[HN Gopher] Migrating to the EU
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Migrating to the EU
        
       Author : exitnode
       Score  : 802 points
       Date   : 2026-03-23 10:17 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (rz01.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (rz01.org)
        
       | sph wrote:
       | I'm also pretty much using 100% EU services except FastMail.
       | Nothing against the Aussies, but I'd rather use something local,
       | with servers within the EU.
       | 
       | But I don't think there's anything as good as Fastmail this side
       | of the pond, and I'm not prepared to compromise on this just yet.
       | I might self-host email despite all the dangers the day FM
       | decides to enshittify itself.
        
         | ktta wrote:
         | ProtonMail? Not strictly speaking EU, but atleast EEA
         | 
         | It also comes with a whole suite of software that you don't
         | have to find EU alternatives for like Calendar, Drive, Password
         | manager, etc
        
           | sph wrote:
           | I like privacy, but a service that's focused on maximum
           | possible privacy for its users paints a target on its back
           | for any three-letter agency, as it will attract a large
           | contingent of unsavoury people.
        
           | mvdwoord wrote:
           | I just onboarded and was dumbfounded that they do not allow
           | for proper calendar exposure other than a fully public link!
           | The claim of zero knowledge is super cute, for those that
           | need it, but I need a provider which allows me to integrate
           | the calendar elsewhere, as those will not magically move into
           | Proton. I guess I am not in their target market.
        
         | yellowsir wrote:
         | https://mailcow.email/vps/
        
         | ongy wrote:
         | I love fastmail, but I really wish they had servers close to
         | me.
         | 
         | The high ping kills the throughput on davfs and makes their
         | website hosting a pain to update :(
        
           | josephg wrote:
           | Where abouts are you located?
        
             | ongy wrote:
             | Smack center of Europe (southern Germany) Got >100ms pings.
        
               | josephg wrote:
               | Heh I'm sorry to hear that. The whole internet is that
               | slow for us here in Australia.
        
         | antics9 wrote:
         | https://tuta.com/ and Protonmail
        
         | perakojotgenije wrote:
         | https://mailbox.org/
         | 
         | German e-mail service
        
           | NoboruWataya wrote:
           | Seconding this - reasonable pricing and I haven't had any
           | issues at all with the service. I haven't used FastMail but
           | most things I read suggest they are very similar in terms of
           | what they offer so I would think Mailbox is a good EU
           | alternative for someone who likes FastMail. (There are also
           | other EU providers like Tuta but with slightly different
           | trade-offs, ie, more emphasis on privacy but at the expense
           | of IMAP/SMTP support.)
        
           | eigenspace wrote:
           | I switched to mailbox recently and I'm finding it quite good.
           | I set it up with a custom domain, and that did require a bit
           | of fuzting around, but the friction there was almost all on
           | the side of my VPS hosting service, not Mailbox's fault.
        
         | heinrich5991 wrote:
         | I've used https://migadu.com/ before. Not EU, but EEA
         | (Switzerland).
        
         | evan_a_a wrote:
         | I'm using Startmail, based in NL: https://www.startmail.com
        
         | sph wrote:
         | Not sure why I got downvoted for saying none of the dozen
         | alternatives people have suggested are anything close to
         | Fastmail. I guess none of you have even tried Fastmail. I am a
         | big fan of its UI, and they have recently released and official
         | Linux client.
        
       | I_am_tiberius wrote:
       | Codeberg is only for FOSS projects. Is there some good European
       | hosting provider for git? I really don't want to self host git.
        
         | lynx97 wrote:
         | Git is extremely easy to "self host". What makes things
         | complicated are the web interfaces around code hosting, and all
         | their supposedly important features. These days, Prs, issues,
         | forums, wikis and all that seem to be synonymous with "git",
         | which is pretty weird.
        
           | ptsneves wrote:
           | Which is ironic because PR is definitely alien to git. There
           | is no such git concept as a PR, nor git pr command.
           | 
           | Coming from a pure git workflow in mailing lists where
           | branches, and commits(and associated diff and git am
           | metadata) are the unit of work, I struggled to adapt into the
           | PR concept in the beginning.
           | 
           | I liked to work with gerrit, where the unit of the review is
           | the commit. This also ensured a nice little history and
           | curation of the change set. The commit in github is not even
           | in the main tab of the PR. It is like it is a second thought.
           | Even in the review, reviewing by commit is awkward and
           | discouraged.
        
             | _flux wrote:
             | There are the commands git request-pull and git send-email
             | to work with that workflow, though.
        
