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Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

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131–140 of 292 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#131
post #93

I would mention hitta.se from Sweden. Probably a privacy nightmare to some, and very creepy to others. On the page you can search peoples home address, phone number, date of birth, other members living in the same house , real estate value, mortgage rate, all by searching their names. I successfully once identified a parent of a owner of a lost wallet, only containing a gym card with last name on it. Found her phone…

Run a plate for any Swedish vehicle: https://biluppgifter.se/ Another privacy nightmare with complete vehicle history -- better than carvertical.com or vin-info.com

Why is the EU so lenient with Sweden in that case?

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#132
post #111
post #87

Quality docomentaries and looks on society on Arte.tv, the european culture channel AFAIK, north americans don't know about its existence. It's available in english. https://www.arte.tv/en/

A great initiative in the media industry for sure. They have a programme call Tracks that explores the underground culture [1]. Very interesting [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/TracksARTEde

> They have a programme call Tracks that explores the underground culture

I.. I thought that it's gonna be a Youtube channel about people living.. underground. I should get some sleep.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#133

Runet (Russian-speaking part of Internet) has LOTS of it. We have HN equivalent (habr.com). We have RSDN (rsdn.org), which is somewhat like StackOverflow, but in Russian. Social networks largely unknown outside of Russia? We have'em (vk.com, ok.ru). Reddit equivalent? See pikabu.ru. IMDB? See kinopoisk.ru. There's a Russian browser (Yandex.Browser), Russian map service (Yandex.maps), tons of Russian e-mail, hosting a…

Habr is great. I don't visit other Runet sites often, but read Habr regularly - it's part HN, part Slashdot, with great original content.

The Russian Internet seems to be an overall great place to find information on old devices, old software, and the like. http://sht-rajvo.narod.ru/index.htm is a retro-looking site about retrocomputing, it has many articles from computer magazines circa 1990. Also worth noting that due to Russia's traditionally "relaxed view on copyright" it's not hard to stumble upon a site that has direct download links to e.g. versions of MS-DOS or Windows 3.1.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#134
post #116

In French you have a few interesting options, notably: - LeBonCoin.fr (“the good corner”, a Craigslist type site that’s used for everything from second-hand selling to job hunting to meet up organising), - LesNumeriques.fr is a decent tech review media with in-depth tests and a VERY critical community providing good balance - Gazelle which has now become backmarket.fr (also exists across other countries like Spain an…

canardpc.com is probably the best video game magazine and review around.

I would not advise presse-citron they have been pretty obvious about being more or less just a sold out editorial at this point.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#135
4PDA.ru is arguably a better version of XDA-Developers: a repository of all kinds of customizations for Android devices.

Unlike XDA, it's well-categorized into threads, the first post is always a good summary of what's inside that particular thread with links to individual posts, and low-effort clutter is mercilessly moderated away.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#136
post #123
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what your percention of Norway is, but having moved around a bit and currently being based here, I see that Scandinavians have a different relationship with governments and corporations than in many other countries. For a start, it's not primarily seen as an adversarial relationship. It's more of the people, for the people. Not perfect, but Scandinavian societies rely on a high level of trust and it work…

Besides, you still can pay with real money in most places, you just have to choose the right line at the exit. Not all of them take cash. For us that has no problems, card is so much easier to use but there are a lot of people that can't handle the tech and they should be able to buy things too. All this is marketed as better for crime prevention, less bank/store robbery. Ofcourse this only pushes the cost on the ind…

Good point, I should have mentioned that cash is still accepted almost everywhere.

I think the crime thing might not be a direct link, as a bank robber and an opportunistic street thief are probably different people. There is less opportunistic crime than elsewhere as a big driver of crime is people's situation which, in general, aren't bad enough to resort to crime. I'm still unnerved by the lax security everywhere, e.g. the tiny bolts and padlocks in common storage areas in apartment blocks, which are an increasing target for thieves as they are easy pickings.

Another benefit is BankID, which makes fraud & identity theft is a lot more difficult as there is an easy and secure way of identifying yourself online. Even with somebody's ID number you can't impersonate them in most situations. This is something I've really appreciated working in the finance industry. The old way of calling up and accepting people's identity purely on trust never sat well with my non-Scandinavian mind.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#137
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google intentionally tamped down their reverse image search several years ago. They fundamentally changed how the product works, the results that it delivers, and did it on purpose. It's definitely inferior if you're actually looking to find copies of an image (Google is fully aware, they don't want you to be able to effectively search their image system that way).

Interestingly enough, Yandex did so also, a while ago, as it was being used as a scarily good open-source undercover agent identification tool https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/12/26/guid... although I can't seem to find the followup post that actually discusses how the Yandex search quality decreased following the publication of the original article

Fascinating read, thank you. I can't help but wonder what is available to big companies and governments these days in terms of technology and algorithms that we laypeople don't have access to or even dream about.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a well known site in Sweden. I remember using it at least 10-13 years back. A quick Swedish googling found me a dozens of sites offering similar services. One even offered credit rating assessment at 1.5 dollar after the search. I'm not well read on the issue but a lot of things are digitalized in Sweden. It's a cashless society, where everyone have a personal number that they can use for government service & si…

So, the government knows every purchase they make, tracks everything they do, and can take it all away whenever it wants? No thanks. And what about homeless and old people, are they disenfranchised too? A cashless society controlled by a government or a corporation means a powerless society. Norway has had similar tax return approval by text messaging for almost 20 years.

What makes you think other governments don't have that kind of information or can easily access it from their friends in bigcorp Inc?

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#139

I would mention hitta.se from Sweden. Probably a privacy nightmare to some, and very creepy to others. On the page you can search peoples home address, phone number, date of birth, other members living in the same house , real estate value, mortgage rate, all by searching their names. I successfully once identified a parent of a owner of a lost wallet, only containing a gym card with last name on it. Found her phone…

Sweden is a privacy-minded individual’s nightmare. There are a bunch of other sites like Hitta as well. For example on Ratsit you can pay a small amount of money and see anyone’s salary and full personnummer, which is similar to a social security number in the US. If they live in an apartment you can see exactly where in the building they live. Just as an example, when I was visiting a friend for the first time I wasn’t sure where in the building he lived so I put his name into Ratsit and it said “second floor, third door from the left”. It also had his phone number and other information about him as well, including other individuals he lived with and the names of every person in his building.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?

#140
post #107

https://mapy.cz/ Google maps alternative with great tourist maps (also has a layer for cross-country skiing) and an app with offline maps

As a non Czech I assumed it was a nice layer on top of OSM tiles, but the outdoor trails are truly high quality.

Only have managed to fault it once whilst trying to decide how to descend a mountain in Slovenia.

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