BuyFromEU

• Reddit to Lemmy
• iPhone to Fairphone
• Apple Music to Qobuz
• Google to Qwant
• Gmail to Protonmail (and other tools like Pass, Drive)
• WhatsApp to Signal
• Audible to BookBeat
• Microsoft Office to LibreOffice
• ChatGPT to Mistral.ai

Various cloud services replaced with selfhosting, like Immich. And quit and deleted X, Facebook, Insta. No shopping ever at Amazon. No eating or drinking ever at McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Starbucks.

Moved business and personal email from ms to Proton. Wow turns out I really missed a simple email interface. And it's saving me about 23 hours a day not logging back into o365 for the thousandth time.

Dunno why it took so long, we're full Linux with the odd mac. The office admin panel is so fucking awful I could never work out how to backup. Turned out Proton can just import...

Different to what most people are doing, but I've been thinking about dressing more European. So many popular casual clothes come from the US: bomber jackets, duck chore jackets, baseball caps, most sneakers, jeans. The last two alone are permanent parts of "default dude uniform".

So I now e.g. have:

• a harrington jacket (ironically the name comes from an American show, made in China from UK brand) - it's an English golfing jacket by origin
• a Shetland sweater (made in Shetland)
• a tartan wool scarf (made in Scotland)
• some corduroy and moleskin pants for the winter (Made in Bangladesh, UK company)
• wool balmacaan-style overcoat from Italian tweed made in Portugal
• chukka boots (Made in England).

Also eyeing a French chore coat.

You'd think doing this would be really easy given how the US came to be. Say, a suit is European, but wearing one every day is not as common as before. The overall theme in the west is that democratization is cool, while tradition is not. But when I think Europe, I think tradition. Hence the suit is European, but it's not "cool".

Corduroy and shetland sweaters are pretty "grandpa" as well. But I guess this is the arduous process of re-learning an identity after being fed American culture all the time while growing up. You just don't know what's yours.

As you can see by the items it's all clothes that come from the UK. Again, it was easiest to pick the UK because it was the purveyor of European style, back before, you know.

Windows to Linux

Google Android to e/OS. Fairphone 6 is great.

• doomscrolling to fediversing;
• getting off Coca Cola and Pepsi Co. products (alternatives are both tastier and healthier, too many to list here, it will depend on where you live, anything from Fritz Cola and Green Cola through VitaminWell to your local kombucha brand);
• Google Photos and Dropbox to Koofr, I got two-in-one;
• Google Search to Karma/Ecosia.
• Google Translate to DeepL and Reverso Context (the latter being much more helpful if you actually want to learn);
• ChatGPT to Mistral and solidagent. Thinking you need a larger model is often like thinking you need a larger car: it really depends how you use it. With some brain power a smaller and less "reasoning" model might give you more to sieve through;
• Google Maps to Citymapper in Stockholm/other big cities (It was always JakDojade in Poland <3);
• it is not a change as much as an add-on, but getting Minimalist Phone on top of my Android (I hope I will get established in a de-Googled environment in a foreseeable future).

And possibly the biggest one: Divesting!!!

As my antivirus expires, I am looking forward to switch to Bitdefender. I've been avoiding most American non-digital services before. Using alternatives to credit cards in real life is annoying in Sweden, but I try my best. It is easy online, though.

Windows --> linux debian

I wanted to do this for a long time. But hesitated because i thought it is a lot of work and inconvenience.

Now I have done the transition and first of all it was very easy to install linux. A 13 minute youtube video explained everything step by step. I was done after roughly 30 minutes.

And now i am working/gaming on linux and it is like switching from an android to an apple smartphone. Everything is a bit different. But in the end it is the same.

Can strongly recommend it. Is super easy and just feels great!!

Various really :

• reddit to lemmy
• Amazon to Galaxus (and various other shops)
• Calvin Klein to Armedangels

Like a few here, microsoft to linux and reddit to fediverse.

Tidal to Qobuz, old spice to dove deodorant were all good but gillette razors to various safety razors has been the best I think.

iPhone to Fairphone with /e/os

PayPal to Wero or iban

Dropbox to Nextcloud. Saves me so much money every month and I way prefer the user experience.

The best? Ditched Windows almost completely both for my company as well as my home. Only two installs (CAD and very specific similar app + we have a very very specific usecase of MS Office features two clients require that no alternative can deliver) of windows remain.

Currently going through transition, step by step:

Windows > Linux Fedora

Chrome > Vivaldi

Gmail > Eclipso

Switched from OneDrive to NextCloud. It’s much better with Linux.

Cloudflare >> Bunny.net

Gmail >> Tuta & Mailbox

iCloud Passwords to Bitwarden (EU)

• managed to move all my secrets completely out of there

Windows to manjaro

Google suite to proton

Firefox to librewolf

Reddit to piefed

Barely used X but got mastodon anyway

Chrome to Vivaldi

Backblaze to Infomaniak – mainly for our office‘s cloud service, but moved our domain registration and email service there as well. Super happy and never looked back! Also: Reddit to Lemmy

Windows => Linux Stock-Android => iodéOS CustomROM

And probably buying from Otto instead of Amazon. Works in Germany pretty well.

Windows -> Linux Mint Gmail -> Tuta mail Outlook -> mailbox Facebook -> [nothing] Instagram -> pixelfed iCloud -> Jotta cloud (not Eu, but Norwegian’s) Reddit -> Lemmy PayPal -> [nothing] More to come…

Has to be Windows - > Linux followed by Amazon - > multiple UK or European Shops.