With all the talk about replacing American products for European I recently started using a French AI chatbot from Mistral aptly named Le Chat instead of ChatGPT. What other non-American tech tools are worth checking out?
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With the @proton.me -bundle and the use of the excellent @vivaldibrowser.bsky.social I think I’m pretty satisfied — all though there’s always room for improvement and some things I must accept e.g. my workplace’s use of primarily Microsoft 365 and Windows.
How about BlueSky? We escaped bad algorithms. But what can become the implications of its american ownership and control for European users? Is it becoming relevant to switch platform once more within the same year?
If you want a full service replacement of Google try https://Murena.io they provide file storage, email etc and also a whole privacy-focused Android distribution. They’re based in France.
One that really matters, is your search machine. The alternative Ecosia (Germany) is still commercial, but transfers profit into a.o. planting trees. So far 26 + million trees plantet.
Dont make the mistake of trying to "googlify" yourself and lock yourself into a different platform. You dont need your maps provider to also be your email provider or search engine. Qwant is ok on its own, and its enough for them to focus on browsing only.
I am switching from Windows/Office/Chrome/Outlook/Gmail/... to Linux/LibreOffice/Firefox/Thunderbird/web.de/... It's open source, free and comes with a good user experience. Mozilla is a US (non-profit) organization but this is perfectly fine to appreciate the difference between USA and MAGA-USA.
This is how Grayjay came to exist. Google forces ads down your throat to extort (more) money. But the content is free to access on the Internet. Stop using their client. Easy.
Is warranted when the company who's service's you are buying is so petty it destroy's your experience, just to mull more money from you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4GZUCwVRLs
Plenty of great Linux distributions but no, I wouldn't count Ubuntu as one. Rather something like "Manjaro".
For Office there's actually a European alternative called OnlyOffice which I would highly recommend on desktop and mobile.
I've been using Proton Mail and it is better than Gmail. The settings are much easier to navigate, filters are much nicer and you can point a custom domain to it rather than the clunky POP3 feature of Gmail.
Yes the CEO is an idiot. But Proton is based in Europe so is automatically a better choice than Gmail. It's almost impossible to find a perfect company to do business with in the modern world so we can only pick the lesser of two evils.
ROFL proton gives data to other countries by the thousands. Its not "automatically better" and there are many secure encrypted privacy mail alternatives to proton MAGA mail
joda. Men det er simpelthen ikke mulig å sette bort moralske vurderinger til AI. Det er bare en forutsigelse av hva en gruppe mennesker ville si. En MAGA-AI ville sagt noe annet. Det riktige er eliminere denne type spørsmål.
Pointen er, at så må AI jo også leve i parallelle verdener.
Så vinderen i AI kapløbet løber med sandhed og evidens.
Hvilken verden vælger du? Svar med et navn.
Antony Fauci's
RFK juniors.
Du antropomorfiserer AI :-) Som vi alle gjør. Den kjenner overhodet ingen forskjell på sannhet og evidens. Den bare forutsier responser basert på materialet den er trenet på. Forestill deg hva den ville sagt hvis den var trent på Nazi propaganda. Vi må ta disse avgjørelsen selv!
haha. Du vet hva jeg mener: Fauci. Mitt navn er John. Men en som var uenig med oss begge ville sagt RFK Junior. Og svarene gitt fra en chatbot ville vært avhengig av hvem som finansierte den. Så hvordan vet vi at vi kan stole på det den sier?
Naturligvis ikke. Men spørgsmålene jeg stillede botten, var ikke et spørgsmål om politik eller følelser.
De to første spørgsmål er beviseligt dokumenteret.
Det sidste vedrørende Zelenskyj viser blot at det ikke er dokumenteret at han har begået valgsvindel - ikke nødvendigvis sandheden.
Jeg siger hverken at det ikke er sjovt eller at det ikke siger noget om, hvad data ai’en er trænet på. Men du får altid kun dens vurdering af, hvad der er det mest sandsynlige svar. Udover masser eksempler på at “fakta” ændrer sig over tid, så er det efter min mening ikke der ai’er har deres force.
Not just consider; bring them into the EU, and add them to whatever defense pact is being cooked up. I honestly think Greenland and Canada need a deterrent against the US right now, as ridiculous as it seems to write that.
