We are concerned about about the US being able to switch off or spy on our cloud instances.

But what about payment infrastructure? All payment card companies we use are US based (visa, mastercard, amex). In some European countries like Denmark they have their own system alongside (Dankort). The Dutch sold off all their own card issuers providers long time ago.

https://epicompany.eu/ is supposed to provide an alternative but haven't seen any updates on that in a while.

Someone here suggested WERO, we read about it and have just activated it in our bank. It was very simple and took 2 or 3 clicks.

An all-in-one digital wallet solution:

Wero is a new European payment system designed to modernize the way we handle transactions across the continent. Launched in 2024, it aims to unify various national payment solutions into a single platform.

Wero is the brainchild of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a consortium of 16 European banks. The initiative was born out of a need to create a sovereign and unified payment solution for Europe, reducing dependence on non-European payment systems like Visa & Mastercard.

With Wero, sending money to friends and family will be much easier because it allows you to send and receive €€ instantly using just an email address, phone number, or QR code. No more IBANS, 3 days of waiting to receive etc.

It's also a good alternative for Paypal and it is designed to replace several national payment solutions, including Giropay , Paylib , Payconiq and iDEAL which not always work cross-borders.

The roadmap is full of features to be implemented like online and in-store payment.

For the moment, it's available only in Germany, France and Belgium.

Website: https://wero-wallet.eu

Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site––what trends are we seeing?

https://plausible.io/blog/european-alternatives-trends-privacy-tech

Call for suggestions

Hey there! We're looking for some ideas for the summer holidays, and we're counting on you for suggestions!

If you have any ideas for fun entertainment, theme parks, or amusement parks in Europe we'd love to list them in this thread!

It doesn't matter if it's for adults or children. It can be a place that you've been, a place you'd like to go someday, or a place you've just heard about.

Feel free to share a link, an image, or a short review — whatever works best for you!

#BoycottDisneyland #BoycottMickey

Would you like a #opensource alternative to Notion, made in Europe and offline-first?

We present you #Anytype, "the everything app" made in #Germany (Swiss org).

Anytype is an open-source application designed to be a solution for note-taking, task management, and personal information organisation.

It emphasises #privacy, security, and user autonomy, making it a popular choice for those who value data sovereignty and local-first storage.

Main points:

- Offline-first: your files live in your device
- End-to-End Encryption (E2EE)
- Decentralized and Open-Source
- Interoperable Spaces: You can create public, private, or shared spaces
- Fast synchronization: your data is up-to-date across all devices
- Data portability

You can use it for:

Note Taking - Curated and Recommendations Lists - Calendar - Habit Tracker - Study Hub - Travel Wiki - Recipe Book - Meal Planner - Movie Database - Language Flashcards - Daily journal - Community Page & Wiki - Blog Homepage - Family Planner - To-do lists - Kanban - Knowledge Organisation - Friendship Manager etc.

There are templates and widgets to choose from. You can use graphs to see how things are connected. There's much more, so check out all the available features on their website: https://anytype.io

We added a lot of new categories over the last couple of days! Now it's your turn: Suggest any missing products and companies for the new categories. And if you want to go even further: Suggest new categories!

https://buy-european.net/en

For our second #FollowFriday here (we forgot it last week), we wanted to recommend European search engines that have accounts here on Mastodon.

So we tried to find on Mastodon the European companies listed on this post:
https://social.vivaldi.net/@ueeu/114174129661206035

But unfortunately, very few of them are present on Mastodon.

We believe that those companies who have chosen to join the Fediverse deserve our attention, even if we have not yet used their services.

By receiving their news in our feeds, we might be inspired to explore their services and be informed about their developments.

So we suggest following these 5 accounts to show your support and witness their growth as it unfolds.

@MetaGer (2.2k followers) - Congrats for having their own instance!
@StartpageSearch (4k followers)
@Mojeek (3.3k followers)
@Swisscows (69 followers)

There is also the Open Web Search account: @openwebsearcheu. While they are not a company, they are a coalition of European research and computing centers that promotes Europe's independence in web search. If you'd like to be updated about Europe's digital sovereignty and search engine markets, follow them too!

Do you know any other European search engine that deserves a follow? Let us know!

I'm trying to move my software to #EuropeanAlternatives
Are there any #European #email providers that don't charge for custom domains?

Good news for #EuropeanAlternatives: The German „Zentrum für digitale Souveränität“, ZenDiS, is now in the Fediverse: @zendis delivering open source solutions for the public sector.

