This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Here you can find reviewed, impressive and comprehensive European alternatives for digital products and apps if you wanna break from American (big) tech companies.
Have a look, you'll be impressed...
Yes, absolutely. I'd prefer transition to FOSS/ open source. If the development is by others also better than the billionaire led organizations.
This is a good source, but why the fuck is Spotify listed as a suitable alternative? Spotify is one of THE apps that people are trying to break away from.
I will change immediately when a service distributes my payments to the artists who I’ve listened to. Every service basically pools em up and gives them to Pitbull, Justin Bieber and the blonde singer who dates a football player. Only the share varies a bit, not the model.
have a look at Qobuz. I've heard they have some of the highest payouts to artists. I don't have sources unfortunately :/
Qobuz redistributed royalties due to Labels and Publishers, corresponding to an average amount of US$0.01873 per stream¹ for the fiscal year 2024. In concrete terms, if a track reaches 1,000 plays on Qobuz, this represents US$18.73 paid to these rights holders, who then pay out to the artists, songwriters and composers, according to the terms of their contracts.
https://the-ear.net/news/qobuz-pays-artists-5x-more-to-artists/
Spotify btw fiances a lot of podcaster that helped this actual situation
People incorrectly assume "European alternative" means "better alternative" when sometimes, that's not the case. Privacy needs to be approached with skepticism, no matter what surface-level credential something has.
Things like these might be table stakes, but they should not be the end of your search for an alternative product.
I think you are absolutely right.
Wild guess: Spotify was founded in Europe.
It's now based in the US, and a lot of its revenue goes to alt-right loonies. Renewing their podcast contracts is why you're paying more year after year to stream music.
I like Apple Music because they pay artists more, but I might be a little biased as it came with my phone and computer and I have a family plan with others who enjoy it (and yes, they are family).
The true alternative to streaming anything is using Plex (or something like it) to make your own music streamer, buying all your media (that pays artists more than any streaming platform), and streaming it to yourself that way. It is illegal to rip CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays in the US, but technically if you own the media it's fine to have it, you just can't have broken the copy protection. Kind of a catch-22. But it costs a lot more as you have to buy everything. If you already have a massive CD collection, it's not as big a deal.
Qobuz,
They are French,
You have all Deezer and Spotify perks,
They pay artists,
Music is often in High Resolution, they have partnerships with Hi-Fi audio brands,
You can reach them if your favorite artist or album is missing.
Just checked out Qobuz and you can even buy the music digitally to download (like bandcamp with the advantage that they are EU-based and seems like more artists are on Qobuz), think I'm going to switch
Qobuz seems amazing. You need a subscription i think but they seem way more ethnic than their counterparts.
Spotify is still registered in Luxembourg with its operational HQ in Stockholm.
Deezer is the way if one wants to continue streaming.
Wasn't there some kind of controversy with them? CEO being a trumpet or something?
I totally agree with you. Especially since they tried to take down Anna's archive...
Anyway, besides that, this remains very instructing.
Call me out of touch all you want. I have big sd cards, and mp3 files. No ads. No subscriptions. No bullshit.
And that is less energy consuming too!!
I am socked by the sheer amont of energy needed by streaming platforms (Spotify and others) but nobody seems to care.
By the way there is a telegram bot that allows you to download anything you want from Spotify. And then you own the files forever... no more connection needed.
You blew my mind twice on your comment.
I'll have to take a look at both. Thanks
👍
I have a bunch of TBs in a NAS and jellyfin/navidrome/audiobookshelf. Because I'm excessive and like making my life harder.
No ads, no subscriptions, just self-inflicted bullshit.
Kobuz is my suggestion.
I’m test driving Deezer as Spotify alternative.
Looks really promising. You can even import your Spotify playlists and music to Deezer.
Man, I remember having to use a VPN to sign up for Spotify when it launched, because it was founded in and available to the UK only.
Call me cynical, but I don't expect these to be better alternatives for long. The main issue lies with the fact that these services are both centralized and profit-motivated, and I don't anticipate that the EU's privacy laws, though they are better than those in the US, will be much protection once even one of these competitors gets big enough to have a say in politics. Self-hosted, open-source apps are a far better solution than relying on yet another company that has full control of the software, especially with the barrier to entry for those apps getting smaller with each passing day.
