441

Software alternatives (lemmy.world)

submitted 22 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) by qaz@lemmy.world to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Credit to https://www.reddit.com/user/lukakopajtic/

There might be some changes that could improve it further:

Remove Brave
Maybe add Signal; It's easier than Element, but it's also centralized
Stop suggesting Linux Mint specifically
Recommend Hosted Nextcloud
Add GrapheneOS
Maybe add Delta chat
Maybe remove Bluesky
Remove Stremio and add Jellfyin (even though it's selfhosted and not a direct equivalent)
Add ente because Immich is selfhosted

Any other suggestions?

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 2 points 10 minutes ago

I feel like there would be value in having a "self hosted" column of tag. Like I think jellyfin should be on this list but if I went to switch from a streaming service to a self hosted jellyfin I'd be immediately upset that this list isn't offering alternatives that are "ready to play" so to speak.

Just a friction point deterrence.

[-] jamie_oliver@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago

So as someone who recently went from MacOS to Linux (at least partially) Mint is terrible for macOS users. It is like going back to windows. I get it is the easiest for Windows users but maybe add a row for Macos to Fedora or something (but maybe it is too complicated, I just know most mac users would scoff at Mint's interface).

[-] raymondpeterfellow@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

Linux Mint is the simplest Linux distro if you come from Windows, unless there are others that recommendation is pretty much accurate.

Anyone else who uses other distros on a daily basis will simply skip that recommendation.

[-] Marty_Man_X@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I get the desire to post "simple" answers like this. And while some of the recommends do make sense... I believe the lists should be better researched. A few other comments also pointed out some of the issues already.

I've noticed with a lot of these lists that worse/unreasonable/less private/less secure/not even European or FOSS are being recommended as alternatives and I think they do more harm than good for people that might need genuine help making this process more simple. They also tend to miss a lot of excellent alternatives.

For what it's worth, these lists oversimplify and can't take into account individual needs, so own research is always necessary IMO.

For me, it's paramount that the software we use is secure and privacy respecting / transparent. A great resource for good recommendations is: privacyguides.org .

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 14 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Suggesting linux mint specifically is good. Linux is overwhelming to new users, don't give them choice paralysis too.

[-] based_raven@lemm.ee 4 points 1 hour ago

I honestly agree here. Better to suggest a specific distro than just saying "use Linux".

[-] whome@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 hours ago

I see that this is focused on foss alternatives streaming wide I would suggest mubi and your local library which often include streaming services. At least here in Germany.

[-] Tungsten5@lemm.ee 9 points 3 hours ago

This is the pic that made me join

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Nice, if you have any questions about Lemmy feel free to ask

[-] 8000gnat@reddthat.com 3 points 2 hours ago

you love to hear it

[-] sevenOfKnives 13 points 5 hours ago

signal is a good option for messaging. it is technically american, but i feel like FOSS projects should generally get a pass.

also, as an american who is very not okay with what our (russia's) government (puppet) is doing, wouldn't supporting non-american businesses mean paying the tariffs and supporting the oligarchs? i'm not really sure what us yanks can do besides just trying not to spend ANY money.

[-] Serinus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

what us yanks can do besides just trying not to spend ANY money.

That's about to get a lot easier. How do you feel about a $3000 laptop? Car manufacturing might just stop temporarily. They've got a month to figure out how to change pretty major processes that companies may not have the current ability to change.

And let's see if they're going to move into the US or out.

[-] amzd@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago

Signal is extremely expensive, they pay $15m+ to Google and Amazon because they don’t self-host so around half of their donations go directly to tech oligarchy

[-] Yuriq@feddit.rocks 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Yeet Brave & element. add jabber and irc. Swap mint 4 fedora atomic.

[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 1 points 4 minutes ago

IRC still exists?

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

Why should Element be removed?

[-] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 35 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Bluesky absolutely belongs in the left column.

It's not Transparent, Decentralized or Open Source.

It is a centralized social media network exactly like Twitter. The only 'open' part is a protocol that lets you interact with their, private, service.

The fact that it is 'open source' is largely a red herring, if Bluesky decides to no longer support their protocol then it is worthless. It cannot simply be forked and remain useful.

Bluesky is simply engaging in a PR campaign to steal customers from Twitter. It is exactly the same as Twitter in all of the ways that matter. It can be purchased by Musk or manipulated by the existing owner in the same way as Twitter.

Making a Bluesky account is simply trusting a new corporation to not act like a corporation in the future... which is a pretty naive position.

Ecosia is not open source, or decentralized. It is a private search engine based in Germany that provides search results from the major search engines and sells advertisements via Yahoo and Microsoft ad networks. These ad networks are part of Surveillance Capitalism and earn their money primarily by spying on you, collating your data and selling it/using it to place ads.

Stremio is largely a piece of software used to funnel people into paying for monthly for pirate streaming services. It's not getting rid of Netflix or Disney+, it's giving you the option of paying Russian or North Korean supported cybergangs instead of Netflix for access to streaming content.

The real open source alternative is Jellyfin. Then using qBittorrent along with Sonarr and Radarr to self-host your own media server.

The other suggestions are mostly okay with minor gripes.

