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Non-US alternatives to digital services (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by JOMusic@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world
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From a practical standpoint, the country that hosts many digital services is undergoing rapid political change. For awareness of non-US alternatives, check out:

https://switching.software/

https://european-alternatives.eu/alternatives-to

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[-] AliasAKA@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Bookshop.org just recently added ebooks, and I believe they have a UK store, for anyone trying to buy ebooks in a more ethical way. It allows you to select a local bookstore of your choosing and support them when you purchase books. They take a small fee to cover their warehousing and shipping I think, but pass along a lot of the profit (80%) to the local bookstore. They’re a certified b corp and their bylaws say they can’t sell to a major retailer (eg amazon).

[-] philpo@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago

Posteo is another alternative for Mail that a lot of people overlook.(And far more "real privacy" than fucking Proton)

Bitwarden sadly still is a US company and while it hosts in EU as well, some might not think this is enough. In that case Vaultwarden can be selfhosted easily.

It is not that much work to actually get rid of most possibly unreliable US services,but it's far more work to get other people to switch as not all services are interoperable yet....

[-] hagelslager@feddit.nl 3 points 10 hours ago

Question: why would you store passwords with an external service?

I have a local database synched with SyncThing between phones and computers and an external copy on a server.

[-] philpo@feddit.org 1 points 9 hours ago

And your local database is encrypted?

Vaultwarden is selfhosted and audited.

Besides: Not everyone wants to selfhost and not everyone should self host.

[-] designated_fridge@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Especially a password vault... Imagine your server going down while you are away from home and suddenly you're locked out of everything.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago

Sometimes I need a password when I don't have my devices with me, and logging into the Bitwarden web vault is super convenient. Also, everything is encrypted on the client, and the client is FOSS, so there's very little risk.

You can also host your own Bitwarden server, or use an independent alternative (Vaultwarden).

Bitwarden provides a lot of convenience without much compromise.

[-] hagelslager@feddit.nl 1 points 7 hours ago

Thank you for your explanation!

I exclusively log in on my phones or computers, so the devices which have the copies of the database. (With a backup to an external server under my control.)

[-] philpo@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago

And then your house burns down,you get robbed or the cops come and take your devices away.

[-] JOMusic@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Good points. I do believe Bitwarden is open-source though, so it can probably be forked off into a version that doesn't host data in the US.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago

You can always self-host it as well.

[-] scutiger@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

They don't do all of what Proton does, but for email Hushmail is run out of Vancouver. The free account is quite limited in terms of space though, but it's free.

[-] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

A good post to mention !buyeuropean@feddit.uk.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago

The irony of this community being hosted on feddit.uk

[-] KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago

Wait why's it ironic? The UK is in Europe

[-] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 5 points 1 day ago

The person doesn't understand the difference between Europe and European Union.

[-] tdawg@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

So proton is out these days right? Does anyone have thoughts on fastmail?

[-] cupcakezealot 9 points 1 day ago

Tuta > Proton

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago

I like they they only do email and calendar. It's best to not keep too many eggs in the same basket, and the pricing for Proton seems to discourage that.

[-] zraziel@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

Proton is still a great product.. easy to switch away from Google, especially if you don't have the time to self host or manage the complexity of 5 different services. I am aware of recent discussion, and have decided for myself that overreacting is not necessary, though that's up to you :)

[-] Eril@feddit.org 14 points 1 day ago

Nowadays I half suspect any tech CEO to have some questionable mindset (to say the least). So it seems more important to me, what the company actually does. I hope everyone complaining about Proton now also does not use Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, Apple products, and the list goes on. Their CEOs are definitely a lot worse.

[-] Dragomus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Not just that, but frankly for a company like Proton it's prudent to "cry along with the wolves, lest you get killed" ...

As long as Proton's products still stand on their own in the light of the Trump regime I don't think it is useful at all to torch the company because of remarks of its ceo now that Trump is in office...

Ofcourse one can frown and be miffed but there are far worse companies out there that everyone uses, and people shrug off direct comments of anyone on the board of directors.

[-] jbaber@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 day ago

Fastmail is really, really nice.

[-] refreeze@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Long time customer and super happy with Fastmail. Its a bit pricy but the service is great.

[-] subtext@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Yeah it could be argued that Fastmail is less private than alternatives, but they make a damn good service. Plus email shouldn’t be used for secure communication anyways.

[-] riscwarez@feddit.online 5 points 1 day ago

I joined Fastmail almost a month ago and am really enjoying it, I especially like the integrated masked emails.

[-] PetteriPano@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I went over to purelymail, but it's in .us

It's not fancy encrypted like proton, but it's very affordable and straight forward to set up for your own domains.

[-] MojoMcJojo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Looking for android app alternatives

[-] DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

PeerTube seems fine for a YT alternative (only because it's pretty much either it or Odysee, that's what happens when you have an effective monopoly on user-generated content like YT does, and PeerTube IMO needs to take off sooner rather than later given how ridiculous YT's censorship has gotten lately), and then of course Lemmy (this platform) is looking really good so far as a Reddit alternative and I've only been on it for a day now, ditto for Pixelfed as an Instagram alternative.

And then of course there's Mastodon for a Twitter/Facebook alternative.

Also, Matrix seems fine for a Discord alternative, but moderation is all over the map.

[-] JOMusic@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

https://makertube.net/ is the PeerTube instance that I've been using, and it's been great.

[-] JackAttack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Adding to this, pipepipe (for YouTube) on f droid is amazing. Not sure where it's based but they do great work.

[-] refreeze@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Does anyone have a good recommendation for an S3 provider? I'm looking at Hetzner and OVH.

[-] oldfart@lemm.ee 2 points 9 hours ago

Hetzner's S3 is immature, they just started beta last year, and are rough at the edges

[-] philpo@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

Hetzner is rock solid in my experience (and I run multiple server with them both for private and business use). I really can't complain.

I have my S3 backups at Ionos these days, they are also fairly large, only marginally more expensive and so far it's working well. Their cloud/VPS service (the proper one,not the consumer one) is also decent and offers a few (rarely needed) options that Hetzner doesn't have.

[-] taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Hetzner support is usually quite good, something I can't say of the (albeit much more limited) experiences with OVH.

[-] Toes@ani.social 2 points 1 day ago

I think OVH would be a good choice.

[-] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

What services specifically

[-] burgersc12@mander.xyz 15 points 2 days ago

If you click the fucking link its mostly Google and social media alternatives.

[-] BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one 4 points 1 day ago

And not to be a Debbie Downer, but most of these alternatives are trash each in their own ways. But it's good to have options.

[-] burgersc12@mander.xyz 12 points 1 day ago

Sure, didn't even look at the actual alternatives but the guy I replied to was too lazy to even click the link to see which ones were getting replaced so I get to make fun of him :)

[-] BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one 12 points 1 day ago

Sometimes I think bullying is necessary; tourists who litter should be bullied, and that one dude in the comments who doesn't click links.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago

That's not bullying. Now, if we follow them around and reply to all their comments pointing them out as someone who doesn't follow links, maybe we'll get somewhere.

this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
211 points (100.0% liked)

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