@bert_hubert

There is a growing sentiment that the US shouldn't be relied upon for the technologies that many people and businesses use every day.

While we prefer to focus on technical guarantees like strong end-to-end encryption over matters like jurisdiction, these issues still matter, and the United States certainly does not have a monopoly on the best technologies.

We've compiled a list of some of our favorite and highly recommended European privacy tools, to highlight how easy it can be to take your data back from American Big Tech companies: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/03/19/private-european-alternatives/

As American Big Tech companies continue to flout EU regulations, and the US Government cuts off critical defense technology to Ukraine, there is a growing sentiment that the US shouldn't be relied upon for the technologies that many people and businesses use every day.

I wrote this latest @privacyguides article to highlight some of the many privacy-respecting, European tools that can replace the tech you use every day: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/03/19/private-european-alternatives/

Es gibt sie, die alternativen Social-Media Plattformen. Du musst nur Aktiv werden.

"So wirst du unabhängig von Tech-Milliardären"

https://netzpolitik.org/2025/unplugtrump-so-wirst-du-unabhaengig-von-tech-milliardaeren/#netzpolitik-pw

Do you wear US shoes?

You can easily replace them with the ones produced by European shoe manufacturing companies such as Adidas and Puma .

But did you know that both companies are German and were founded in the same city by the Dassler brothers, Adolf and Rudolf, who were actually enemies? To the point that, when they died, they were buried on opposite sides of the same cemetery.

Their rivalry was so big that it divided the city and created a long-lasting animosity that touched the lives of all employees and inhabitants.

Check out the full story (with lots of photos):

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-puma-and-adidas-rivalry-divided-their-founding-town-for-70-years-2018-10

And for all you French and German speakers out there who are into ARTE programmes, there's an episode of Karambolage that explains the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJI5nqj79Rk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzOcFG7SQwk

It seems that there's an alternative to Facebook in Norway called Hudd!

The app Hudd has gained popularity since its launch in November 2023, with over 45,000 downloads. Its goal is to take over Facebook's user base in Norway by providing a platform for local news and information. Unlike #Facebook, Hudd does not use algorithms to sort user feeds, instead displaying content in chronological order.

The only thing is, it's not available in other languages yet.

We're curious to hear from any Norwegians here if you've tried it and what you think of it!

Official website: https://hudd.no

Article: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/den-norske-appen-hudd-vil-ta-over-for-facebook-i-noreg-1.17253677
#norway #europeanalternatives #hudd

This New Open-Source Alternative to Google Docs and Notion Is Backed by France and Germany

Docs is an web-based collaborative text editor that is the result of a joint effort led by the French (DINUM) and German governments (ZenDiS).

It's a good alternative to popular services like Notion, Google Docs and Outline.

The platform offers real-time collaboration capabilities, a sleek minimalist interface, and all the essential features you could possibly need.

Best of all, Docs is open-source on GitHub and can be self-hosted, making it a viable option for local agencies and companies.

You can test Docs on your browser by visiting this page:

https://impress-preprod.beta.numerique.gouv.fr/

using the login:

email: test.docs@yopmail.com
password: I'd<3ToTestDocs

https://www.howtogeek.com/docs-alternative-google-docs-notion-france-germany/

You can also volunteer to help translating Docs to other languages here: https://crowdin.com/project/lasuite-docs

Here are some #europeanAlternatives to #gmail.

Moving away from US cloud services

Martijn Hols write about his experience in replacing Microsoft 365 (Mail, Calendar, Drive), Bitwarden, GitHub, Google search, Cloudflare/Google DNS, Docker Hub and NPM

https://martijnhols.nl/blog/moving-away-from-us-cloud-services
#cloud #europeanalternatives #BoycottAmerica

The Search Engine Map
by @Mojeek

The map is interactive, so you can click on each circle to find out more about the different search engines.

We'd love to know when the map was made, as some of the info looks out of date, but unfortunately we couldn't find that information. And the repo on GitHub no longer exists!

European search engines listed:

Mojeek
Oscobo
Entireweb
Metager
Ecosia
Lilo
Qwant
eTools.ch
Swisscows
ZapMeta
Startpage

https://www.searchenginemap.com/

Opinions on the Vivaldi browser?

And while ewe are at it: There doesn‘t seem to be a single search engine that doesn‘t rely on US search indices. Correct?

Recently I've been looking at European search engines. #Qwant and #StartPage seem to be the most popular, the latter having stricter privacy policy.

Which privacy focused engine are you using and why?