There are multiple projects available that will let you turn even a mediocre extra PC into a platform for self-hosted apps with not a lot of effort. Yunohost and CasaOS are two that come to mind, but other options exist. Hell, even just running Nextcloud is probably enough to cover most people's SaaS needs, though it can require a bit more work than the other two that I mentioned.
You're too cynical. Yes, EU is not immune to lobbying but it's way better at regulating companies than US is. Those alternatives are clearly better now so not switching because "they may not be as good in the future" is not a valid reason to keep using US tech.
This is a good source, but why the fuck is Spotify listed as a suitable alternative? Spotify is one of THE apps that people are trying to break away from.
Qobuz has been the better alternative. From France, pays artists considerably better, has HiRes as standard. Human curated content and also has a DRM free digital store to actually buy the music. (and on one of their streaming tiers gets you a discount on purchases).
I have really been enjoying it as it works on my dedicated Digital Music Player so if there is something I want to listen, but don't own there is the option, and I still get the convenience of using it on the TV with the nice sound system.
So no smartphones.
Nokia is Finnish and I'm not sure if t hat's considered European. It's not American though. In fact the only American company left making phones is Apple. The problem is, the rest of them uses Android, which spies on you. Counterpoint: Apple won't let you install apps your government doesn't approve of. Counterpoint to the counterpoint: Android. Fucking. Spies. On. You. Counterpoint to the... you get the idea: Apple still hasn't shipped a working software keyboard. Pick your poison. Spyware or a broken keyboard and you can't use a few apps you may not care about... but you're buying from an American company whose CEO kisses Trump's arse and literally gave him a solid gold participation trophy.
I want to see real Linux phones that don't run Android and are somewhat competitive with Android phones, at least in the mid-range space. No one expects them to compete with the iPhone, or the equivalent Android phone that comes out 3-5 years later and stops getting updates while the iPhone it matches on performance is still getting them... but it shouldn't have to. We kinda hit a plateau a few years ago.
Otherwise, definitely worth a look.
Linux phones exist, but they're:
There's also Jolla with Sailfish OS, but don't know if they are any good
Nokia is Finnish and I’m not sure if t hat’s considered European.
Pff of course they are!
Yeah, why wouldn't it be? Lol
Not all android spies on you. Have you ever tried GrapheneOS? It's very secure and pro-privacy. Technically it's not android (if you really want to nitpick), but you need a Google Pixel to run it.
Yes, GrapheneOS is Android (it's AOSP without Google Play Services and GApps, with open source replacements). It's like what CyanogenMod was back in the day. I haven't used Graphene; I've never owned a Pixel. And Graphene is only on Pixels.
I've used a ton of Android custom firmware... from around Ice Cream Sandwich through Lollipop — back when Android was named for desserts. My favourite CFW was LiquidSmooth based on Jellybean, based on AOKP, which was an AOSP fork that tried to be "cool." It wasn't quite as cool as Paranoid Android (which was fucking awesome), but it was way more stable. And CyanogenMod was the most stable but "boring" by comparison. I mean it wasn't flashy. But LiquidSmooth was rock solid. So no, I haven't used Graphene, but I've used forks/ROMs like it.
If Google Play Services is running on it, and you're not blocking it with a firewall (not sure if you even can, but I suppose it isn't impossible), then yes, it's spying on you. (I do not think GrapheneOS runs Google Play Services.)
Yeah. Before OneUI 8, you could set up a custom ROM on a Samsung phone too. Short of that you can disable google services. Use non google apps from F-Droid or Aurora Store. You can also use ADB to uninstall system-level APKs. Though the only way that I know of to fully de-google is to install a different OS.
The label "Android" explicitly includes the ability to spy on you. GrapheneOS is not Android certified.
I want to see real Linux phones that don’t run Android and are somewhat competitive with Android phones, at least in the mid-range space.
