hey hope this post is ok. im just wanting to tell some guys what i already achieved in not even a week! :) i never used facebook or instagram. tiktok i deleted. my x account is now also deleted.

when i shop i wont buy from us-american firms like Kraft Heinz and Mondelez.

• now i just need to migrate all my accounts on gmail to my new Proton mail adress
• delete reddit
• switch to linux.
• use lineageOS. potential problem: bank app?
• switch to free maps app
• youtube. i use newpipe. do they still get my views?

I'm happy with my Garmin watch for now and simply know I am addicted to tracking stuff, especially all bike rides (including work commute).

But what if I wanted a European product? Or recommend something to friends? I like the watch form factor but ma open to mounting something on the bike again. The thing is these devices tend to come with some digital services, meaning some sort of American entity getting my data is almost a must it seems. I'm open to self-hosting a backend but I doubt my friends are 😅

https://lemmyverse.net/communities?order=active

https://nlnet.nl/foundation/

Since I canceled Claude (US boycott) I'm really enjoying https://chat.mistral.ai It might be a few months behind quality wise, but it is really fast, which is great for quick searches and brainstorming. It even has a canvas feature now.

This really gives me hope! Great french AI Tool!

>Meanwhile, the import value from Germany to Kosovo stood at 897 million euros, marking a 19.4% increase compared to 2023.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1j523ll/here_is_an_expanded_cheatsheet_to_help_you_break/

Matomo, the evolution of Piwik, is a Google Analytics alternative from France that protects your data and your customer's privacy. You can self host it for free or use it with a cloud service for a monthly fee.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/8817096

> Yet another site, this time from a Scottish fella, and with a clear message in the URL. > > It looks well made, though.

So this is kind of a bit meta I guess. I want to start selling (not just yet but in the near future) low volume crafted goods (obviously made in Europe). Initially very low volume stuff made in my spare time and testing the waters to see if it is a viable business.

I'm not a programmer and the additional overhead of making my own website, hosting it myself or having to deal with stuff like payment gateways and order placement doesn't appeal to me so I've been looking at dedicated e-commerce platforms or website hosts with e-commerce plugins/features such as Shopify, Big Cartel, Wix, Squarespace etc.

Big Cartel was my current leader but it appears they are based in the US. Shopify I think is Canadian but I've been put off by their recent actions, Squarespace is US and Wix is Israeli.

I know there is Flohmarkt and I do intend to get involved there if I can but I think things are a bit rough and unknown with it still and I don't want to put anyone off ordering things or making life hard for myself unnecessarily. I also much prefer the idea of having more of a personalised website-style store rather than just listings or classifieds such as with Etsy or Flohmarkt.

So are there any good European owned alternatives that people are aware of that have features that are comparable to the above?

A few brands

• https://global.ecco.com/ - Danish with 6 factories across Europe and Asia (https://group.ecco.com/en/about-us) (seems like they still do business in Russia)
• https://kuoma.fi/en/ - made in Finland
• https://pomarshoes.com/ - made in Estonia
• https://www.en.flamingoslife.com/ - made in Portugal and Spain

Yesterday I discovered these cereals brand in a local “hyperpharmacy” [ Basically a big pharmacy which has, besides pharmaceuticals, naturist stuff, supplements or organic / bio food. ] . They were at sale from 4.1 euro to 3.4 [ same price as Cheerios here in Romania]. -> Bio EU Agriculture -> Just 2 ingredients: 83% puffet spelt, 17% honey. [ Cheerios has 14 and 4 of them are diff types of sugar]. -> Yes they are good

There are more varieties such as choco balls, flakes, loops. https://turtlecereals.com/ - yes I discovered that they have a site.

Next step is to move from Windows to Linux.

UK company

> No subscriptions. Better prices the more you listen. Exclusive access to the listen-and-read x-book®. Certified B Corp™ and Ethical Consumer Best Buy.

Disclaimer: body content copied from elsewhere

There are many games made in Europe that really worth your time. Yes, unfortunately if you buy them from Steam or other stores besides GOG, a significant cut will go to these market monopolists. But the rest will hopefully fund European studios.

Here is a list of the European games I have played in the last five years or so and the country where studio is mostly based Feel free to add more!

