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.

Yeah, the list does not fit this community

Headquarters Seattle, Washington, United States

Don't use Brave. It's got a lot of privacy issues, even compared to the Mozilla foundation. Underneath, it's still Chrome.

Could you clarify some of these issues? I'm a long time brave user and have really enjoyed using it and haven't noticed any issues besides some if their Web 3.0 integrations that you can turn off.

Always happy to find Better options though.
- Instead of downvoting you, as is the style on these types of platforms it seems… I’ll actually try to link a few websites. One moment.
  
  EDIT:
  
  Crypto is dumb and bad for the environment
  
  "reward" system, which is not cool
  
  Further issues some have with the browser
  
  And really, it is just YET ANOTHER Chromium browser, which gives Google MORE dominance on the web, which is a really really BAD thing. They are the ones who are trying everything in their power to not only siphon data off of you to sell to shady businesses, but also don't like how we can block ads, which I care the most about, personally. I'm sure there are plenty more people who are way more knowledgeable than I that can explain the domino effect of what happens when a company has total domination in a field, be it technology or otherwise.
  
  EDIT2: Opera (and Opera GX) for those that like it for some reason...
  
  Opera is shady as fuck too!
Plus the CEO is MAGA

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.

When it's FOSS it doesn't matter so much where they're based, fortunately
- BlueSky and Brave for sure aren't FOSS.
Saying “this FOSS is American” is a little like saying “any wheat in a meal makes it Egyptian because that’s where wheat comes from.” FOSS doesn’t have borders, because it can be used, forked, and modified by anyone. Even if an American created it, as soon as it becomes FOSS, it is a worldwide project.

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?

It goes beyond just cracking, with support for features like SponsorBlock and Return YouTube Dislike, but essentially yes. It's not a meaningful YouTube "alternative", just a tweaked version of same.
Yes it is, if you want something different there is Newpipe, Tubular (with sponsor block and returndislike) , or Freetube. Probably others as well.

None of these let you login, if that is something you need.
- They all still rely on YouTube for content. Of course the problem is that the real alternatives (such as PeerTube) have only a fraction of the content.

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.

It is exactly the same as Twitter in all of the ways that matter.

I think the fucking Nazi at the head matters.
- There are Nazis at the head of Lemmy instances. Because it isn't centralized it's very easy to deal with.
  
  When there is a centrally controlled social media and a Nazi takes over, it is a huge problem and requires a large amount of social effort to solve.
  
  Bluesky could be purchased by Elon (or the current owner may decide they prefer the alt right by this time next year) and then we'd be in the same situation.
  
  The weakness in Twitter and Bluesky is central control. Elon just provided a very poignant example as to why.
  
  Don't use Bluesky and also delete Twitter. Don't support the idea of a single person or entity controlling the social lives of everyone else.
+1. Was really surprised to see ecosia (searx!?) and stremio as the only options of their categories; kinda sketchy...

Graphene should also for sure be included, even if it's Pixel only. I don't care that much about Bluesky as I've dealt first-hand with trying to get my gen-x mother on mastodon, and failing spectacularly. It's not better in the long run, but in the short term it's good to leave Twitter, simply to lose Elon some money. Either way, the list is kinda weird.

Edit: also, only mention droidify and not plain f-droid, obtainium, and Aurora? What?

Edit: corrected last edit

lol… Brave… Come on man.

Yeah, I was gonna say… Recommending Brave isn’t a great look right now. Especially right in the wake of the Brave CEO going off on that unhinged ultra conservative rant.

And Firefox recently had its own controversy, with the removal of their “we promise never to sell your info” section of their ToS. When questioned, they basically responded with “well some jurisdictions define “sell” as “exchanging for money”… We don’t agree with that. But because some jurisdictions do define it that way, we need to remove that section. All we want to do is exchange your info for money. But again, we don’t think that should be considered selling your info.”
- Mullvad has a search engine now (Leta)

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

I also still don't fully understand if it can be categorized as decentralized.
- Nope, its a twitter clone
But it needs to stay. Mastodon is better, but Bluesky has momentum, and anything to get people off Twitter.

Mastodon is still there, and first.

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 hope something will come out of it.

Same, as soon as I heard they were developing an European search index i instantly switched to Qwant.

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

I honestly agree here. Better to suggest a specific distro than just saying "use Linux".
I completely agree! I switched to Linux Mint yesterday, and please don’t give me a bunch of alternatives before even deciding to try out Linux 🤣 Took me much longer to take the leap BECAUSE of all those alternatives.
- How's it going so far?

