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Señor Mono @feddit.org

4w ago

Some tech apps/services I personally use instead of their American/Big Tech counterparts [Updated]

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/41557369

#europe #european #europeanalternatives #europeanalternative #privacy #opensource #software #freedom

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Some tech apps/services I personally use instead of their American/Big Tech counterparts

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31 comments

OrganicMaps (or it's fork CoMaps, there is some community-drama) is my goto maps app. I even use it to look up opening hours and it mostly delivers.
- Man, I think the data in indonesia where I live is not too updated. Big problem is I cant just say a place name and it search for address. I always need address
  
  That sucks, but if you have time, you could try going around and improving map data. I use StreetComplete and it's fun actually

I personally would have picked other services but OPs overview is plain and concise.
- Like what? More information is good information.
  
  I held back because the topic and alternatives were already discussed broadly. Even in the sticky getting started post.
  I wouldn’t opt for Proton services. Currently I’m running on mailbox.org and jottacloud . If I have to use AI I would go with mistral, and for navigation my first try would be CoMaps (car) and OSMand (for hiking). But I must admit that I still need to evaluate CoMaps vs. here more extensively.
  Password container is still strongbox, even though they were sold recently. They also integrate 2FA, so it substitutes authenticater Apps.
  And for youtube I hope for peertube.
  The linux distros are already discussed in the main post. This has a lot to do with personal taste. I’m used to debian based distros, still using Ubuntu on all my servers.

I'd switch Proton for Tuta, Proton is a Company based in Switzerland so not EU but EFTA, but more concerning: their CEO is a Trump Fan

Some of my alternatives to these:
Search: Ecosia has Bing results, Startpage uses Google ones. Both are decent on what they do.
Browser: Firefox and its forks are still good options. Remember, open source is not your enemy.
App store: Aurora uses Play Store's content (or lack of it), Droid-ify uses F-Droid's.
Mail, Drive, Password Manager, Gemini: Proton has made questionable actions before (e.g. parts of Lumo are not open-source). I recommend LeChat (Mistral's AI, european) and selfhosting files if possible (Proton is a good alternative).
Videos: Those suggested use YT's content. Consider PeerTube (french, federated) for alternative content.
Windows: Linux Mint is Irish, VOID Linux (for the technical users) is Spanish, SUSE Linux Enterprise (or OpenSUSE) is German.
- Ecosia is switching to its own index
  
  I'll believe it when I can select it as the only one to show results from.

Is Telegram American/big tech?
- Telegram's founder is Russian, so no. Not "American." I also don't know it to be deemed big tech. Idk tho
  It do have some weird encryption thing going on, though, where only private chats or secret chats or whatever they're called offer end-to-end encryption.
  Billionaire Pavel Durov arrested... The truth about Telegram
- It is (ex)russian insecure.

Add Posteo for email.

I really love kagi as search engine
- Just gave it the first real try today, in the context of (a) understanding some programming topics and (b) finding opticians in my town.
  Kagi is so. much. better than any of the DuckDuckGo, Google, Brave, SearXNG, Startpage, Ecosia, and what not.
  They even have a search mode "Small Web" to show "results that favor noncommercial domains and topics". Other modes include "Programming", "Fediverse forums", "Usenet/Archive", "Forums" and "Academic" (to be selected under Settings/Search/Lenses).
  And when Kagi accidentally does serve you some bullshit page, the button to block or de-prioritize the website in all future searches is right there. Conversely, one can give high-quality sites a higher priority in the results listings.
  And one can set up regexes to automatically replace links to twitter.com or x.com by xcancel.com, or replace links to reddit.com by old.reddit.com, etc.
  The monthly ~5€ for 300 searches (which I would use mostly for programming tasks while sticking to SearXNG or so for more mundane lookups), or even the ~10€ for unlimited searches, will definitely be worth it.
- Agree. I switched to Kagi a couple of years ago and I won't go back.

What is Bol? The Amazon replacement
- "Books Online", a Dutch company. But I'd say, don't replace Amazon with a single other site, but learn to better search for sites that have what you want, depending on the type of product.

Alternativeto.net
I dont see the reason for this post 🧅
Some mixed up categories, half of them proprietary and/or in the US, centralized, etc.
Some things need centralization, many others dont.
- Read OPs post as a personal success story. We got a lot of alternatives and alternative sites as well as post floating since month.

What about alternatives to Google Authenticator?
- Also Aegies Authenticator app . Free and open source (GPL3), works very well
- The same as the MS authenticator. But for example Strongbox already has that. Also many other password manager have support for that.

Looks like if I deactivate Google Play after getting Aurora Store, some apps stop working and request me to reactivate Google Play. That sucks.

How many of these will work in the US?
- 3/4

31 comments