           | kace91 wrote:
           | What do you mean by supposedly?
           | 
           | The PR model is pretty much universal for a reason. I get why
           | it is considered out of scope for core git, but it is by no
           | means a weird fixation people have.
        
             | lynx97 wrote:
             | Just send me an email with your branches URL, and I will
             | pull from it. Thats pretty much what a Pull Request is.
        
               | hvb2 wrote:
               | And the discussion about that PR goes in an email chain
               | too?
               | 
               | You can pull, but having the back and forth documented
               | along with the code is not a nice to have imho
        
               | spiffyk wrote:
               | Not that it fits everyone, but that is basically how the
               | Linux kernel is being developed.
        
               | cyanydeez wrote:
               | Guys, guys, I'm just vibe coding here; just give me your
               | credentials and mothers maiden name and I'll get it
               | myself.
        
               | lynx97 wrote:
               | If it is not in git log, a few months down the drain,
               | nobody will read the PR discussion anyway.
        
               | kace91 wrote:
               | >Thats pretty much what a Pull Request is.
               | 
               | Then you have to use email for the review conversation,
               | make the discussion easily available to everyone involved
               | and future devs, track manually which comment refers to
               | which line of the diff due to lack of overlaying,
               | manually ping to warn of updates, rely on manual quoting,
               | no direct information on whether the CI pipeline
               | succeeded...
               | 
               | To me that feels like writing code using only sed. It is
               | _possible_ , but it removes or makes convoluted an absurd
               | degree of regular work.
        
               | Jnr wrote:
               | You are correct, but integration with CI/CD and other
               | services as a part of pull-request process in a modern
               | platform is very convenient. I would not go back to
               | e-mail. Especially since I can self host the whole
               | platform like Gitea.
        
           | rapnie wrote:
           | Because there isn't really a good name. In FOSS circles the
           | name "code forge" is often used, and then OP might say "git-
           | based code forge" instead. But both Github and Gitlab don't
           | consider themself (and aren't) code forges. The term doesn't
           | carry the load of the product positioning. So "hosting
           | provider for git" is a pretty good description imho.
        
         | rapnie wrote:
         | Regarding Forgejo [0] there are a number of other open
         | providers listed on the delightful forgejo [1] curated list. In
         | addition there is a Professional services repository [2] where
         | services are listed in the issue tracker.
         | 
         | [0] https://forgejo.org
         | 
         | [1] https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-
         | forgejo/#public-...
         | 
         | [2] https://codeberg.org/forgejo/professional-services/issues
        
         | petcat wrote:
         | devault made sourcehut which I think is hosted in the
         | netherlands
         | 
         | https://sr.ht
         | 
         | I tried it once, it's very opinionated and may not be suitable
         | for what a lot of people think of when they're coming from
         | something like Github. The required old-school patch-by-mail
         | thing is a blocker for a lot of people.
        
         | p2detar wrote:
         | I self-host Forgejo on a Docker container. Thinking about it,
         | this is actually the right way to go.
         | 
         | If you got public projects, then something like Codeberg is in
         | fact the place to go. If you got private projects, why push to
         | someone's cloud-hosted git service at all? Push to your own
         | service like Forgejo and sync backups to a local hard-drive or
         | even online using rclone.
        
           | nottorp wrote:
           | Because I don't mind paying github $4 or $7 and not worry
           | about the admin burden.
           | 
           | Of course, this goes for simpler setups where you only use
           | the git hosting part. Because to switch providers you only
           | have to change the remote and push.
           | 
           | If you got yourself dependent on their other pipelines, it's
           | more complicated.
        
         | teekert wrote:
         | Uhm, is it? I have some small repos there, which are private
         | and for my company (ie the website). I didn't encounter any
         | warnings?
         | 
         | Edit, it says indeed (right in your face on the front page):
         | 
         | Codeberg is a non-profit, community-led effort that provides
         | services to free and open-source projects, such as Git hosting.
         | 
         | I just click... click opened a repo and set it as remote and
         | boom. Never thought anything of it... Perhaps I'm... Tolerated
         | for the time being?
        
           | PurpleRamen wrote:
           | You are just a glitch in their system. They won't check the
           | content of private repos, and they probably also do not check
           | if there is free software hosted at the same account, so you
           | might have found the hole in their good will.
           | 
           | But their limit seems around 100 MB storage-usage, so I guess
           | it's within their abilities to tolerate some glitches.
        
