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European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

only-eu.eu

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Re: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

#71

Post by hk__2 »

madman_dev wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I built only-eu.eu, a curated bilingual (DE/EN) directory of European alternatives to common US software and services. Motivation: The CLOUD Act creates a structural difference between US and European cloud providers that's separate from GDPR. European companies can't be compelled by US federal courts to hand over data regardless of server location. For companies and individuals who care about this, finding ve…

1. Why not use https://european-alternatives.eu/? 2. Why use Cloudflare, a US company?

Re: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

#72

Post by devsda »

palata wrote: post #28
Galanwe wrote: post #7

Pretty much the answer is Proton (mail, storage, password manager, VPN calendar, etc)

For mail, the answer is to own your domain. If you move away from (probably) Gmail, you don't want to lock yourself into an @proton.me. Get your domain, and use whatever provider you want (it can be Proton, but there are many others). In Europe I like Migadu.

Even for own domain, what are the risks of choosing a .com domain and US based registrar if your country can potentially be hit by sanctions or your registrar tends to develop a sudden surge of misplaced morality.

Re: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

#73

Post by croes »

cromka wrote: post #62

"Europe does it better". Sorry, but as an European who roots for EU very much, I found that branding laughable, because it's absolutely not true at all. Those Eurooean alternatives are absolutely of significantly worse quality almost across the board, simply because there's less money thrown at them. It's also making it sound pretty, disingenuous, and adding to ongoing gamification of relationship with the US. "Europ…

> because of the obvious better privacy, openness and standards compliance, as mandate by our regulations.

So Europe does it better. Maybe you just have the wrong metric in mind. And given the amount of problems exist with Office, Outlook etc. I‘m not even sure if Europe is worse on the quality site. People are just used to US software faults.

Re: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

#74

Post by fricanest »

neya wrote: post #23

Home page boldly claims: EuRopE dOeS iT BeTtEr. There is literally a story trending on HN right now: Proton built Proton Meet to escape the CLOUD Act. They built it on CLOUD Act infrastructure. Their website promises "not even government agencies" can access your calls. The company routing them hands your call records to the government when asked. Proton hid them from their privacy policy. This superiority complex ne…

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Re: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

#75

Post by hk__2 »

reconnecting wrote: post #51
outsidein wrote: post #36

The affiliate information shows that it the website shows mostly / only affiliate offers, and omits (intentionally?) much better a lternatives like posteo.de for email. Listed vendors like OVHcloud must follow the US cloud act, so not really independent from US. Just advertising, no real privacy focused.

Domain is registered 23 March 2026. This is not a real product, with zero effort put into it.

The domain registration date doesn’t tell anything about the amount of effort put in it. I usually register the domains of my side-projects only when I’m at 80% done; otherwise I would buy dozens of domains I would never use.

Re: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

#76

Post by fixer99 »

outsidein wrote: post #36

The affiliate information shows that it the website shows mostly / only affiliate offers, and omits (intentionally?) much better a lternatives like posteo.de for email. Listed vendors like OVHcloud must follow the US cloud act, so not really independent from US. Just advertising, no real privacy focused.

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Re: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps

#77

Post by fosron »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #63
yreg wrote: post #37

NordVPN claims to operate under Panama jurisdiction (but is otherwise still based in Europe). The specific reason why they want to operate under Panama law is that there's no mandatory data retention. So it seems misguided to claim that purely-EU-based alternatives to NordVPN are 'safer' and 'more private' than Nord due to the location alone.

Their parent company, Nord Security, is based in the Netherlands.

And parent of that, Tesonet Global, is based in Lithuania
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