They could add GrapheneOS as an Android alternative.
Linux Mint is not a bad option but 'What Linux Distro should we recommend to new people' is a contentious topic in the community, Mint is fine but there are other options (EndeavourOS is Arch Linux installed with the Calamares graphical installer and some sane options for a desktop PC, btw)
While Signal isn't 'open source'. It is, for the moment, a secure option that doesn't require a lot of user knowledge to setup. It is a vastly superior choice than using social media for messaging without requiring a lot of technical knowledge on the user's part.

[-] Serinus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

It is exactly the same as Twitter in all of the ways that matter.

I think the fucking Nazi at the head matters.

[-] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

There are Nazis at the head of Lemmy instances. Because it isn't centralized it's very easy to deal with.

When there is a centrally controlled social media and a Nazi takes over, it is a huge problem and requires a large amount of social effort to solve.

Bluesky could be purchased by Elon (or the current owner may decide they prefer the alt right by this time next year) and then we'd be in the same situation.

The weakness in Twitter and Bluesky is central control. Elon just provided a very poignant example as to why.

Don't use Bluesky and also delete Twitter. Don't support the idea of a single person or entity controlling the social lives of everyone else.

[-] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 1 points 48 minutes ago* (last edited 45 minutes ago)

+1. Was really surprised to see ecosia (searx!?) and stremio as the only options of their categories; kinda sketchy...

Graphene should also for sure be included, even if it's Pixel only. I don't care that much about Bluesky as I've dealt first-hand with trying to get my gen-x mother on mastodon, and failing spectacularly. It's not better in the long run, but in the short term it's good to leave Twitter, simply to lose Elon some money. Either way, the list is kinda weird.

Edit: also, only mention droidify and not plain f-droid, obtainium, and Aurora? What?

Edit: corrected last edit

[-] LucidNightmare@lemm.ee 36 points 13 hours ago

lol… Brave… Come on man.

[-] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Yeah, I was gonna say… Recommending Brave isn’t a great look right now. Especially right in the wake of the Brave CEO going off on that unhinged ultra conservative rant.

And Firefox recently had its own controversy, with the removal of their “we promise never to sell your info” section of their ToS. When questioned, they basically responded with “well some jurisdictions define “sell” as “exchanging for money”… We don’t agree with that. But because some jurisdictions do define it that way, we need to remove that section. All we want to do is exchange your info for money. But again, we don’t think that should be considered selling your info.”

[-] Jagget@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago

Delta Chat is European and is better alternative for messaging apps

[-] Nalivai@lemmy.world 37 points 15 hours ago

Fucking brave shows it's ugly head again. The only thing worse than a browser owned by a greedy corpo is a browser that is owned by two greedy corpos, one of which is mostly a crypto scam corpo.

[-] Awebo@lemm.ee 37 points 17 hours ago

I don’t think BlueSky is a great alternative, it’s still American and also still pretty big tech

[-] Serinus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

But it needs to stay. Mastodon is better, but Bluesky has momentum, and anything to get people off Twitter.

Mastodon is still there, and first.

[-] rfr_Foglia@feddit.it 7 points 12 hours ago

I also still don't fully understand if it can be categorized as decentralized.

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago

Nope, its a twitter clone

[-] Tyfud@lemmy.world 74 points 19 hours ago

Don't use Brave. It's got a lot of privacy issues, even compared to the Mozilla foundation. Underneath, it's still Chrome.

[-] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 hours ago

Plus the CEO is MAGA

load more comments (7 replies)

[-] alexaralvarado@infosec.pub 5 points 12 hours ago

Currently on mobile and hardly working. Can somebody please do an edit removing fakeogtwitter and the homophobecrytofascistbrowser from this list? The send it to op for replacement. Please and thank you. Cheers.

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I'm on mobile too, but I've added some changes to the post description for now

[-] CameronDev@programming.dev 85 points 21 hours ago

Lots of these are still American, and Bluesky isnt any-less of a walled garden, they just haven't reached enshitification-critical-mass yet.

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 29 points 21 hours ago

Yeah, the list does not fit this community

Headquarters Seattle, Washington, United States

[-] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 21 points 18 hours ago

I like how it starts with getting off Twitter and trying out Lemmy and ends with switching to Linux.

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 50 points 21 hours ago

OP, quite a few of these are still American, some open source, some not. It's more like a generic list of alternatives to mainstream.

[-] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

Saying “this FOSS is American” is a little like saying “any wheat in a meal makes it Egyptian because that’s where wheat comes from.” FOSS doesn’t have borders, because it can be used, forked, and modified by anyone. Even if an American created it, as soon as it becomes FOSS, it is a worldwide project.

[-] itslilith 14 points 18 hours ago

When it's FOSS it doesn't matter so much where they're based, fortunately

[-] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 2 points 3 hours ago

BlueSky and Brave for sure aren't FOSS.

[-] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 11 points 16 hours ago

I strongly support Homeassistant. The sheer amount of features they've added and the community built around it make it a no brainer for home automation.

[-] youngalfred@lemm.ee 42 points 21 hours ago

Revanced is just a cracked YouTube app isn't it?

load more comments (3 replies)

[-] oce@jlai.lu 29 points 20 hours ago

Ecosia is a German web search engine based on Bing and Google's index.
Qwant is a French web search engine based on Bing but which has been working on its own index for a while.
I just found out that Ecosia and Qwant started teaming up last year to build a European search index. I hope something will come out of it. https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/

PeerTub is developped by French non-profit Framasoft, which also develops multiple de-gooling apps: collaborative docs, forms, agenda, or host other open-source collaboration tools. https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/