             | teekert wrote:
             | Ah ok, well, save for some drafts I wouldn't mind opening
             | the repo which is just a Hugo system intended for a public
             | website anyway. But good to know. Perhaps I will self-host
             | that forgejo instance then :)
        
         | sam_lowry_ wrote:
         | Here's a step-by step guide:
         | 
         | Change directory to your local git repository that you want to
         | share with friends and colleagues and do a bare clone git clone
         | --bare . /tmp/repo.git You just created a copy of the .git
         | folder without all the checked out files.
         | 
         | Upload /tmp/repo.git to your linux server over ssh. Don't have
         | one? Just order a tiny cloud server from Hetzner or another
         | European provider. You can place your git repository anywhere,
         | but the best way is to put it in a separate folder, e.g.
         | /var/git. The command would look like with scp -r /tmp/repo.git
         | me@server:/var/git/.
         | 
         | To share the repository with others, create a group, e.g.
         | groupadd --users me git You will be able to add more users to
         | the group with groupmod.
         | 
         | Your git repository is now writable only by me. To make it
         | writable by the git group, you have to change the group on all
         | files in the repository to git with chgrp -R git /var/repo.git
         | and enable the group write bit on them with chmod -R g+w
         | /var/repo.git.
         | 
         | This fixes the shared access for existing files. For new files,
         | we have to make sure the group write bit is always on by
         | changing UMASK from 022 to 002 in /etc/login.defs.
         | 
         | There is one more trick. For now on, all new files and folders
         | in /var/git will be created with the user's primary group. We
         | could change users to have git as the primary group.
         | 
         | But we can also force all new files and folders to be created
         | with the parent folder's group and not user primary group. For
         | that, set the group sticky bit on all folders in /var/git with
         | find /var/git -type d -exec chmod g+s \\{\\} +
         | 
         | You are done.
         | 
         | Want to host your git repository online? Install caddy and
         | point to /var/git with something like
         | example.com {           root * /var/git           file_server
         | }
         | 
         | Your git repository will be instantly accessible via
         | https://example.com/repo.git.
        
         | olavgg wrote:
         | Gitea is one of the easiest projects to to self-host. And to do
         | regular upgrades, you only need to update one file. It has been
         | a joy to self-host for many years now.
        
           | Jnr wrote:
           | I don't even update one file. I run it in docker with daily
           | automatic container updates and it has been working fine
           | without issues for years.
        
         | cyanydeez wrote:
         | gitlab ce is easy to host.
        
         | christophilus wrote:
         | I think Sourcehut is EU based now.
        
         | AndrewDucker wrote:
         | I am boggled by the number of people who see "I really don't
         | want to X" and then reply with "Here's how to easily do X!"
        
         | thijsw wrote:
         | Yes, check out https://www.gitlabhost.com/ It is based in the
         | Netherlands
        
           | roelschroeven wrote:
           | AFAICS the cheapest option is 250EUR/month. That seems geared
           | towards businesses, not individuals.
        
           | I_am_tiberius wrote:
           | Crazy expensive for small projects
        
         | fanatic2pope wrote:
         | For just the basics, self-hosting of git can be pretty easy. I
         | use gitolite on a VPS.
         | 
         | https://gitolite.com/gitolite/
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | Take a look at https://www.lcube-webhosting.de/en/svn-hosting-
         | repositoryonl..., starts at 2.90 Euro. No personal experience,
         | but the fact that they are still including SVN support tells
         | you how long-established they are.
         | 
         | Google reviews:
         | https://www.google.com/search?q=lcube&ludocid=91685905651961...
        
         | dethos wrote:
         | One of the other comments mentions https://codefloe.com. I
         | haven't tested and haven't yet checked their background, but
         | they seem to allow private repositories.
        
           | I_am_tiberius wrote:
           | That sounds good. I'm a bit confused about missing pricing.
           | It says free tier is generous but I can't find any prices.
        
         | icy wrote:
         | https://tangled.org :) We're hosted in the EU.
        
       | sobiolite wrote:
       | I'm not with I could ever migrate away from Gmail, even if I
       | wanted to. I have so many accounts and services linked to it.
        
         | fsflover wrote:
         | Set up the redirect and change the emails of your services one
         | by one whenever you have a minute of time. It took a year for
         | me, and I am free now.
        
