ Bing for its results?

Edit: changed Google to Bing.

They're planning to eventually switch to a european index alongside Qwant.
Yes, but ecosia is currently building a European search index together with qwant. In my view, the two are therefore worth supporting
So is Startpage, if I recall correctly.
- Startpage is based on Google.
So is Qwant, yes.

So your suggestion to "buy European" is to download a bunch of free shit...

I tried Mistral and it's awesome, I am upgrading to the paid version

Already done most of those, whatsapp is the hardest to replace for me from this category.

I need an european search engine that supports bangs

Qwant apparently supports something similar

https://help.qwant.com/en/docs/qwant-search/searching/comment-utiliser-les-raccourcis-de-recherche-qwick/
- No, it doesn't take you to the website you used the bang for. Doesn't behave like duckduckgo or brave search

For more varied and detailed recommendations, these might be useful:

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop/

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/search-engines/

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/real-time-communication/

It would've been perfect if it recommended matrix instead of american-owned signal.

If you want to use large language models or other generative predictive models (I refuse to call it AI) then I suggest considering self hosting those models for ultimate control of the information you provide.

If that’s not possible, https://duck.ai/ is pretty damn good privacy wise. (Not Based in EU)

Communications: Wire (what's everyone's opinion on that?)

Search engine: selfhosted searxng if possible.

Linux

Okay, is there any debugger with a GUI, that isn't just the command line interface in either a separate window or just a tab in VSCode?

You mean like a code debugger not in VS Code? I mean... IntelliJ offers pretty amazing built-in debugging functionality. And as a bonus, they're located in Prague, so you're supporting a EU company by using IntelliJ.
- No, I meant something like this, but for Linux. Not a command line tool, not some janky wrapper around the command line tool, not another IDE that would force me to abandon my current setup (Kate + Language Servers).
  
  And no, I don't care about "scripts", my usecase (game development) isn't about creating software with minimal interaction. I also don't care about Mortal Kombat Fatality-tier key combinations a la Vim.

Fuck the Ai slop.

It’s a technology being used by capitalist around the world to take jobs away from people and to push fascist agendas!

https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/