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It's one thing to visit the website, but I would be interested what % is actually migrating? For me personally, I had to install the "Go European" browser exte

It's one thing to visit the website, but I would be interested what % is actually migrating? For me personally, I had to install the "Go European" browser extension [1] before I actually started switching, due to more frequent reminders, from using mostly chatGPT/claude to LeChat by mistral (which feels at least as good). My Take-away: User stickiness is hard to break due to providers' walled gardens, even for me who is aware and willing to change. [1] https://codeberg.org/K-Robin/GoEuropean https://codeberg.org/K-Robin/GoEuropean

verzali 2y ago
I started switching. Email was pretty easy to set up a new account with a different provider and to change on the main websites I use. Good way to "unsubscribe" to a load of spam as well. Switching apps or uninstalling where possible on the phone helped. No more google maps for example, and removing or switching things like gmail or chrome from the home screen also helped break the habit of checking them.
- 5- 2y ago
  having your own domain is worth it for email portability. no matter who is hosting your email (megacorp, a hn darling, your hosting provider, yourself) you get to keep your email addresses. this also means one of the primary means of authenticating you online is not kept hostage by any business. even for free email services that don't support custom domains, you can likely set up mail forwarding for free or very cheap with your domain hoster, and set up 'send as' alias in your inbox.
oulipo 2y ago
This is why the European Union is trying to break walled-gardens of US tech (Apple, Google, etc) So that in the long term, we preserve viable alternatives, exactly for times like these where we cannot trust the US govt
c16 2y ago
This is absolutely true. I've added x/twitter to my hosts file in an attempt to break the muscle memory and instead use bsky. 4 months on, I'm still type twitter[.]com and finding myself on localhost.
- fundatus 2y ago
  Btw: The "Twitter to Nitter" browser extension is amazing if you occasionally still want to view a tweet, but don't want to connect to Twitter servers.
dinga 2y ago
Changed default search-engine on my laptop and cellphone. I still use google but rather as a fallback and I have to actively type in google into the address-bar.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo as my standard search engine and I'm super happy with it. I found it quality-wise indistinguishable from Google, and even better since no sponsored spam.
  - LightBug1 2y ago
    Thanks for nudging me that way again. I'd tried DDG before and was slowly moving towards, but had still been relying on !bangs. However, I just replicated the most obscure search request that I can remember, an extremely obscure automotive request for help - and, in one go, the DDG result actually got to exactly the end result it had taken me ages to Google. I'll give DDG another shot.
LightBug1 2y ago
It will take time - but I absolutely will ensure the migration of our firm away from US related products (where possible).
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
For privacy reasons, I've already started slowly switching away from US providers before all this insanity happened. I've switched my Email to Proton (Swiss), cloud files to Filen (German), most LLM usage to Mistral (French), and search to Ecosia (German). [Edit: I've now switched to Mojeek; see comments below.] But in the past two weeks, I've done the things I've previously put off because they require real work. I've set up a NAS and switched all of the remaining things. I'm now using Immich for photo hosting, Vaultwarden for passwords, Hoarder for bookmarking, and a self-hosted Standard Notes instance for note-taking, to-do lists, and saving articles for later reading. I'm super happy with this setup. Immich, in particular, is absolutely fantastic; its default face recognition model works better than Google Photos, at least for me. Once you've set it up, you can log your family into the same NAS and have them use it, too.
- gkbrk 2y ago
  Ecosia is just Bing and Google though [1], so basically American and not German. It looks like they're planning to build a European index with Qwant [2], but their help pages still say they're on Bing and Google so I guess nothing materialized yet. [1]: https://ecosia.helpscoutdocs.com/article/579-search-results-providers https://ecosia.helpscoutdocs.com/article/579-search-results-... [2]: https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/ https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    I don't believe any Western European search companies have their own search index, and Ecosia seems to currently have the best chance of growing into a real vertically integrated search provider, so I'm using them.
    - mrweasel 2y ago
      Mojeek (UK-based) does apparently have their own index. The results are interesting, they aren't bad, just different. Localized search isn't great, but it might be perfectly fine if you're in the UK.
eterps 2y ago
This obviously will take a while. On the other hand, I am mostly involved in startups where lots of tech choices need to be made from scratch. The startup I'm currently working for doesn't even consider US based tech solutions at the moment. And I think more startups that pop up nowadays will think twice before choosing non-EU based tech.

verzali 2y ago

I started switching. Email was pretty easy to set up a new account with a different provider and to change on the main websites I use. Good way to "unsubscribe" to a load of spam as well. Switching apps or uninstalling where possible on the phone helped. No more google maps for example, and removing or switching things like gmail or chrome from the home screen also helped break the habit of checking them.

