What would be your top 5 most important and impactful product/service to switch from US to European?

And bonus question: What is one product/service you think is not as imlactful as another product/service or as others think?

My top 5(and choice):

  • Search engine (Qwant)

  • AI chatbot (mistralAI)

  • Map app (mapyCZ)

  • Mobility: selling US cars (this one should have easy EU choices)

  • Food (may be very hard for some, but I think everyone should invest a lot of time into this topic)

.

Tech services neeeed(!) to be switched, since data is crucial in modern age. Oh also ofc don’t use chrome based browsers.

.

Search: French Qwant.com is shockingly good, results, even in images is identical to Google/Bing. it has no AI integration which is fine, just use mistral. Only image search need a little refinement like a search for more identical of selected imagery. .

AI: chat.Mistral.ai is French and does the job to answer ie more specific but not too scientific questions.

.

Map: pleased with mapy.cz, ofc no street view but everything else, adding images of places is our job

.

Car: preferably even trying public transport+cycling or just cycling for groceries is a lot already or go for EU car if still needed for whatever degree

.

Food: this is a big topic, so I’ll be general. I’d say don’t be perfect. Go for the essentials you buy most. If you replace these, already rate that as a win. Because every brand is just a pseudo of a likely American corporation behind

  • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
    3·
    1 day ago

    • immich instead of google photos, self-hosted

    • jellyfin + *arr suite and Belgian streaming services instead of Netflix

    • organic maps, suitable for the day to day, but because of very long map update delays with no option for quicker updates, construction can lead to 10, 20 minute detours that could be avoided by updated data

    • Linux instead of Microsoft is a big one, and libre office, no adobe products, etc…

    • KiCAD instead of Altium for ECAD design. Altium is a buggy mess of spaghetti code and errors with no standards, but a ton of QoL, component creation, and productivity features missing from alternatives. KiCAD is fine for all hobby projects and small-medium complexity professional projects. Deprives altium of the ridiculous 4425€ per year for the basic license

    • arakhis_@feddit.orgOP
      1·
      8 hours ago

      have you tried multiple map services - whats your experiences been?

      Altough mappyCZ offers like more than I expected (with rating systems and photos) I still feel like g maps has some strong points that make the experience of other apps feel little worse like street view, the strong community or just the surface design

      So basically mostly only online/tech services is alot?

      From the comments Im getting

      • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
        1·
        1 hour ago

        I honestly haven’t had time to try a bunch of maps out, just OSMAnd and Organic maps, sorry

        For your other question:

        Well those are the easiest to switch, that is it. They don’t sacrifice much time or quality of life but are far from the most impactful.

        The most impactful things you can do are:

        • go vegetarian. That is literally the biggest impact you can have on the environment, but completely separate from that also it makes it much much easier for the next two points, but you don’t even have to do that. Meat lobbies have a lot of power in many places. Eating veggie 1, 2, 3 days per week is already very impactful

        • grow as much of your own food as you can

        • shop for groceries locally or better: via farm delivery programs, (farmers markets food-wise are extremely often people selling grocery items or extremely expensive bread)

        • Learn. To. cook. We have more access to ingredients and spices that 100 years ago they could only dream of. Cooking is literally following directions until you get a feel for it. Make a core 14 recipes that you can pick from per week and then expand from there to 30. I have found that going to restaurants is kind of disappointing now because I can always make better stuff at home… I think I have had fast food twice in 4 years or so, break the chains

        • stop buying shit you don’t need. Everyone does it. I do it still even though I stopped buying on amazon like 6 years agp. Marketing has rotted our brains with inventing ways to make us think that we want things we don’t need. When you do buy things, do a ton of research so you get long lasting things from decent companies (where possible). Buy once cry once is real

        • buy secondhand where possible or practical, join community groups. People often will just give away extra materials or old things that they don’t want anymore

        • build a local community in just your street, then neighborhood of exchanging services, helping out, etc…

        • repair things. Learn how to repair clothes, good socks, etc… And if you can, dive into hobbies of electronics repair, car repair, woodworking, iron working, welding, plumbing etc…

        • get involved with local politics, start new parties that reflect your community’s values, and protest

        These are just some of the most impactful things people can do. Just stop giving corporations money. If even 10%, 20% of the world committed to even just some of these, we would see a gigantic shift in corporate profits, and thus power, plus a huge shift in culture that would foster better companies with quality, long lasting products to grow.

        The problem is that it is inconvenient, and people won’t stand for being inconvenienced. Perfect is absolutely the enemy here. If 50% of people did 50% of these imperfectly, we would see significant change.

    • UngratefulLilToad@feddit.org
      1·
      10 hours ago

      I can’t get through the stage of switching from MS Office to Libre Office especially that I kind of need Excel desktop version. Thus I’m still keeping Windows on my laptop.