This guide is by a Canadian author, but I find it very appropriate here as most of his solutions are European and he points to several alternatives, so all in all a great source of inspiration.
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All very good suggestions indeed. But there are more. Most of them are North(west) European, but this is because most of those countries got their own systems set up already, and got relatively robust privacy laws. Not sure about other ones, but please do inform!
Weather
Windy 🇨🇿 - expansive, worldwide. Pretty.
Yr 🇳🇴 - Norwegian-focused but has good coverage for Europe.
Meteonet 🇫🇷 - old interface, but no-nonsense.Whatever your country has, also works.
Payment processors
National/regional ones exist, they’re more independent and should be preferred.
But also, Wero 🇪🇺 is there. Check if your bank already has it. Though I think it must address tech reliance concerns.Some forms of crypto also are independent, but beware of how much electricity they use.
GNU Taler may also be considered.
Banks
If you wish to stick with a ‘traditional’ bank, then these following would be best:
ASN Bank 🇳🇱 - government-safeguarded. Came best out of the Ethical Banking Guide (Dutch).
Triodos 🇳🇱 - independent (second-best), Europe-wide.If you’ve the choice, you can also go for a local bank that’s a co-op. Then you can decide along where the money goes, and hold the bank more responsible. They don’t have stocks, instead having different financing methods.
Phones
Jolla 🇫🇮 (has Sailfish OS)
FairPhone 🇳🇱 is a very good option (best balance between ethics, repairability, and privacy). They or Murena might soon get an option that is suited for GrapheneOS.
Murena 🇫🇷 has the iPhone look and feel. Pretty easy to use.
Nothing 🇬🇧 - a bit riskier in my opinion, since they share demographic and fiscal data, and share data outside of the EU/EEZ+UK.None of these support GrapheneOS, but they really ought to. If you want one, get a used Pixel, ‘clean’ thoroughly, and then put GrapheneOS on it.
Tablets
Archos 🇫🇷
Juno Tab 🇬🇧 (runs Linux)
Murena 🇫🇷
Nokia 🇫🇮 (also has phones, TVs and laptops)
reMarkable 🇳🇴The Purism one is good too and has some killswitches, though it’s US-based (California, at least, which has a sort of GDPR-like law).
Laptops
Do you want to game -> Tuxedo 🇩🇪
It just works & supports FOSS devs -> Slimbook 🇪🇸
Privacy-focused Macbook-like? -> StarLab 🇬🇧
More customisable -> Novacustom 🇳🇱Nokia supposedly sells some too, but I couldn’t find a place to buy them.
You can also get an Asus or Acer 🇹🇼 (🇼🇸), or if you don’t mind Chinese products, Lenovo.
Clevo is also a good one, it’s Taiwanese.
Regarding hardware, if you’ve a laptop with an Intel chip, disable the Intel Management Engine, it’s likely backdoor spyware. VIA Technologies 🇹🇼 (🇼🇸) is the only non-American one that makes graphic cards supporting x86, like Intel and AMD.
What OS to pick (an OS is a software like Windows or Macintosh)
Anything Linux, really. Some of them are headed by the Red Hat project, which is good, but it’s American, so keep that in mind. Nevertheless, depending on your tasks:
New to Linux -> Linux Mint (it just works)
Privacy -> openSUSE
Security -> QubesOS (multiple computers on one)
Stable updates -> Debian
I use -> Arch Linux (btw)
Resembles Macbook -> elementaryOSWith most Linux distributions you can make them look like Windows or Mac either way, but I’d like to throw that in.
Smartwatch
PineTime 🇪🇺 - FOSS, more privacy friendly than the big players.
WatchMark 🇬🇧🇩🇪 - has the Apple Watch look, manufactured in Europe.
Montblanc 🇩🇪 - Manufactured in Germany.
Polar Electro 🇫🇮 - Owned by Finns, made in China and Malaysia. For outdoors.
MyKronoz🇨🇭- Swiss, pretty affordable.
And for printers;
Epson 🇯🇵 EcoTank especially, all-around.
Canon 🇯🇵 Pixelma.
Novaware 🇳🇱 - they got a good thermal printer.
Nuvance 🇳🇱 also thermal.For weather I can also recommend the app and website https://www.yr.no/ . Publicly funded by the Norwegian government, publicly available weather data, and good coverage for weather outside Norway.
I have to add a recommendation for https://supernotes.app/ (N.B. Not the Canadian e-notebook maker with almost the same name). I have been using supernotes for a while now and it’s something I actually enjoy using; a feeling that has been absent for a lot of tech products for a long time.
They’re an independent business based in the UK and the owners are very active and responsive to supports. Works seamlessly for me across browsers(vivaldi), windows, linux (Mint) and android (GrapheneOS) and they have Mac, iOS, and a VR app. My only complaint is that I believe they host on AWS
I’ve got no affiliation with them, I’m a customer and I really like what they do and how they do it (except AWS) and since they tend not to appear in these lists often I don’t think many people have heard of them.
Oof the smartwatch one hurts. Every endurance athlete has one. Step counting is a gimmick for me but I would really miss the GPS, mapping and recording all my runs/races swims and whatnot. Calories and all the rest I can go without but the GPS and mapping…
To be fair, I used to have one, then realised that it was actually pointless and I didn’t use it much. If you still want one, go ahead.
For GPS and mapping I just use OsmAnd/OpenStreetMaps.
I have a really good one I bought just before the USA meltdown. When it does, 7 or 10 years from now, we’ll see! Norwegian or Swedes must have something for that lol they always do!
Privacy-focused Macbook-like? -> Smartlab 🇬🇧
I think you meant StarLabs. I got one running Debian and I absolutely love it
Thanks, corrected it! I’m also considering that one.
Dumb question, but can Debian be made to look like Macbook? I think all Linux laptop OSes can, but I’m not sure.
I’m not that much into ricing, but I bet it must be possible, specially since GNOME is already OSX-like
edit: you just made me check their website and the new StarLabs Horizon looks so tempting!
You can make Gnome look like MacOS but it doesn’t really act like MacOS . I use VanillaOS which is based in Spain and is immutable A/B root is something I’m a fan of.
I like the Fairphone hardware but can not recommend e/OS - Murena is making false privacy claims about their software and are not interested in fixing them. Sadly Graphene has stated that Fairphone will likely not be supported in the future as their current models are lacking necessary hardware.
I ended up with a used Pixel and installed Graphene, I’m happy with it as a daily driver and am doing my online banking in the browser on my PC.
As far as I recall, if you’re an ordinary everyday user, Fairphone should be fine - but if your threat model is too severe, a used Pixel (cleant) with GrapheneOS should be warranted, no?
I dropped it as a daily driver when I noticed that Here We Go maps just naturally circumvents their advanced privacy location spoofing. Tested this with two devices and the issue appeared in both. Maps showed my real location.
I reported this and was advised to use another maps app. Clearly my concern was not that HWG worked too well…
Graphene might be a bit overkill for me, but I rather am too careful than rely on false advertising and leak real information unknowingly.
These guides are getting a little repetitive on this community. They always say and recommend the same things. What new is being said here? What are the 80 upvotes for?
We should have a buyfromeu circlejerk community and just post “Bro did you hear about Fritz Kola” and “Bro I switched to Tutanota” continuously (I am not kidding)
Not everyone hasn’t seen them often. We could use spreading buying European across more people, tbh.
If you’re fighting against Google, Meta and Amazon these guides are definitely not enough and each of them should be promoted as much as possible. There are one million guides and suggested results and videos for each of these. Don’t complain, applaud them instead.
