#europe #european #europeanalternatives #europeanalternative #privacy #opensource #software #freedom
Update, but it appears that Trump’s Gestapo now has access to Graphite, which is Israeli spyware, designed with zero-day exploits. Apparently it can also hack Signal.
What we need is to criminally prosecute all who circumvent robust privacy laws using third countries. Especially companies and secret services. And if that means we need to arrest prime ministers, so be it. If Israel’s terrorist Mossad arrests people on other countries’ borders, who’s to say we cannot do the same for their fascist terrorist leaders?
Ecosia is debatable. Also, why the fuck would you introduce Arch Linux as an alternative for Windows?? Start them with Mint/Fedora/Ubuntu.
He wrote “what he personally uses” not what he recommends.
Linux is Linux. Archinstall+KDE is quite easy to install and get working. Sure, neon or some flavour of debian will be easier. But, it’s practically all the same these days. Also, Arch may have better compatibility with some laptops because of the latest Linux kernel. Moreover, if the person is a little tech savvy, the arch wiki is an excellent place to learn about Linux.
Also the arch logo is sexy AF
I just can’t unsee this.
couldn’t just say Linux lol had to include what distro btw
Some Linux ditros are from the US, could be a no-go for some. The Linux HQ is also located in the US btw.
i use arch btw
It’s his list. He didn’t tell anybody to use what he use
yeah, the meme isn’t “you should use arch btw” it’s “i use arch btw” which is exactly what this list says.
I don’t work in IT or anything, but if I had to guess, they are just following what privacy guides say. Here’s an excerpt:
Arch Linux is a lightweight, do-it-yourself (DIY) distribution, meaning that you only get what you install. For more information see their FAQ.
But they recommend Fedora before that.
P.S: I don’t condone it, just trying to shed some light as to why.
i don’t understand. the except doesn’t seem to say hey mention this distro at every opportunity
Sorry, I could have expressed myself more clearly. All I meant to say is, based on this website, you don’t see them recommending ANY type of Linux distro, but they recommend Fedora at the top of the page and Arch.
It’s not that they are against other Linux distros, but then they share their reasons for recommending those 2 specifically
Arch Linux as the alternative to Windows will make people never try Linux again. It should just say Linux, no flavours or personal preferences needed, alternatively a listing of the most newbie user friendly distros ever. Everybody already into Linux know what they want.
My current recommendations.
Just play games? Bazzite.
Just need a work machine? Debian 13.
Want a little of everything? Fedora.Personally I think opensuse tumbleweed is a great “little bit of everything” and you don’t have to worry about full system upgrades.
Linux Mint as great middle
I don’t understand your point, the original post is listing the stuff the poster personally uses, which is fine…
deleted by creator
i’ve never heard of here wego, but i cannot find it on fdroid, is it open-source? is it openstreat map based?
here wego isnt opensource, but it is european (from the netherlands)
isn’t opensource and also not openstreetmap. I use Comaps
The popups, ads, and nags about disabling ad blocker on Ecosia… Ehh…
Proton mail is MAGA now. I would remove it.
@Cocopanda @blinfabian
Just because he agrees with Trump on certain topics doesn’t mean he supports him.what?
The CEO of Proton publicly supported Trump in a tweet.
I’m moving to another service as soon as my current subscription ends.
please say it isnt so
That’s bad news. Can you share the original tweet? Thanks
He praised the choice trump made for the antitrust office back in December.
I have written my opinion on why this was way overblown, if you are interested.
Thank you for sharing your blog post and the link to the article on Medium. I 100% agree with you when you say that “the mission of taking away power from Big Tech is more important than purity testing on social media, so any person who drops Google in favor of Proton (or Tuta, etc.) is a political win”.
How and why is Signal not “American big tech”? It even runs on Amazon’ servers!
It’s not big and it’s not for-profit.
Well does paying a CEO 1.000.000$ count as “big”, or “not for-profit”?
i didn’t find anything, can you provide a source.
Do they do that?
I read “American/Big Tech” as things that can be either the one or the other but not necessarily both. Telegram is a for-profit, publicly traded company based in Dubai that recently announced a partnership with xAI to include Grok into its services. Signal on the other hand is based in California and has been entirely non-profit so far. Pick your poison, I guess, but I know what I’m gonna pick.
You make it sound like there are only these two possibilities, that’s where it gets misleading…
I mean, I can personally also recommend Threema, but good luck getting people to use it.
Exactly, putting Telegram under American big tech, but not Signal has to be a bad joke! Telegram has its issues, but being American big tech ain’t one of them!
No one mentioning Le Chat for the LLM part?
Haven’t heard of that. Searched it and saw mistral ai. Is that the right one?
Yup. I really like it but admittedly use AI lightly
What’s the benefit to this one over others?
