To escape from the big corporations of the USA, as a user we have two options, either to use OpenSource alternatives, although not all of them they are free of influences from Google, MS, etc., or using products and services of European companies, which in general are rather more aimed at protect privacy (GDPR), although only a few are known to most. This is why I thought of using this thread to complete a list of the better European alternatives, starting with the link I put opening this thread.
Coming from France, Framasoft is a big contributor to open-source, privacy-respecting tools
Probably my favorite pieces of software from Europe (not strictly the EU) are
Proton (ProtonMail, Proton Calendar, etc) - Switzerland
Inoreader (probably the best RSS reader ever - and I’ve tried lots) - Bulgaria
Tutanota is German and one of the most private Mail, also from Germany the search engines MetaGer and Ecosia, from Spain security software Panda Security, the first one which used a cloud based AV, KDE was founded in Germany. Browser: the French UR and Vivaldi from Oslo, Norway. The European Space Agency also has a huge repository of software, which maybe interesting for research and academic works. https://essr.esa.int
Tutanota is now Tuta
I know, I use it, also Proton Mail, since years.
Vivaldi is from Island. Opera from Norway.
Isn’t Opera mostly owned by Chinese investors now? Stick with Vivaldi, that’s where all the Opera devs went.
just use hardened firefox
No, Vivaldi has an office Iceland and also its servers are there, but the headquarter is in Oslo. Opera has an office in Norway (like MS has a office in Germany, but certainly isn’t a German company), but it was adquired by an Chinese Investment Company, it’s not a EU browser. It was in the past, until the company was sold to China. https://vivaldi.com/company/
Vivaldi is from Island. Opera from Norway.
Great list, thanks for share.
Don’t have anything to contribute, but saving this post for its very useful content!
What was that german office suite again?
edit: found it, SoftMaker Office of SoftMaker Software GmbH.
European Office suite are eg. Nextcloud office from Germany or OnlyOffice from Latvia. But I think that with so much FOSS alternatives, Like LibreOffice, OpenOffice Cakkigra (KDE) and others, where it isn’t to determinate the country. You can even use SSuite, its a non-proft Hobby project from 2 Electricians, private, no logs, no ads, no cookies, no tracking, without any contact to big companies, which at least is the sense of this thread.
It’s not a privacy company, but I’ve been very happy with the Germany-based hosting company Contabo. Very happy.
Also, the Swedish VPN company Mullvad has been awesome; love 'em.
When I saw the title of this post, my first thought was “America”. That is an EU alternative.
I read the title and thought it’s a nazi post about what countries should do instead of being in the union. Sad thing is, these are real.