5- 2y ago
having your own domain is worth it for email portability. no matter who is hosting your email (megacorp, a hn darling, your hosting provider, yourself) you get to keep your email addresses. this also means one of the primary means of authenticating you online is not kept hostage by any business. even for free email services that don't support custom domains, you can likely set up mail forwarding for free or very cheap with your domain hoster, and set up 'send as' alias in your inbox.

oulipo 2y ago

This is why the European Union is trying to break walled-gardens of US tech (Apple, Google, etc) So that in the long term, we preserve viable alternatives, exactly for times like these where we cannot trust the US govt

c16 2y ago

This is absolutely true. I've added x/twitter to my hosts file in an attempt to break the muscle memory and instead use bsky. 4 months on, I'm still type twitter[.]com and finding myself on localhost.

fundatus 2y ago
Btw: The "Twitter to Nitter" browser extension is amazing if you occasionally still want to view a tweet, but don't want to connect to Twitter servers.

dinga 2y ago

Changed default search-engine on my laptop and cellphone. I still use google but rather as a fallback and I have to actively type in google into the address-bar.

mentalgear 2y ago
I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo as my standard search engine and I'm super happy with it. I found it quality-wise indistinguishable from Google, and even better since no sponsored spam.
- LightBug1 2y ago
  Thanks for nudging me that way again. I'd tried DDG before and was slowly moving towards, but had still been relying on !bangs. However, I just replicated the most obscure search request that I can remember, an extremely obscure automotive request for help - and, in one go, the DDG result actually got to exactly the end result it had taken me ages to Google. I'll give DDG another shot.

LightBug1 2y ago

It will take time - but I absolutely will ensure the migration of our firm away from US related products (where possible).

InsideOutSanta 2y ago

For privacy reasons, I've already started slowly switching away from US providers before all this insanity happened. I've switched my Email to Proton (Swiss), cloud files to Filen (German), most LLM usage to Mistral (French), and search to Ecosia (German). [Edit: I've now switched to Mojeek; see comments below.] But in the past two weeks, I've done the things I've previously put off because they require real work. I've set up a NAS and switched all of the remaining things. I'm now using Immich for photo hosting, Vaultwarden for passwords, Hoarder for bookmarking, and a self-hosted Standard Notes instance for note-taking, to-do lists, and saving articles for later reading. I'm super happy with this setup. Immich, in particular, is absolutely fantastic; its default face recognition model works better than Google Photos, at least for me. Once you've set it up, you can log your family into the same NAS and have them use it, too.

gkbrk 2y ago
Ecosia is just Bing and Google though [1], so basically American and not German. It looks like they're planning to build a European index with Qwant [2], but their help pages still say they're on Bing and Google so I guess nothing materialized yet. [1]: https://ecosia.helpscoutdocs.com/article/579-search-results-providers https://ecosia.helpscoutdocs.com/article/579-search-results-... [2]: https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/ https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  I don't believe any Western European search companies have their own search index, and Ecosia seems to currently have the best chance of growing into a real vertically integrated search provider, so I'm using them.
  - mrweasel 2y ago
    Mojeek (UK-based) does apparently have their own index. The results are interesting, they aren't bad, just different. Localized search isn't great, but it might be perfectly fine if you're in the UK.

eterps 2y ago

This obviously will take a while. On the other hand, I am mostly involved in startups where lots of tech choices need to be made from scratch. The startup I'm currently working for doesn't even consider US based tech solutions at the moment. And I think more startups that pop up nowadays will think twice before choosing non-EU based tech.