Hi, long time fan, I’ve had the same question recently, and I found a very good resource: https://european-alternatives.eu
I was specifically looking for European search engines
Another recommendation I must make is also , to use GrapheneOS , which is an open source mobile operating system, focused on privacy and security. Not Google and not Apple. If you need Google apps , in can run a "sandboxed" Google Play Services, that doesn't have any privileges beyond a normal app.
Downsides is : paradoxical it's only made for Google Pixel phones.
MitID doesn't work atm. Because Netcompany chooses to use the Google API integraty check.
Google Wallet doesn't work either, for the same reason.
Everything else work perfectly!
Btw. Edward Snowden has endorsed GrapheneOS.
I've been running GrapheneOS for about 3 weeks now, and it's just awesome. I was a Google fan for 12 years. But they've kissed the ring of Donald Trump like most of the other tech companies. So now I'm transitioning away.
Yes in some ways, so , bit in others not so much. Problem with a standard Google or Apple phone is, that Google and Apple basically has complete control over your device and can also "spy" on everything you do.
Their OS's are closed source code, so no one knows , whats it can actually do.
I have the same question! Lenovo/Asus usually have good Linux-compatibility. And then, of course, there is an official Ubuntu list: https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops
Most mainstream computers work just fine. You can try it out just running it from an USB stick if you want. Linux Mint is what I recommend for beginners, it's user friendly and looks and feels a lot like windows. Check out this video for more info https://youtu.be/_qZI6i21jB4?si=9jcl5NdgRR8RyeQv
In France, there is the startup Delupay (https://www.delupay.com), which offers a new payment method competing with Visa and MasterCard. Delupay is fast and eco-friendly, with lower fees for merchants and free for consumers.
I use Gammarly, founded mainly owned by Ukrainians. They continued to pay salaries to employees who got called to the front line!
Also, I had to buy a computer recently and wanted a HP. After Trump's illegal tariffs on Canada, I bought an Taiwanese Acer instead. They may be the next US casualty
Does anyone in this thread know if it's possible to switch my email account from Gmail to ProtonMail without having to notify everyone who has my address? Is there a way to set up my old Gmail account to forward emails to my new ProtonMail account in case I miss someone? 🤓
Bit of a hypocrite here, since I'm using windows right now. But I've used mint before, its a good distro for beginners. Now I'm trying to de-googlify myself before de-MSing myself, but damn is it ever hard, they got their tentacles into everything. Browser & search, done. But android, maps, YT etc.
I wouldn't call it hypocritical.
We've been using services in good faith where 🇪🇺 have protected our rights - until now when Trump won't secure the deal forward.
Me too! Keeping my Gmail for android and YT, but all other services will be changed so there's no personal identification data linking me.
I don't think I quite understand. Maybe the screenshots are too technically written for my English.
Proton, a Swiss based company is pointing out a problem within the Democratic Party in the US, but I don't see an endorsement of the Republican Party nor understand how this falls back to Proton?
Screenshotet af Trump, som Andy Yen har lagt op, er fra det sociale medie-platform Truth Social, som ejes af Trump. Dette betyder, at Andy Yen har en konto på Truth Social og derfor er en Trump-tilhænger.
@anderspucknielsen.dk if you use #duckduckgo, and click the chat button, you get the choice from a number of #LLM alternatives. Good to diversify your use.
Move off X to Bsky. Cancel Facebook, move from Whatsapp to Signal. YouTube to Nebula, but if you must then use Grayjay on phones and SmartTube on TVs. Gmail to Proton. Google Authenthicator to Enthe. WaPo to Democracydocket, The Atlantic, and even TechDirt. I avoid Euronews since Orban-hu bought it.
Just make sure that is the actual official Proton company, not somebody hijacking their name. Proton is a Swiss company, I somehow doubt they'd parrot an autocratic traitor's lies.
Search for "degoogle your life" on YT, especially the 2nd part which was taken down by YT. It is being re-uploaded by various people, Google purgest them constantly.
There are many good suggestions here for escaping surveillance capitalism but my question was not actually about privacy. It was about finding European companies.
