Anybody got any thoughts on a viable Discord replacement that I can use for playing games with relatively non-technical friends?

I'd prefer a low-cost SaaS approach, if the data is not stored in the US, but I'm willing to self-host, if it's not overly complex to maintain.

I really only need text chat and the ability to create group VoIP calls, but it's going to be very hard to convince people to move to a dated application like Mumble, and unfortunately not all participants are Canadians or Europeans who will understand the need to take a bit of pain.

Curious what people are doing in this space.

Moving away from US cloud services

Martijn Hols write about his experience in replacing Microsoft 365 (Mail, Calendar, Drive), Bitwarden, GitHub, Google search, Cloudflare/Google DNS, Docker Hub and NPM

https://martijnhols.nl/blog/moving-away-from-us-cloud-services
#cloud #europeanalternatives #BoycottAmerica

DAB+ radio is my favourite #EuropeanAlternative to streaming music. Not only is it free, there is no evil megacorp spying and putting you on lists, it connects you to your local community and supports local businesses.

All cars sold in the EU/EEA since 2021 have DAB+ built in; modern TVs have it as well, and lots of nice battery-operated radios like these are useful in emergencies as well (eg when Internet cables *ahem* "get cut").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting

#europeanalternatives @ueeu

Recently I've been looking at European search engines. #Qwant and #StartPage seem to be the most popular, the latter having stricter privacy policy.

Which privacy focused engine are you using and why?

Netflix versus Arte

Arte TV:
https://www.arte.tv/en/

Arte Concerts:
https://www.arte.tv/en/arte-concert/

Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@arte

Image source: https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1jaj76t/the_app_works_great_and_they_also_offer_games_btw/
#netflix #arte #europeanalternatives

Do you know JOPLIN? It's a nice European alternative to apps like Evernote, Google Keep, Notion, Microsoft OneNote.

Joplin is a free, open source note-taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. You can search your notes, copy them, tag them and modify them either from the app itself or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format, which is great.

It was created by Laurent Cozic back in 2016 as an alternative to Evernote. It's cloud service is hosted in Paris, France. They focus on privacy, security and transparency.

It's open source and offline-first, so you can always access your data on the device, even when you're not connected to the internet.

It's got all the basics you'd expect, and you can also attach images, videos, audio files and PDFs to your notebooks.

There's a huge community of people who have made extra features possible with their plugins.

It's also super easy to export and import your files, which is great if you're worried about vendor lock-in.

The handy web clipper extension lets you save web pages or take screenshots in the browser and save them to your notes.

Check all the features in their website:
https://joplinapp.org

#notetaking #opensource #BuyFromEU #europeanalternatives

Follow them on Mastodon: @joplinapp

This is another fresh website with recommendations of European-made products and brands:

https://europeanmade.eu/

by @EuropeanMade

I am using @Vivaldi as my main browser on #Mac, #iPadOS and #iOS now for 2 weeks and it is an absolutely brilliant experience and there’s also a great community and top feelgood factor. Will keep it and move on from #Safari and #Firefox. #europeanalternatives #vivaldi #vivaldibrowser #dataprivacy #Europe

If you are looking for a European #Amazon alternative, take a look at Swiss based Galaxus. They have fixed everything I hate about online shopping, especially on Amazon. They have proper categories and filter options that actually work (shocking). They show return rates by manufacturer and transparent price history.
Galaxus delivers to Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
#buyeuropean #buyfromEU #Europe #onlineshopping #europeanalternatives

Le Chat is the perfect ChatGPT alternative. It is a product by Mistral AI, a French company under the GDPR.
It works perfectly in several languages and can generate awesome images.

https://chat.mistral.ai/chat

Haluatko vähentää riippuvuuttasi amerikkalaisista verkkopalveluista?

European Alternatives listaa hurjan määrän vaihtoehtoja eri amerikkalaisille ohjelmistoille ja verkkopalveluille. Esimerkiksi Googlen haun voi korvata eurooppalaisella Qwantilla, jne.

https://dawn.fi/uutiset/2025/03/08/lista-eurooppalaisista-vaihtoehdoista

Do you need an #European e-reader and tablet?

The reMarkable is a very serious European alternative created by a Norwegian startup.

To avoid temptations, if you don't need one, don't visit their website or watch their videos, otherwise you may end up buying one, as we did. We love it but it's not cheap, as they only produce it in small quantities.

The reMarkable is an E Ink writing tablet designed for reading documents and textbooks, sketching, and taking notes. It's designed to feel like writing on paper.

What we like the most:

- you can read #ebooks or documents in various formats, including pdf. It's like a Kindle. And you can make notes in your ebooks, for example.

- it REALLY feels like you're writing and sketching on paper. It's impressively well done

- there are many of different templates you can use and download on the internet

- you can write notes by hand and convert them into digital text. It can even translate your handwritten text into another language

- you can also automatically save your files in the cloud and in your computer.

If you're interested, you can find more information on their website, which is full of useful tips.

Do you have any too? We'd love to know what you think!

https://remarkable.com

So, to kick off our interview series, let's dive in with Christian Kroll, the big boss over at Ecosia. This cool German search engine actually plants a tree each time someone uses their search engine.

It's a really nice interview where Kroll chats fluently in German, French and English with Ecosia users and employees, and answers all kinds of questions about the company.

You can also check out the Ecosia channel on YouTube, where you'll find loads of videos of tree-planting all over the world.

It's an incredible project and a very interesting concept. Let's hope they keep innovating... and planting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sJA-gHFCVo

Open a tab and start searching! https://www.ecosia.com
#ecosia #searchengine #europeanalternatives #interview

The European search engines (and competitors) Ecosia and Qwant are joining forces to build their own European search index!

And the best part? It'll be open and available to all of us!

This is great news for other small search engines, start-ups and the AI industry, as they'll now have the chance to use this index instead of the ones offered by Microsoft and Google.

https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/
#ecosia #qwant #searchengine #european #europeanalternatives #germany #france #innovation

De-google-ify Internet

Amazing campaign by the French not-for-profit association Framasoft.

The De-google-ify Internet project offers 26 ethical and alternative online tools that may be used by everyone.

They build open source alternatives to many Google services like Youtube, Agenda, Docs, Forms, Maps etc, as well other services to replace Doodle, Facebook Event, Github, Zoom, Slack and much more!

Check their beautiful website, watch the videos to know more about their work and follow them here in Mastodon:

@Framasoft

https://degooglisons-internet.org/

Have got to point of cancelling US streaming services now. HBO already last year, Disney last month, netflix next.

What #EuropeanAlternatives can you all suggest? @drnyheder.bsky.social + @tv2samfund obvs, and @artefr is wonderful, but something obvious we're missing?