Diversity on your private computer
USA dependence is so common now that a special site exist where you can see if you are dependent on USA companies. isitamerican.eu
To counter that dominance there are sites like european-alternatives.eu that help you find EU alternatives.
This article is about getting out of the lock-ins and diversify your computer software and services to select European alternatives insead of using USA based gigants.
Why diversify? That is a separate article that you can read here: https://charzam.com/2026/03/18/beroendet-av-usa/
I will mention EU+ cloud services and computer software that I have tested and like. I am based in Sweden, and some alternatives are local.
What is EU+
EU is these countries:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
Here you benefit the most on the EU laws.
Next step is EFTA ESS: Norway, Iceland. They have a close cooperation to EU.
Next after that you have EFTA: Schweiz. Cooperation with EU but throug bilateral agreements.
And finally you have: Great britain – Cooperation with EU on project level.
Let us jump in to the alternatives.
Email service
The email is your most important choice. If you choose a gmail or a hotmail address then you are stuck there. You need to abandon your email address if you want to swap service.
That is why you should buy your own domain address.
USA based Email gigants: Apple, Microsoft (hotmail, live), Google (gmail).
It is free to use the USA based gigants – or is it free? Ask yourself why they give you free email services.
Your email is often the way to reset a password to a service, or to verify that you are you. You must take control over your email.
European alternatives that provide email hosting and many also allow or even require that you have your own domain address so it is easy for you to keep your email address when you swap provider.
This is the single most important thing you SHOULD do. You will have a yearly cost for YOUR domain address, you will have a cost for your email hosting partner, and it is still better than using the free alternatives.
Email software
When you configure your email, then use IMAP, because it SHOWS you your emails that is on your email service. With POP3 they are DOWNLOADED. Avoid that.
With IMAP you can have the exact same set of emails on all your devices. Delete or sort an email on one device and it is done on all.
It is not that important what email software you use as long as you trust it and feel comfortable. You can pick different ones for your devices. It is IMAP that gives you the freedom.
Password manager
With an independant password manager you can store your secrets in an ecrypted archive you can open on your phone, pad, desktop computer to auto logon on your sites.
That means you should NOT store your passwords in your browser like Firefox, not in your operating systems like Windows, MacOS, IOS and so on. All your passwords should ONLY be stored in your password manager.
If you do this work then you are free to swap other software since your passwords are not cemented into one special operating system.
Pick a password manager application that works in all three major operating systems (windows, macos, linux) + the two major phone brands (android, ios).
I have started using Heylogin. Review will be in a separate article.
Two-factor authentication (2FA)
Username and password is not enough. A 2FA authentication is a must if you want a more secure login.
An authenticator app gives you a code that you enter on for example Facebook to get in.
If you are not using 2FA yet on like Facebook etc, then you really should activate that and get started.
A simple and smooth thing is YubiKey. For example the YubiKey 5C NFC. That physical key can replace an authenticator app on many sites, if not all.
Is it OK if the 2FA authentication app and the password manager app is in the same app? Probably not. It is better to place those parts in different companies or use a YubiKey instead.
An authenticator app must work on your phone (iphone / android) and it is smooth if it works on your watch too.
An authenticator app must allow you to easily change app. If it does not allow export/import then you are stuck with that app.
USA based: Twilio authy authenticator, Microsoft authenticator.
I have used Authy a lot and it is great. Syncs all the 2fa between iphone and apple watch. Authy does not have an export. You can not simply change authenticator app. You are locked in.
You can use Heylogin as a 2FA-authenticator.
I am testing 2FAS Auth, Google App store, Apple Store. A separate article will come later.
If you swap to a solid password manager then take the chance to update your password to a really good one, and activate 2FA at the same time on as many services as possible.
Bookmarks
With the plugin xbrowsersync you can free your bookmarks to be used in any browser on all of your devices.
Browsers
A web browser is the most important application on your device. You reach many web services with your browser.
Gone are the days when you needed a specific browser to make something work. They all work OK and are fast enough and look the same and have similar functions.
All browsers mentioned below are excellent browsers.
You know now that you should not save your passwords in the browser but rather have a separate password manager so that you are not stuck with a specific browser brand.
You also have a way to free your bookmarks. You are now free to choose any browser you like.
The American giants: Google Chome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Egde.
The American challengers: Mozilla Firefox, Brave, DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser, Arc Browser, Tor browser.
The European alternatives:
Name: Opera
Country: Norway
Group: EFTA ESS
USA Score: 0
URL: https://www.opera.com/
Systems: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iPhone
Description: Fast and accurate browser. They switched to the Chromium engine many years ago. Secure and simple to use.
Name: Vivaldi
Country: Norway
Group: EFTA ESS
USA Score: 10/100
URL: https://vivaldi.com/
Systems: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iPhone
Description: Very good browser. Hard to review browsers since they all work and look the same.