At the level I use it, nothing. There are people that seem to think the American ones are far ahead in their ability to deliver what you want but even more reason to have a viable European alternative
Yes it is
Le Chat FTW
How easy is it to switch completely from windows to Linux? Usability, feautures, costs?
imo its not that hard, but if its your first time with linux i’d suggest starting with a linux mint/fedora vm or install it on a spare laptop if you have one. this way you could learn it a bit before making the switch
I used it 20+ years ago. Is arch Linux now the “new” free/federated version? And on what non-US laptop can I run it?
Most Linux distributions are free (free as in beer and free as in free speech and freedom to modify). Some are backed by big corporations with questionable activities (e.g., Ubuntu owned by Canonical adding ads and data tracking by default).
Federation is a different concept (relating to the interconnecting of content platforms, such as email or Lemmy).
Linux itself is the underlying kernel code which programs talk to act as a mediator between software and hardware. Each Linux distribution is basically a software suite built on-top.
Arch is specifically notable for having a very fast software update cycle.
In contrast, Debian is a distribution with the “slow and stable” mantra. Software officially supported and distributed for it only receives updates every few years after extensive stability testing. The goal is to never have a random update break anything. This also means it is slow to receive support for new hardware unless you manually install it. It often supports running newer software but it won’t be nicely managed by the OS and you’ll be doing manual work to maintain it. The consequence? I have a new graphics card, and booting into Debian just gives me a black screen. I needed to use the terminal to download and install Nvidia’s driver myself.
Arch isn’t so concerned with stability. It’s still tested, but their goal is to make sure new hardware and software advances can be used right away. Think weeks instead of years. This means it will support newer hardware and any news about Linux advancements will be on your machine before long. It also means that sometimes things slip through the cracks and one piece of software might break, or break another one. You might need to pay attention to Arch news before updating to see if there are any incompatibilities before updating.
There are different distributions building on top of these. Arch itself must be installed from scratch, a tricky process. Debian is more streamlined. Ubuntu is built on Debian, having lots of stability, but has alternative software repositories to keep things a bit more up to date. Arch has variations that make it easier to install.
Arch gives more flexibility in what you install and more control of your system. Debian has lots of flexibility as well. Ubuntu has a bit less. Mint is a popular choice, built on Ubuntu, and it removes some of the “chaff” people complain about being added into Ubuntu.
Linux distributions can run on basically anything. A smart toaster might run Linux. If it can run Windows, it will probably run a Linux distribution with a quarter of the memory usage at double the speed because Windows hogs resources with unnecessary and unkillable software in the background.
wdym by free and federated? i just use arch because i like it, but mint for say is also free. i personally have an ACER laptop running EndevourOS, but Tuxedo Computers is a German company that ships their machines with linux pre-installed
Is arch Linux now the “new” free/federated version?
Not sure to understand the question. There are many non-corporate owned distributions, starting with Debian, not just Arch.
And on what non-US laptop can I run it?
Any non-US laptop is supposed to run just fine. One needs to set the correct locale (generally it will be the first question asked by the install assistant: what country are you in and what keyboard layout do you want to use)?
I run Mint and prior to it I was running Debian (and prior to that it was Arch) on my French Azerty layout laptop without any issue (the same with the desktop and it’s azerty keyboard)
The only potential issue will be disk encryption at boot but I can say it works flawlessly with Mint (and did so with Debian too, as far as I can remember)
You could also start with a dual boot windows-linux, and then slowly slowly transition to Linux. That’s how I started and I never booted windows after.
I don’t want to say it’s hard but it also feels disingenuous just simply calling it easy. honestly depends on the person and what they want to do with the computer
Installing it isn’t hard so long as you’re comfortable following some instructions to load a file onto a flash drive and hitting a couple buttons when your computer turns on
For usability, If you absolutely need specific programs that don’t work on Linux, like anything from Adobe, MS Office, CAD software, a lot of music production software, stuff like that, and an alternative just won’t work in your situation (such as if you need it for work) then unfortunately there’s not really a proper solution there. TONS of programs have a Linux equivalent that’s open source and free, many of them work fantastic, but also there’s many that aren’t ideal. For gaming though, it’s gotten REALLY good. With the exception of certain huge multiplayer games with anti-cheat, almost everything will just work if you use Steam, and most other things you can make work by adding them to Steam as a non-Steam game and clicking a couple buttons
As for cost? It costs no money but will cost you some time when you’re first setting it up and learning the ways it differs from Windows
If installing it doesn’t intimidate you and you don’t need any of the software that’s not supported, then it’s honestly not hard overall but there will be some adjustments
A bit off topic, but since you mentioned music production software I just wanted to quickly say I was surprised by how much easier it is to set up compared to Windows. Since Pipewire became a thing, it’s really dead simple. No need to mess around with ASIO, virtual cables, applications using an exclusive lock on interfaces, etc. Ardour and REAPER are solid pieces of free (half-free for REAPER) software, and the commercial Bitwig (made by ex-Ableton staff) also has a native Linux build which works great.