         | sylens wrote:
         | It's easier than you think when you stop trying to treat it as
         | an all or nothing move and more of a gradual migration.
         | Fastmail makes it really easy to keep the two in sync
        
         | vertnerd wrote:
         | If you are using a password manager, start by searching for
         | every record with your gmail address. Make a list. Every day,
         | go to the next entry on the list and change your email with
         | that app or service.
         | 
         | Of course, set up gmail to forward messages to your new address
         | and filter them into a folder. Once you have changed all the
         | services you know about, watch for emails coming to the gmail
         | folder, looking for more services that need to be updated.
         | Eventually the only thing arriving in the folder is spam and
         | you can just route it all into the garbage.
        
         | mhitza wrote:
         | Took me a year of slow migration so that my essential emails
         | and connected services don't go over Gmail. Email is the
         | hardest to move because of its central nature as an online
         | identity.
        
         | microtonal wrote:
         | Don't make the same mistake again, get a domain so that you can
         | keep using the same address when switching between providers.
         | Then set up GMail to forward e-mail to your new address. Then
         | slowly update the E-mail address in your account. You could
         | even set up a label that gets attached to e-mails that arrived
         | through your GMail address. In that way, you can easily see the
         | stuff that still needs to be updated.
         | 
         | Untangling yourself from Google (or Apple, which is similarly
         | hard), doesn't have to be all at once. Break it up in small
         | steps that feel like individual wins.
         | 
         | One more note about using your own domain: avoid provider-
         | specifict features like subdomain addressing (made it more work
         | for me to move off Fastmail).
        
         | ralferoo wrote:
         | Nowadays, I primarily only use gmail because the mail client is
         | good on Android. But all my accounts have been self-hosted for
         | years now and gmail just reads them via POP3 (never managed to
         | get it happy with IMAP for some reason) and sends via my own
         | SMTP.
         | 
         | Can anyone recommend actually decent and free Android (and also
         | web) mail clients for self-hosted use? Everything I've tried so
         | far (but to be fair, it was a few years ago when I last
         | checked) just felt clunky compared to gmail, so I've ended up
         | sticking with it as a client far longer than I probably should.
        
           | Grumbledour wrote:
           | I've been using FairEmail[1] for some years now as a
           | replacement and find it superior to the gmail app. Of course,
           | depending on your needs and tastes, I could also understand
           | calling it a bit clunky. It is FOSS, but has a one time pay
           | premium option for some advanced features. But really, it's
           | also just fair to support the dev by buing the app. My only
           | complaint would be, that there are to many updates, but of
           | course, you can just ignore them and do them every few months
           | instead.
           | 
           | [1] https://email.faircode.eu/
        
           | 4k93n2 wrote:
           | thunderbird (formerly k9 mail) is a decent enough android
           | app, but im not very picky when it comes to email either so
           | keep that in mind. ive been using it with posteo for about 2
           | years now
        
         | iso1631 wrote:
         | I let my old 4 letter .com domain expire around 2000ish and got
         | suckered into the whole gmail etc thing after sitting on
         | university and hotmail for a while
         | 
         | In 2019 I decided enough was enough and registered a new domain
         | and started moving my accounts over as new ones came up, or I
         | updated addressing
         | 
         | I have very little left on gmail now other than spam from old
         | services I no longer use. Top one in the inbox at the moment is
         | Facebook telling my I have "530 notifications about X". Its sad
         | how desperate they are.
        
         | threethirtytwo wrote:
         | There's no point in switching. Most of these people are dealing
         | with a threat that has an extremely low probability of
         | happening. It is not in any practical way going to affect your
         | life and for most of the people here busy switching to EU
         | services they likely don't have any major example of where it
         | has affect them or anyone one degree away from them.
         | 
         | It's mostly an ideal. Like OSS. The practical reality means
         | that such extreme adherence to only EU services doesn't do
         | anything but make your life harder. It's like saying you only
         | use open source, from the CPU to the GPU to your OS and
         | everything else... make it all from open source, how big of a
         | nightmare would that be? The only time it is practical is if
         | you're doing really illegal shit and you need the data
         | protection.
        
           | jobigoud wrote:
           | > doesn't do anything but make your life harder.
           | 
           | No it also encourages the local market and healthy
           | competition. This way in the future we don't fall into the
           | same enshittification trap.
        