Open world and RPGs

• Cyberpunk 2077 (Poland) I have been playing games since the Commodore 64. I sincerely believe this to be one of the best games ever made. If you like sci-fi, if you like Cyberpunk and have not yet played this masterpiece, you need to buy it now. The gameplay, the story will change you. Close reddit and go buy it on GOG! Or... you can choose to play the American Starfield, with the americanicased United Colonies vs american Libertarian Colonies in space, with no universal healthcare and people living underground on a paradise world (true story).

• Baldur's Gate 3 (Belgium) This game also needs no introduction. One of the best RPGs ever made. You can do almost everything you can think of, romance everyone. The voice acting is top notch, the combat is fun and you can even play it in couch co-op in split screen. I played it a second time with my partner in this way.

• Kingdom Come Deliverance 1 and 2 (Czech Republic) I have yet to play the 2nd one. The first KCD was a fresh take on the open-world RPG genre, with one set in medieval times in Bohemia. No dragons, no magic. Just a bit of alchemy. The combat system was a bit difficult to get adjusted to, but it's definitely worth a lot of your time! Will buy the 2nd one as soon as I finish a few other titles through my backlog. I think many more studios should do "historical RPGs." It's truly a shame (as an Italian) that there are NO open-world RPGs set in the times of the Roman Empire. A game of the quality of KCD would be like a fountain of gold.

• Disco Elysium (Estonia) This is a bit older, from 2019 but it's truly a masterpiece. It's a surreal RPG with basically no combat and it is entirely focused on the narrative aspects. A lot of choices, a lot of reading, and the possibility to build 0.00001% of communism! There is a bit of controversy regarding the studio, however. From what I have gathered from the wikipedia article, the IP is no longer owned by the original authors, who have launched a new studio and are working on a spiritual successor to DE.

Strategy and Tactics

• Paradox Games (Sweden) There are just too many. If you like staring at maps (who doesn't?) you only need to pick the genre you like the most. Medieval times? Crusader Kings. WW2? Hearts of Iron 4. Modern period? Victoria 3. Space? Stellaris. Unfortunately the DLC model of Paradox is a bit infamous but these games have kept me entertained for thousands of hours combined.

• Endless * games (France) are "competitors" to Paradox games. There's Endless Space for turn-based 4x like Civilization, Endless Legend is a fantasy civilization, Humankind is a direct competitor to Civilization, Endless Dungeon is a roguelike. I heartily recommend all of them. They are working on Endless Legend 2 I think and there's a lot of anticipation around it.

• Ixion (France) is a sort of city builder based in space, where you need to build up sectors of a travelling spaceship. I won't spoil it too much, I liked the story. It's a grim take on the peril of tech billionaire too. Music is awesome.

• Other older tactical / simulation game. Surviving Mars (2018, Bulgaria) is a city builder set on Mars. Very captivating and realistic. The game is old now and I think it contains some positive references to Elon, from the before times. Frostpunk 1 & 2 (Poland) lets you manage a colony of survivors in a world that entered an ice age. I haven't played the 2nd one yet but the first was really worht it. The city must survive! Cities Skylines 1&2 (Finland) are the de facto genre standards for successors of Sim City

Action & Adventure games

• Helldivers 2 (Sweden). I haven't played this one personally, but there's a huge following around it. Everybody by now should now that is extremely important to defend democracy! Not many might know that it is made in Europe.

• Alan Wake series (Finland). The last AW2 was truly a remarkable survival-horror game. If you like the genre and haven't played you need to catch up. Plus you can't say you have lived until you have seen this.

• Hitman series (Denmark). This also needs no introductions. It's the one of the best game in the stealth genre. The story is also well developed and there are ways to make your target suffer a fatal accident that you have never thought of.

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Sweden). Surprisingly, this game was made in Sweden (distributed by Bethesda Softworks). It's a great Indiana Jones story. I liked the Vatican part a lot but the game has been overall very entertaining. I'd love to see a remake of the Fate of Atlantis. Plus, this game has the best 3D rendition of an Italian cornetto. I was salivating when I saw it!

Indie games

• Observation (Scotland) is a classic sci-fi story about a space station where something has gone wrong. It's a "walking" (or zero-g walking at least) simulator, but the story is captivating.

• Observer (Poland) is a sci-fi horror game set in a cyberpunkish world. The protagonist is played by the late Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner). My partner loved it. Other great games from this studio are The Medium, Layers of Fear, and the remake of Silent Hills 2.