That’s awesome to hear actually, I’m not as familiar with music production stuff and don’t have any personal experience with it on Linux, it’s just something I’d heard was an obstacle before
It’s crazy to me how much better and more viable Linux as a whole has been getting over the past several years
Bottles work for almost every windows application nowadays. You will notice a slight performance hit, but for most desktop software on a halfway decent rig that’s completely irrelevant!
Usability is the same or better, but this is incredibly subjective. The plus is there is probably a solution specifically what you prefer. If you’re coming from Windows, KDE is probably the best starting point. “Desktop environment” is the key word of you want to see options.
Features are a bit more “it depends”, generally more user friendly. But depends on the software we’re talking about and can vary wildly.
There is no cost.
The only limiting factor for this endeavors in my eyes is that you might need some software that is Windows only. Many windows programs do run fine on Linux, which a lot of people don’t realize. You can basically just install them using the compatibility tool “wine”. You don’t need to do anything for this to work on modern Linux. For games there is “proton”, essentially a specialized version of wone. BUT there’s software that will not run, or only after a lot of tinkering, or just not well (enough). If that’s you, Linux isn’t ideal.
If you’re not in need of specialized software, just try it. Most Linux can not from a “live DVD”. No need to install. Just use it directly. I’ve you want to keep your stuff (settings and such), install on a 2nd SSD for like 25 bucks.
*Desktop environment. The Window manager is KWin
Fixed, thx. I was very tried when I wrote that…
That really depends on what you use your PC for. Are you deep into Microsoft Office suite? Do you play games such as PUBG, Battlefield 6 or other multiplayer games with a particular infringing anti-cheat? Maybe you use software from Adobe? Then no.
Otherwise, installing Linux is easy, if you know how to create a bootable USB-stick.
As a beginner, I would recommend Linux Mint.
depends on what you use your computer for. for video editing, you propably should learn davinci resolve sind adobe doesnt work, which could take a while. For me, i use my pc for software development and gaming, and the switch was practically “instant”, anf i have been using arch (btw) for half a year now. it took maybe a week to get used to the terminal and after then it has been getting better and better. i suppose the “getting used to it” period is faster on something like mint
I’ve been using Linux for more than a decade. Modern Linux is quite easy to start, compared to the old stereotype.
I highly recommend an easy way: for the daily softwares you use, you try to replace them with cross-platform ones, like libreoffice, thunderbird… when you want to try Linux someday, the migration path could be more smooth than you expected
Great list. My only recommendation is adding LibreOffice.
yeah i already use that too, i didnt rlly register it as an alternative which is why it isnt here ig😅
Not bad, but keep in mind thay Telegram is indistinguishable from an FSB honeypot.
They’re using Signal though, not Telegram.
Which is American…
opensource and privacy focused :3
Signal is opensource in the same way TiVo was GPL compliant.
Hey thanks for the comment. Might you explain a little bit more? I’m just curious to learn more
The Signal app is open source but forking it and connecting it to Signal servers (signal it’s centralised) is againt their TOS
Looks like he updated the list, good stuff anyway.
Can also recommend Qwant besides Ecosia.
For AI chatbots I’d recommend Ollama, Kobold.cpp or Llamafix.
for mail, Mailbox and Tuta are great too.
For delivery services, Bol.com is better indeed (has better labour rights too), but ideal is to just go shopping in the city itself. It benefits local smaller stores too!
For YouTube, I’d recommend PeerTube.
For OS, it depends on how well you know Linux types. If you’re new to Linux, and just want something that works, Linux Mint.
In general, the best bet would be as decentralised, open source, and horizontally organised as possible. Defederate from large companies. The less chance then, that a bad agent will be able to embrace, extend, and extinguish.
i had a bad experience with Qwant, i also wanna try peertube but they gotta let me make an account😭
What was the bad experience?
it wouldnt give me what i was looking for
Peertube is like lemmy federates, i’m sure tgere is a distribution that let you make an account
You coule just follow Peertube channels from Mastodon if you can’t find an instance that you like.
i would change:
- signal to something else that wouldn’t use amazon servers.
- HERE maps to mapy.com. HERE maps aren’t very good since they don’t use OSM data
What about the fact that basically ALL entire planet goes through either Cloudflare or Akamai’s infrastructure? I wonder if it is even possible to not use those, even unwillingly
Appreciated as tried here we go and couldn’t get on with it. Will try mapy
It will always depend on your requirements. Mapy is from a czech company. They have some cool features (like trips, gpx export, directions, reviews), however if you don’t need them, then using a simpler opensource solution might be better for you.
Thanks, Ill give it a go and see. You could be right, this is more than I need
deleted by creator
Bitwarden is from the US. KeePass would be an alternative. But ProtonPass ist great. Nice List.
![Some tech apps/services I personally use instead of their American/Big Tech counterparts [Updated]](https://feddit.nl/pictrs/image/c618c0c7-f37c-4336-a776-f7de4d9ccb3d.png){kind=link}