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

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.

Signal is extremely expensive, they pay $15m+ to Google and Amazon because they don’t self-host so around half of their donations go directly to tech oligarchy
what us yanks can do besides just trying not to spend ANY money.

That's about to get a lot easier. How do you feel about a $3000 laptop? Car manufacturing might just stop temporarily. They've got a month to figure out how to change pretty major processes that companies may not have the current ability to change.

And let's see if they're going to move into the US or out.
- In the context of the parallels now being drawn between post-WW1 Germany's slide to WW2 and present-day USA's situation, I worry that the major quality-of-life hit starting to happen in the US might be at least slightly on purpose.
  
  Aside from the "Krasnov" explanation for such intention (which seems compelling but I haven't yet seen enough evidence to have a strong opinion either way about), another perhaps simpler explanation (either instead of or in addition to that) could be that he is gambling that the same poor, disempowered, uneducated subset of people in the US who end up being easily stirred into a military mindset fever are the same ones who will easily forget that the leader promising them their "national pride and identity" back is the same one whose decisions accelerated that very descent into poverty, disempowerment, and poor education (& undermined press) in order to create that pliable situation.
  
  I vividly remember in history class seeing the photos from the post-Versailles-treaty period, of German kids flying kites made of nearly worthless Deutchmarks, and people with wheelbarrows full of notes paying for bread. Hitler was able to so easily stir up people "with no hope or dignity left" by promising prosperity based on building autobahns, factories, etc - manipulating their despair to hijack rational or compassionate thought. Anyone informed and principled enough to see through that slide to madness and act accordingly ended up running for their lives (along with the many others who had to run just for being born a certain way). It looks a bit like the situation in the US is on the precipice of sliding that way, with the compounding factor that online click-hungry faux-press and automated disinformation/propaganda bots on social networks are able to very quickly create and maintain cult-like bubbles in which a "leader" can manufacture shadows and "instruct" followers to jump at those shadows in the same breath, under the assumption that enough people will be gullible and/or lazy enough to fall for it unquestioningly.
  
  I really think the people in the US who are not part of that subset need to be very proactive (in real-life terms, not just rage-scrolling & rage-clicking) in being the bulwark against that slide to madness, and right now - starting to react months from now might already be too late to avoid dangerous global conflicts escalating, and new ones starting. I am very wary of doom-and-gloom hyperbole, and aware that overstating things can risk fostering apathy instead of overcoming it, but I think this is one of those rare historic moments when such statements are not hyperbole.

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.

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?

Droid-ify is an alternative frontend for f-droid

And IMO it's better

Obtainum + F-Droid is best combo.
- FYI, droid-ify is an F-droid app

This is the pic that made me join

Nice, if you have any questions about Lemmy feel free to ask
you love to hear it

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.

Nobara is a really solid distro for gamers. It's packaged with a lot of stuff to streamline the setup.

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

And Stremio but not Jellyfin?

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.

Yes, if I create my own version I will add something to differentiate.

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.

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

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

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.

Why would you prefer XMPP? Last time I checked most features (like E2EE) weren't part of the base protocol.

Delta chat is basically email.

It supports mail, but also has an encrypted normal chat backend AFAIK

Why? Because it's torrents?

Yes, it's not really a good alternative since it's illegal. I'm not judging but it's not a good option for most people.

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

Droid-ify is F-droid
- Why would you prefer XMPP? Last time I checked most features (like E2EE) weren’t part of the base protocol.
  
  Just because it is not part of the base protocol, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or supports it.
  
  I like it for personal reasons. Just because is lightweight and there are why much more servers than matrix, imho makes it better. However, In the end it boils down to personal preferences and your attack surface.
  
  It supports mail, but also has an encrypted normal chat backend AFAIK
  
  WHen i tried it years ago, it was just a normal email with a special subject that the delta chat client would read, parse and display.

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.

I'm on mobile too, but I've added some changes to the post description for now

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.

Theres also CalyxOS, which is not only easier to install than lineage, but also relocks the bootloader and includes MicroG, which improves overall compatibility (especially regarding banking apps).
Lineageos apparently does but you need to build and sign it yourself
torrents-csv.com works great

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 .

Delta Chat is European and is better alternative for messaging apps

I’m very curious about Delta Chat! You have a good experience with it? I just downloaded it but haven’t started telling people to get it with me yet.
- Oh yeah. You can use their servers or any email server that supports IMAP. Messages are PGP encrypted. Could require some advanced setup if you want to use it on several devices, but there is a way.

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

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

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).