• Silicon Dreams (Austria), this is truly a very obscure game but as a lover all things Cyberpunk, I really liked it. It's a narrative game, a sort of visual novel, where you have to interrogate androids who are accused of being deviants. You'll need to decide whether to dismiss the charges or sentence them to recycling. It's basically a cyberpunk version of Papers, Please, but a lot more developed in terms of narrative.

• Suzerain (Germany), is another narrative based adventure game. You play the role of a politician in a fictional country that rises to power. Through your actions you will need to decide what kind of country it will become.

• The Invincible (Poland). I just finished this last night. It's a sci-fi story that serves as a prequel to Stanislaw Lev's novel of the same name. It's a short game, but very atmospheric and will offer you a great sci-fi story on another planet.

I'm also working on an indie-game, it's called Sine Fine. It's a space exploration game set after humanity's extinction, where you play the role of an AI supercomputer tasked with the mission of finding a new habitable planet by sending out probes at relativistic sublight speeds in a desolate and seemingly empty galaxy. If you like hard sci-fi be sure to keep an eye out for it. Steam page will come soon!

Thanks for having read so far and feel free to add more games!

More details https://good-search.org/about/en/

First time I hear about it

A switch away from US big-tech is great, but the switch should be made to something fundamentally better and more secure/privacy preserving IMO.

Not every single tool you might need will have a recommendation on this website, but some will and they're well researched and vetted alternatives that often perform better than the service you're replacing.

Here's the email someone just sent to Lidl, Aldi and Edeka - feel free to use it as inspiration (English version further down, translated with Deepl ofc):

German:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

ich schreibe Ihnen als besorgter Kunde, um Sie auf die aktuelle Entwicklung in den USA aufmerksam zu machen. Angesichts der derzeitigen Situation möchte ich Sie bitten, verstärkt Produkte aus Europa zu fördern und in Ihrem Sortiment zu integrieren. Gleichzeitig wäre es wünschenswert, Produkte aus den USA schrittweise aus dem Angebot zu nehmen.

Eine Möglichkeit, dies zu unterstützen, könnte die Einführung einer speziellen Kennzeichnung / Sticker für europäische Produkte sein, (z.B. "Kauf aus Europa!"). Dies würde den Kunden helfen, bewusst Produkte aus unserer Region zu wählen und gleichzeitig die heimische Wirtschaft zu unterstützen.

Ich bin überzeugt, dass viele Kunden diese Initiative begrüßen würden und freue mich auf Ihre Rückmeldung.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Leading\_Positive\_123

English:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to you as a concerned customer to draw your attention to current developments in the USA. In view of the current situation, I would like to ask you to increasingly promote products from Europe and integrate them into your range. At the same time, it would be desirable to gradually remove products from the USA from your range.

One way to support this could be to introduce a special label/sticker for European products (e.g. “Buy from Europe!”). This would help customers to consciously choose products from our region and at the same time support the local economy.

I am convinced that many customers would welcome this initiative and look forward to your feedback.

Yours sincerely,

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/braunschweig_harz_goettingen/Ein-E-Auto-fuer-20000-Euro-So-sieht-der-Neue-von-VW-aus,volkswagen2494.html

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/8803976

> Hello everyone, > I wanted to share some helpful resources for deleting accounts from major tech companies (and especially US-Big-Tech). > Many services deliberately make account deletion difficult, but luckily we have a strong privacy legislation and it's worth remembering that under GDPR Article 17 ("Right to erasure" or "right to be forgotten"), we have the legal right to request complete deletion of our personal data. > > To ensure your account is truly deleted rather than just deactivated, I recommend checking the privacy policy of each service and specifically requesting deletion in accordance with GDPR regulations. > > Here are two excellent websites that provide step-by-step guides and direct links for deleting accounts: > - JustDeleteAccount.com - A comprehensive directory with direct links to delete accounts from over 800+ web services. The project is open source on GitHub, and you can contribute to it. They're also planning to provide an API in the future. > - JustDelete.me - Similar to JustDeleteAccount, offering guides and direct links for account deletion. > > If you know other helpful resources, I am happy to add them to this list :)-

I want to switch from Proton and am looking at Mailbox.org. (This is probably not exclusive to Mailbox.org.) Alias are limited with Mailbox.org, which I'm not a fan of. But extensions can be used as well. Although they don't seem as anonymous as aliases? Can someone give their perspective on this?

Mail Extensions Aliases

Right now I'm currently using Apple TV to buy video content. But I would like to switch to an european alternative that does not have any drm.