Name: Ecosia browser
Country: Germany (Berlin)
Group: EU
USA Score: 0
URL: https://www.ecosia.org/browser
Systems: Windows 10+, MacOS 10.15+, No Linux unfortunately, apps for iPhone and Android.
Description: Very good browser. Hard to review browsers since they all work and look the same.
Name: Mullvad browser
Country: Sweden
Group: EU
USA Score: 0
URL: https://mullvad.net/en/browser
Systems: Windows, MacOS, Linux
Description: This Swedish Extra secure browser is developed together with the Tor Brwoser. This article is not about web security.
Search engines
If you want to find sites on the internet you need a search engine.
Some USA based serach engines: bing.com, google.com, duckduckgo.com
And some European alternatives.
Name: Qwant
Country: France (Paris)
Group: EU
USA score: 0
URL: https://www.qwant.com/
Systems: Online. App for Android and iPhone
Description: Looks and works like any search engine. Was easy to install in Firefox.
Name: Ecosia
Country: Germany (Berlin)
Group: EU
USA Score: 0
URL: https://www.ecosia.org/
Systems: Online. App for Android and iPhone
Description: Looks and works like any search engine.
AI Chat
AI is used in a lot of ways. A good AI chat should be able to help you explain things, do work with text, describe images.
Here are alternatives to: chatgpt.com, claude.ai,
Name: Mistral
Country: France
Group: EU
USA Score: 0
URL: https://chat.mistral.ai/chat
Systems: Online, App for Android and iPhone
Description:
Use Mistral anonymously or login with your favorite login provider. Remembers your chats if you want to. Dark mode. Voice to text. Text to voice.
Use in browser and/or as app in your phone. You can attach agents and enter research mode and deep thinking if needed.
I have extensive experience with Mistral through their phone app, online chat, their APIs, their Vibe coding tool. I can say that they are cheap, fast, accurate, progressive.
Computer operating systems
USA based operating systems: Apple MacOS, Microsoft Windows, Google Chromebook.
Some European alternatives. Ubuntu and OpenSUSE is both Linux distributions. At their core there is Linux. Linux runs on most internet servers and you can have it on your laptop or desktop computer.
Name: Ubuntu
Country: United Kingdom
Group: –
USA Score: 10/100
URL: https://ubuntu.com/
Systems: Arm64, AMD64 (Intel, AMD processorer), Raspberry Pi. Not yet on Apple sillicon but works very good on Apple Macs with Intel processor.
Description: Ubuntu is a GNU Linux operating system. You can install it on your old Mac, old PC, new Apple Sillicon Mac, extreme PCs.
No fuss. You install your applications from the AppCentral or from any source you like.
Applications run in confined boxes like AppImage and Snap, you decide what the are allowed to do and access.
Automatic updates. Two new versions a year. April and October. Version is year.month. 20.04 is 2020 april. LTS means long time support. An LTS comes in april every second year. 22.04, 24.04, 26.04.
You find most common applications like: FireFox browser, Chrome browser, Slack messages, Steam (gaming), Thunderbird (email), Spotify (music).
You have apps like: OpenShot (Video editing), JetBrains (Dev tools), LM Studio (Local AI), Sublime text, VeraCrypt, GIMP (Image editing), InkScape (SVG Editing), Blender (Animation), VSCode, Discord, Telegram.
Gamning: Steam run on Linux. SteamOS is Linux. You have a large index of Linux games. You can also run a large catalog with Windows games on Linux. Some times easier than on Windows 11 if the game is older.
Ubuntu aims to be plug-and-play. In many cases it is. But as with most operating systems there can some times pop up quirks that you need to solve. If you come from a Windows background then it is less trouble with Ubuntu. If you come from MacOS then it is slightly more trouble.
In 2009 I could not go another year with Windows XP. Either invest on Windows licenses to my semi old computers or install Ubuntu and do a total commitment. It has been my operating system since then.
Name: OpenSUSE
Country: Germany
Group: EU
USA Score: 0
URL: https://www.opensuse.org/
Systems: Arm64, AMD64 (Intel, AMD processorer), Raspberry Pi. Not yet on Apple sillicon but works very good on Apple Macs with Intel processor.
Description: Same as Ubuntu but with a more community driven feeling. Latest drivers and latest code. Living on the front line.
I have not tested OpenSUSE. I want to test it with my older Windows games.
Ubuntu has a good installation page. https://documentation.ubuntu.com/desktop/en/latest/tutorial/install-ubuntu-desktop
Have a fast usb storage device like a USB memory or a fast USB hard drive. Download the Ubuntu LTS version. Use a tool to prepare the usb-device
Boot with the usb-device. You come into Ubuntu and can test it out. If it feels OK then click to install and wipe your internal hard drive.
After E-mail, this is the second most important thing you can do to diversify and break dependency to Apple and Microsoft.
Final thoughts
If you have done the things above then you are really serious of not being locked in. You are free to choose whatever software and services you want.
You have tools to check if the service comes from USA and if there are EU+ alternatives.
You have also improved your own data security, even if that was not the primary goal.