           | thejohnconway wrote:
           | Honestly, the instability of the political environment in US
           | feels so extreme, that it seems like something could bite you
           | that you didn't even see coming.
           | 
           | Just on the Gmail front: maybe Trump decides to trade embargo
           | you country and pressures Google to cut off email access.
           | Maybe he decides Google needs to be broken up and sold for
           | parts, and Gmail's data goes to Truth Social. Maybe he thinks
           | illegal immigrants or "radical left wing lunatics" shouldn't
           | have access to American email providers and gets Google to
           | start suspending accounts based on a some criteria. Maybe
           | some of this seems far fetched, but we are talking about a
           | president who threatened to to go to war with one of
           | America's closest allies.
           | 
           | The non-American west's exposure to the instability is too
           | high, and already affecting people. Switching software
           | providers where possible is something that can be done
           | quickly, and relatively easily by individuals in the short
           | term.
        
           | nottorp wrote:
           | With google, the problem is that their "AI" can randomly ban
           | you though. And the only recourse is making it to the top of
           | HN. If that even works any more.
        
         | sodapopcan wrote:
         | I did it with tons of accounts and services linked. It's not
         | anywhere as daunting as you'd think (and I thought). Although
         | it seems you don't want to move away from it so I'm not sure
         | what point your comment serves to make.
        
         | 4k93n2 wrote:
         | i thought the same but ive actually moved twice now. first to
         | protonmail whenever that came out, then again a few years ago
         | to posteo. it actually didnt feel like that much work in the
         | end. i set up forwarding and switched over a few accounts every
         | week. i still kept my gmail account around for years just in
         | case but there will be a point where you just know you have all
         | the important things switched over
        
       | appstorelottery wrote:
       | I would add Hetzner for hosting. German based, solid in my
       | experience with virtual servers.
        
         | aleph_minus_one wrote:
         | In Germany, netcup (https://www.netcup.com/) is also quite
         | popular among customers who are
         | 
         | - small or midsize companies, or
         | 
         | - "hacker-minded people" (I know quite some "hacker-minded
         | people" who rent a server or vServer at netcup),
         | 
         | since they offer quite a bit of value for the money. In
         | opposite to Hetzner, netcup is more of an inside tip.
        
           | poolnoodle wrote:
           | Also https://uberspace.de/en/
        
             | dewey wrote:
             | That's the host mentioned 6 times in the article.
        
       | madflo wrote:
       | I have been a customer of OVH's new Zimbra Starter service. It
       | works for my personal and professional needs, CalDAV and
       | ActiveSync are active. I do not use the web interface so no
       | feedback on this.
        
         | choo-t wrote:
         | Does their Zimbra implementation support 2FA ?
        
       | BoredPositron wrote:
       | Blast from the past... I really miss fluxbox but I also need
       | Wayland because of different refresh rate monitors and the last
       | time I checked waybox wasn't there yet.
        
       | _osud wrote:
       | How comfortable are you guys with the fact that EU countries
       | allow prosecutors and sometimes even police officers to issue
       | their own search warrants without meaningful judicial review?
       | Some EU courts will not exclude illegally obtained evidence
       | either, so challenging the warrant later on will be pointless.
       | 
       | Oh, and you might be in a reasonable EU country and still be hit
       | with an EIO from one of the unreasonable countries. This is
       | especially concerning given recent ECJ rulings increasingly
       | directing courts in receiving nations to blindly defer to the
       | requesting party when dealing with EAWs, EIOs and similar.
       | 
       | Worth considering when hosting in the EU.
        
         | andix wrote:
         | No system is perfect. It's more a theoretical risk for now, if
         | you're not running a shady business.
        
           | noosphr wrote:
           | The police will of course decide if you are running a shady
           | business.
        
             | rithdmc wrote:
             | Nintendo may also decide this.
             | 
             | https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/uk-games-collector-
             | raided-b...
        
         | alpineman wrote:
         | At least there is still the rule of law and democracy in the EU
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | Is there really? Governments routinely go against the ECHR
           | and the ECJ, and do nothing to rectify past violations when
           | ruled against.
           | 
           | On a national level, sure.
        
             | input_sh wrote:
             | Considering who we're comparing it to when discussing this
             | topic: absolutely. Not even a question.
             | 
             | Anyone claiming otherwise is delusional at best.
        
               | Levitz wrote:
               | A whole lot of websites are inaccessible from my country
               | when there's football on, due to a judicial order meant
               | to curb piracy.
               | 
               | The whole deal with Chat Control is also not to be
               | forgotten. I do think you guys see this place with rose
               | tinted glasses sometimes.
        