Comments
https://european-alternatives.eu/
As one other is suggesting:
Proton🇨🇭 has all this. But I wouldn’t use their cloud yet:
Tresorit 🇩🇪 is expensive but good so I use MEGA 🇳🇿: zero knowledge cloud.
And ofc VPN: Mullvad 🇸🇪 or Proton. They block SoMe trackers too.
https://european-alternatives.eu/categories
Fastmail instead of Gmail + calendar
Jottacloud instead of Google drive (uses Microsoft office 365 though)
Firefox instead of Google chrome
The hard one to replace is YouTube.
matrix (elements) instead of whatsapp
pirating instead of netflix
The pure existance of AI bots doesn't tell You anything about their worth. They'll get hyped - ok.
But think a second for what You really need one!
As I highly appreciate Your great analysis, something must be right about it.
We're Canadian.
I like trees.
https://www.breakit.se/artikel/42260/spotify-har-donerat-till-trump-hemliga-summan-avslojad-utokar-narvaron-i-washington
@vivaldibrowser.bsky.social
For Office there's actually a European alternative called OnlyOffice which I would highly recommend on desktop and mobile.
https://techrookies.com/2024/05/15/proton-mail-hands-data-to-police-again-is-it-still-safe-for-activists/
Så vinderen i AI kapløbet løber med sandhed og evidens.
Hvilken verden vælger du? Svar med et navn.
Antony Fauci's
RFK juniors.
Anthony fauci eller RFK Junior.
Svar med et navn.
🧐 Den siger, at det har Russerne ikke haft behov for siden 1987 - de fik allerede krammet på ham der 🤷♂️
De to første spørgsmål er beviseligt dokumenteret.
Det sidste vedrørende Zelenskyj viser blot at det ikke er dokumenteret at han har begået valgsvindel - ikke nødvendigvis sandheden.
I was specifically looking for European search engines
MitID doesn't work atm. Because Netcompany chooses to use the Google API integraty check.
Google Wallet doesn't work either, for the same reason.
Everything else work perfectly!
Btw. Edward Snowden has endorsed GrapheneOS.
https://murena.com/
Their OS's are closed source code, so no one knows , whats it can actually do.
No more Windows or Apple
As far as I've understood som brands works better with Linux than others???
Pixelfed for Instagram (Canada)
Wise for Mastercard/Visa (Estonia/UK)
LibreOffice (Germany) for MS Office
Some are new/developing, so need a little support to get going, but now is the time.
https://codeberg.org/noverby/noverby#services
Le Chat, the European rival AI Chat bot from Mistral.
https://chat.mistral.ai/chat
Also, I had to buy a computer recently and wanted a HP. After Trump's illegal tariffs on Canada, I bought an Taiwanese Acer instead. They may be the next US casualty
Can be used with Vivaldi mail service, or any other provider
- https://www.deepl.com/en/translato
My browser now is the Vivaldi Browser https://vivaldi.com/da/
Search is Qwant https://www.qwant.com
And mail/Calendar/drive/vpn is https://proton.me
Maps and Nav. https://wego.here.com
Not totally free of US component, but it is a process, and I am on my way !
https://proton.me/support/automatic-forwarding-gmail
I'd regard it as non national and therefore also an alternative.
So yeah, non-american.
Search engine Google have been swapped out with Qwant, which is equally good.
Gmail now only for junk, all mails and my own domains are moved to Proton.
OneDrive will be cancelled soon.
Still considering Linux Mint over Windows.
Vivaldi is a better alternative.
I need to look into this...
I'm not familiar with the source or the claims made, but if true it's definitely not a software I will continue using.
We've been using services in good faith where 🇪🇺 have protected our rights - until now when Trump won't secure the deal forward.
Me too! Keeping my Gmail for android and YT, but all other services will be changed so there's no personal identification data linking me.
Proton, a Swiss based company is pointing out a problem within the Democratic Party in the US, but I don't see an endorsement of the Republican Party nor understand how this falls back to Proton?
Kan læse han støttede R men ikke Trump. Opsplitning af Big Tech er Yens mærkesag, hvilket R støtter mere end D.
En profil på Truth er da ærgerligt, men det har diverse venstre medier også, det er ikke unikt.
Jeg søger mere info, måske Proton erstattes, nu må vi se.