There's a large graveyard of attempts at this. The most recent and successful is probably Tizen. Prior to that Firefox OS. People just don't buy them so there's no market for them.
The iPad also wasn't Apple's first tablet. The Newton basically sucked and no one liked it. But now there's really no point in buying anything but an iPad if you want a tablet, even if you use an Android phone.
There were a ton of bad MP3 players before the iPod and a bunch of smartphones before the iPhone, except in both cases, some of them were good. You just had to be real savvy to find those diamonds in the rough, because it sure was a rough market.
The problem is, Google is a data services (advertising and marketing) company. The only reason Android even exists is because Google bought it from a hobbyist (Andy Rubin) because they knew they could use it to scrape more data than Gmail alone. Android exists to harvest your data so that Google can collect and sell it.
Meanwhile, Apple is still kind of trying to sell phones like computers. They're pushing performance harder than their rivals, and they want to be a privacy-first company, but they're based in the US, and are licking fascist boots, so it's not a good look. And now Apple is pushing services as well, subscriptions and whatnot. Is it really better than Android? Especially given the shortcomings in app choice (e.g. sideloading) and the broken ass keyboard? I dunno. I'm a Mac guy, I like Apple tech, warts and all. And I still think they protect your privacy. I think, like Mozilla, they collect telemetry so they know how their products are used, but I don't believe they are tracking your activity across apps/the web, building a profile on you, and selling this to advertisers. And they've gone after companies that try to do so on their platform — when CEO Tim Cook came out and said "starting today, we're still going to let Facebook track you across apps and the web, but we're going to make them get your permission first" or something like that. And from then, you had to agree to the tracking. If you said no, the app was stopped from doing it. Apparently it was effective, Facebook ran a huge ad campaign claiming to be a small business and saying Apple was hurting small businesses like them. (They've since found ways around it. Apple has tried to block them. It's a cat-and-mouse game.) Anyway, point is, I don't know how long Apple can keep selling phones like computers. Arguably, they stopped a while ago. And that's a shame. And it's why, as an Apple guy, I'm rooting for Linux phones. Because if Apple won't sell a phone like a computer, well... that's the kind of phone I want. A pocket computer that can call.
Jolla from Finland has quite the successful preorder phase right now for their next true Linux phone though. I have a preorder voucher myself and am quite intrigued in how it will turn out and if it’ll actually proof usable in daily life (considering banking or healthcare apps its probably gonna get tricky but I’ll see)
I hope it succeeds, but history hasn't been kind to others that tried.
We indeed need to degooglize smartphones.
There are ways but difficult to implement for now...
I mean, the best way is to throw iPhone money at Google, and get iPhone 11 level performance out of a Pixel 10, then wipe the firmware and replace it with GrapheneOS. This is problematic for a couple reasons. One, if you're gonna pay iPhone money, maybe just get an iPhone? Solves a big chunk of the privacy issue, but doesn't get you away from American tech companies, which was your original point. So we set that option aside. Two, you have to give Google money, so they win either way. Sure, they lose out on that targeted ad money, but they sold you years-old tech at a premium price — so they win. Of course, you can buy a used Pixel, but it's gonna be even less powerful (assuming it's an older model).
I think the best option is to take the open-source AOSP (Android Open Source Project) that the closed-source Android is based on, and make a fork that doesn't use Google, like Amazon did with Fire OS. Then you'd just need a hardware partner.
Apparently, Graphene OS is looking into this, but I don't like the idea of a stripped-down Android phone. If I'm paying iPhone price on years-old hardware, the OS better kick some ass. The alternatives to iPhone just offer too many compromises in the name of virtues that I don't really think matter enough. If we can't get an alternative that can match iPhone on performance, it should have an awesome user experience.
i remember learning to degoogle with adb. it wasn't easy and i had to reset more than a couple of times
then i installed LineageOS, after adb it was easier. For somebody else it may be "difficult" indeed
then i installed GrapheneOS for a friend. It can't get any easier. Their web installer makes degoogling accessible to everyone.
Jollaphone would be an alternative. Not a good one though.
I heard of Sailfish OS, linux-based but with an Android compatibility layer.
