BuyFromEU

Is already hanging there for a while...

cross-posted from: https://europe.pub/post/10375693

No need for Claude Code, Cursor, or other proprietary American counterparts

Summer holidaymakers opting for ‘more familiar, easy-to-reach locations’ as travel industry counts cost of Middle East conflict

Are there any alternatives to meetup.com? Eventbrite may be one. But I'm wondering if there is something less focused on business.

I want to make some cash transfers to some of the poorest people. The main gang doing this seems to be givedirectly.org , a USAn charity

I might just use them, as that barely hardly counts as using a USAn product. (Not sure if they pay tax to the USA/Israel? Maybe they are exempt?)

But if there's an alternative outside that would be slightly preferable.

Go raibh maith agaibh

geteilt von: https://piefed.zip/c/buyeuropean/p/1180734/bigswitch-eu-european-alternatives-to-big-tech-hosted-on-codeberg

https://codeberg.org/sabrinazaki/BigSwitch.eu

The community-driven directory for digital sovereignty. Discover GDPR-compliant, EU-owned, open-source alternatives to US Big Tech tools.

Ye another thematic website, but this time the list and frontend is open source. That wins sympathy points, but I doubt that the JSON file will scale, and I doubt that we need the third-ish answer to the same question.

Anyhow: give it a try and submit whatever comes to your mind.

"The Swedish government wants to strengthen ties with US tech giants, despite the Trump administration's potential influence over these companies. This is according to Minister for Public Administration Erik Slottner (KD) in Ny Teknik. "What is happening in the US is rather proof that we need to have a strong relationship with these tech companies – perhaps even stronger than we have today. Europe is an important market for them, and they are very keen to have a good relationship with us." He mentions Google, for example, as a partner he wants to continue to have on his digitalization council."

Translated with DeepL (https://dee.pl/apps)

I just discovered Nordwolle thanks to "Lage der Nation" (https://chaos.social/@lagedernation) ! Production is only on-demand to avoid over-production, so it might take several weeks before your order arrives.

They are situated in north-east Germany, where I lived as kid for a long time, which is a region struggling with infrastructure and far-right tendencies.

Nordwolle is a light house of compassion and democratic values in the area! They predominantly employ refugees, make sure they earn a livable wage (16€/h + bonuses), and help with all the bureaucratic nonsense.

I bought a nice sweater from the ESA merch store and now I'm looking for more euro-centric apparel. Give me your recommendations, it can be from any EU country and doesn't have to be state sponsored, but it should be official, no bootlegging. I'm really open to a wide variety of suggestions. European companies, institutions, even will known brands, if it's clearly European I'm interested.

The official ESA store: https://shop.esa.int/

I’m moving soon and we’ve been using a Ring alarm and I no longer want that for obvious reasons. I do however like the functionality like mobile network, battery backup and remote access into it.

Are there any off-the-shelf solutions anyone can recommend? Or am I better getting creative with Home Assistant and making sure it’s on my UPS? I’ve had a bit of a dig around, but searches are getting shitter and I’m not really coming up with anything that isn’t just a major US tech firm or cost hundreds.

Any thoughts much welcomed.

https://cumulus.equipment/en/eu

What are some nice PeerTube channels (or others that are not Youtube)?

List you favourites!

I recently switched database solution for my hobby project from Microsoft Azure to Scaleway. I did this purely out of ideological conviction and I was even prepared to pay a bit more for a European service.

That turned out to not be the case. My monthly bill went from around 6€ to 1,3€. The performance was equally as good, if not better (I haven't tested, just going off of feel) and the setup was very smooth.

This really made me think, and I began to reflect on all the other changes I’ve made and how they’ve turned out to be improvements - even though that wasn’t what motivated me to switch.

My old laptop was very slow and laggy. I wiped it clean from Windows and installed Linux Mint. Now it’s like it’s brand new, I’ve come to rely on shortcuts and features that don’t exist in Windows and I love how all the unnecessary resource draining bloat is gone.

My search engine, Startpage, gives me what I’m looking for, not AI summaries where my question was misunderstood or just straight up hallucinations.

And for all of the services where the European alternative wasn’t noticeably better (Proton mail, Le Chat, DeepL, etc) they’ve been just as good - only more privacy respecting. I haven’t replaced everything yet, and I expect some things to be difficult, but thus far I can honestly say that I don’t feel like I have made any sacrifices.

I feel like I’ve been subject to some psychological fallacy where I’ve assumed that the most popular alternative is the best and it’s been eye-opening to realize it’s simply not true.

I’m curious about your experiences, can you relate to this?

Alternative url: https://archive.is/20260226072104/https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/02/25/luxury-goods-are-europes-global-tax-on-vanity

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/41612497

My research group still uses Slack, which is not only USAian, but also has a terrible free version and expensive subscription.

I am confident there is will to switch, but the inconvenience of learning a new platform prevents the team as a whole. What would be good alternatives that would make an easy transition period?

There are a few EU seals on products that guide my shopping, the Eco-label the Organic and the certified origin for regional products. Should there be also one that certified social good practices by companies?

The B corporation is a good idea, but it's also an US private seal involved in a few polemics.. getting the seal implies paying fees to a US organization.

Hi folks, just wanted to share my experience and strategy with transitioning away from US-based digital services. As you can see, the blog is on GitHub, so it's not about perfection. Happy to chat in the comments!