Have you tried https://hyprland.org/? I installed on an Mac Air (2013) over Arch and it works surprisingly well. Otherwise, if you want the macOS touch you could try https://elementary.io/
- I have not yet :) Currently using Fedora XFCE, my first distro (tried Mint as well but wasn't for me) as most others failed to install on my mac and Fedora workstation was too slow on the old thing.
  
  XFCE is however really good for keyboard navigation, never have to touch my mouse. My biggest issue with GNOME coming from MacOS was that keyboard navigation in the GUI was very inconsistent. The part that I always liked with MacOS was overall design philosophy enforced everywhere. Still, for many Mac users GNOME is probably still preferable because it is so incredibly readable, just works and looks good.
  
  I'll look into hyprland, thank you!
Actually a solid point, we should suggest a flavor of Linux that prefers Gnome for Mac users. It's the closest default to their workflow afaik

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.

Yes exactly I'm mostly on-board with this flyer, I particularly like that tagline. But the inclusion of the EU flag is just completely bewildering to me, even as an EU resident myself. Are there really people out there who see the EU as some sort of bastion of freedom and justice?! Or is this some noncredibledefense-esque ironic meme that I'm too dumb to understand?

https://simplex.chat/

Home assistant is the gold standard for home automation now, they are light-years ahead of anything from the big tech. Billions of dollars and they can't even make a usable home automation service.

Any good euro alternatives for adobe suite?

GIMP for Photoshop, Darktable or RawTherapee for Lightroom, Inkscape for Illustrator. For Premiere I was about to suggest DaVinci Resolve but it's Australian, not European / FOSS.
- Australia is in Eurovision, does that not count? :D
- kdenlive is a foss video editor.
- I don't know where it's from, but Krita is always worth a look too :)
- I was looking for illustrator so thanks
You may want to clarify which parts you want to replace. As a whole suite, there isnt anything I am aware of, but each individual part usually has one or more open source alternatives

I'm a millennial, so I'm still checking the nightmare that is Facebook here and there, what's the alternative?

Edit: On second look I'm not so sure how good this list really is...

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

I thought that section was more to get away from stock android and google rather than just US companies, I have a nothing phone and it very much uses regular android and google services though the bootloader is unlockable to install something like LineageOS.

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.

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

Where does the Element Netflix comparison came from?
Yep, most things on that list are not drop-in replacements for these products at all, as you're supposed to change your behavior entirely. i.e.:

For Nextcloud, you have to self-host or to search for a provider. Nextcloud themselves aren't offering any cloud services;

Same for Element (which is Matrix);

Flashes is just Bluesky, but with only photos - these same photos can be posted on Bluesky directly.

ReVanced as an alternative to YouTube? You gotta be joking.

Stremio - if you're not looking for piracy, then this is not for you. But it's a nice touch though

Immich - you can only self-host it

Brave; Firefox - they're the lesser evil, yet they're still American

For Droid-ify - you gotta jump to Android first. If you want to stay on Apple, use Alt Store

Probably the most feasible things for the regular folk to jump to are Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed, Lemmy (self-hosting is not mandatory), Jitsi, Ecosia, LineageOS (if they switch phones) and Linux Mint (or any flavor of Linux for that matter).
- people have issues with brave, because its owned a trump loving homophobic, and the crypto scams.

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.

It's very affordable to rent a hosted nextcloud instance on a European server. I love nextcloud. It's my data storage, webmailer, calendar and contacts sync, collaborative office, shared finance manager and so much more!
- Would you mind sharing a provider for this? I use Ionos currently and I'm quite unhappy with the features they provide, and I but i can't find an alternative provider with the same amount of storage packaged. Thanks!

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.

Add SearxNG as a search engine option.

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

I think the biggest are the Proton and Infomaniak kSuite ecosystems. Both have free tiers afaik.
- Yep, just switched to Proton (Swiss). Tutanota (German) is the other serious option for end-to-end encrypted, managed mail and calendar.
  
  The main difference is that Proton offers a full "eco-system" to better compete with Google: besides Mail and Calendar, they offer an integrated Drive with automated photos backup on mobile, VPN, and private mail alias service (SimpleLogin) on their subscription.
  
  I like it, but others prefer to spread their services among different. The price for the full package is similar to the price of Mail + VPN so you don't lose anything if you choose to use a NextCloud instead of their Drive, to better integrate with other open source apps for notes and photos.

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

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

Why should Element be removed?
IRC still exists?
Why fedora atomic? Surely you don't expect to convince anyone if you haven't provided a reason