If you do not want to use software from a US tech industry that supports Donald Trump, this is the website you have been looking for:

I think we should stop looking for geographic/political bound services. The internet was designed to be used without that.

We have email servers all over the world, and various email clients that can make use of it. There is no owner of the email service, no country the host of the email service, no one who has power over the email service. Email is nor "American" nor "European".

The danger we are now facing is that we will get "European services", owned by Europeans, yet again locking you in, this time in a European scheme. Europe is not the holy grail however, they have grifters, nationalists, ultra rights, Trump-wannabee's too. We will just swap one problem for another.

The keyword here is decentralized. That is what we should be looking for. Not American, not European, but truly decentralized.
Nobody in ultimate power, nobody who can make it politically lean to one side or the other, nobody who can pull the plug, or sell it to a billionaire. This is how the internet was intended, and how many of the initial services (email, name servers) were designed. This path was abandoned when big tech wanted to commercialize services, but it doesn't have to be like this.

For most services, if not all, decentralized alternatives exists.

Good starting points to learn more about this can be, among others, found here:
https://redecentralize.org/

@FransVeldman the hard part is all the non-cloud software, because that is never "decentralized".

Also, in my work I am bound to a ton of American apps like Photoshop and Davinci Resolve which requires a significant skill level.

It has taken me three years just to learn Davinci Resolve — switching is not always just a choice, but a considerable investment.

@randahl Matrix is not there. It would be a good alternative to Messenger and FB groups...

What do you mean with "non cloud software"? I host a lot of decentralized services which have nothing to do with a cloud. They just run on a VPS, which can be anywhere in the world. Currently, I have my services hosted in Iceland, because I like their privacy policies, but I can just plant them in any other country if I wish to.

Photoshop? Have you tried Gimp? Many professionals who abandoned Microsoft and have chosen for Linux claim that Gimp can do everything Photoshop can do, often even better.

@dalstroka Matrix?

@randahl i disagree with ecosia listed there.

>The search results of the search engine come from either Bing or Google. Which index is used depends on the users' preference, the location and the device type.

@randahl @dalstroka https://matrix.org

@randahl

Like the switch away from fossil fuels, the EU needs to accelerate this change away from US tech if it is to retain its sovereignty.

https://archive.is/scS7L
https://www.ft.com/content/8264122b-cb6b-4af5-85b8-3789c3ae3a78

https://archive.is/9UbL9
https://www.ft.com/content/869aae15-4c37-48a6-9a8b-d80b5d40db6a

American tech is gearing up for some nasty surprises.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/27/media/tiktok-trump-ice-epstein-censorship-tech-issues

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/26/tech/tiktok-ice-censorship-glitch-cec

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/every-data-centre-is-a-u-s-military-base/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2026/01/27/tiktok-settles-social-media-addiction-lawsuit/88377911007/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2026/01/24/ai-chip-manufacturing-data-centers-humanity/88215945007/

Ditto for their financial & trade systems.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/us-retail-traders-buy-silver-etfs-faster-than-tech-favorites-vanda-research-says-2026-01-27/

No, because Matrix is not European, but decentralized. It is everywhere, or nowhere, depending on your viewpoint.

@FransVeldman all I meant was, a regular old school installed app is not hosted. It comes from a company and is installed on your device, so obviously, there is no decentralized aspect of it.

But the learning is the main problem. I know quite many people who hate Apple, yet use their products because learning something new is a considerable investment.

Are you kidding that you don't know about Matrix?

@utf_7 very interesting!

@dalstroka

@Npars01 there! That is a video I need to make. Thank you.

I think, with all respect, that you have to educate yourself on this subject. An app is usually just a client, for some other service that runs somewhere on the internet.

Ok, not a calculator-app, because that one can run without any outside support.

But most apps, they use some kind of host. If that host can be anywhere in the world, then it is fine. However, if it is bound to a specific host, like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, you are locked in by some vendor, with a host that is placed in a country that might not so pleasant to do business with.

An email-app however, is usually not restricted to one host. You can tell it which email-provider you want to use, and that can be anywhere in the world. Don't like gmail? Then use another provider, or ultimately, host an email server yourself.

The same applies to the messenger app Matrix. It is not restricted to one host. There are hundreds of hosts. I self-host a Matrix instance in Iceland, and just like with e-mail, it will communicate fine with any other instance where my message partner has chosen to subscribe to.

Anyway, I urge you, do not advocate "European services" because that is just moving the problem from one place to another. To really solve the problem, we have just to go back to how the internet was intended, and only promote decentralized services that can be anywhere on the world (you pick one you like), with an open standard, so there can be multiple clients using the very same service.

I self host my email server. I use Thunderbird on my laptop to access it, and K-9 mail on my GrapheneOS phone. I'm not bound to just one provider, nor to just one client app.

@FransVeldman never heard of it. Not once. And I am a user of quite many platforms.

@randahl @FransVeldman Try Element X and FluffyChat on your mobile for a start...

@randahl keep us informed in USA.

@utf_7 Actually @ecosia is using Google, Bing and new European search engines.

@randahl Funny that this web site, european alternatives, has a LinkedIn site

https://www.linkedin.com/company/eu-alternatives

See the problem? Big Tech has the money to advertize their platforms all over the place.

You want to take out the services out of the hands of Big Tech? Fine, but then nobody has the money to force them down your throat.

This is where you and I come in, to make people aware of all these gems that already exists, built by volunteers, truly decentralized, but because nobody really "owns" the service, nobody is going to run an ad campaign for it.

Take a look here:

https://redecentralize.org/

Take a look here for a list of self hosted services:

https://awesome-selfhosted.net/

Ask me if you want more.