               | input_sh wrote:
               | Does that football scenario mean that the rule of law
               | doesn't exist or that it _does_ exist and is being
               | enforced?
               | 
               | I agree with you that both of those laws are stupid, but
               | that's a completely separate discussion to what I'm
               | claiming above.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Depends on how you interpret the ECHR.
               | 
               | Does it allow blocking half the internet during football
               | games?
               | 
               | It almost certainly does not: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/
               | fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-115705%...
               | 
               | AFAIU this is common because lower courts often
               | deliberately choose to not try to interpret ECHR, leaving
               | that for appeals courts.
        
               | input_sh wrote:
               | I interpret ECHR as what it is: not a regulatory body by
               | any stretch of the imagination. It can recommend changes
               | to the national law, but it cannot force any state to do
               | so. You seem to be interpreting it as some sort of an
               | equivalent to the US supreme court, which it is not.
               | 
               | But now we're straying even further from my original
               | argument which boils down to "laws mean something" into
               | arguing the intricacies of how laws are supposed to be
               | changed. I'm not interested in having that discussion, as
               | it has nothing to do with my original claim.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | ECHR decisions are (supposed to be) legally binding. If
               | they're not obeyed, that's not a good look for rule of
               | law in Europe.
               | 
               | ECHR decisions are certainly not mere recommendations.
               | 
               | >It can recommend changes to the national law, but it
               | cannot force any state to do so
               | 
               | ECHR can simply invalidate national law.
        
               | input_sh wrote:
               | According to whom? You?
               | 
               | The only thing ECHR cares about is one piece of
               | "legislation", which is not a law, but a declaration
               | (Declaration of Human Rights), so that you have some sort
               | of internationally recognised body to go to whenever you
               | feel that your local judicial system has done you
               | injustice. That is all it does. That is all it is meant
               | to do. That is the sole reason of its existence. It is
               | not a legislative body _at all_.
               | 
               | > ECHR can simply invalidate national law.
               | 
               | It can't. You're either making things up or severely
               | misunderstanding the court. It can say "this law doesn't
               | align with the Declaration" and that's it. The law still
               | exists. ECHR relies on signatories being _willing_ to
               | make the necessary changes themselves. Some are and get
               | right on it, some aren 't. The election law in my country
               | has lost 5 cases in the ECHR and not a single one of the
               | verdicts are fixed as of now, the oldest of which dates
               | back to 2009. This is horrible, I _want to_ see them
               | fixed, but ECHR can 't force us to fix it and we as in
               | the country face 0 consequences for not addressing any of
               | them (as of yet).
               | 
               | There is a separate court called European Court of
               | Justice which _is_ the equivalent of the US supreme court
               | and is tasked with interpreting EU-wide laws and making
               | sure national laws are aligned as much as possible. That
               | _is_ a legislative body with an enforcement mechanism.
               | ECHR is not, you don 't know what you're talking about.
        
             | pjc50 wrote:
             | Which cases are you talking about? Compliance with actual
             | court rulings is pretty high.
        
               | rithdmc wrote:
               | It took Ireland years from an ECHR ruling to rule buggery
               | was not unlawful, and Ireland was given a special
               | exemption to the EUs abortion laws which remained in
               | place for 26 years.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Want a particularly egregious example? Here: https://eur-
               | lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62...
               | 
               | Police in many EU countries was systematically searching
               | suspects phones without mandatory due process. This was
               | _prima facie_ illegal, everyone involved knew it. They
               | did it regardless.
               | 
               | Yeah, this decision eventually resulted in many
               | governments issuing new guidance, and some countries
               | rewriting their national legislation. Is that a big
               | victory for the rule of law? I think not, the national
               | governments should not be knowingly violating the ECHR in
               | the first place.
        
           | rafram wrote:
           | The baseline level of freedom of speech in the EU, in
           | particular, is much, much worse than in the US. We're talking
           | about a group of countries with active, enforced blasphemy
           | laws! Completely unthinkable for Americans.
        
             | microtonal wrote:
             | The US is at position 57 in the world free speech index.
             | Virtually all EU countries do better and a bunch are top
             | 10:
             | 
             | https://rsf.org/en/index
             | 
             | American exceptionalism doesn't seem to know boundaries.
        
               | nozzlegear wrote:
               | You linked to a site about press freedom, which is a
               | subset of free speech and not generally what Americans
               | are talking about when they talk about freedom of speech.
        
               | dudefeliciano wrote:
               | "Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the free
               | exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
               | of the press."
               | 
               | that does not imply one being the subset of the other to
               | me, if anything they are clearly defined and therefore
               | clearly separate.
               | 
               | Trump refuses to answer simple questions and attacks and
               | mocks reporters, that's if they're lucky and he doesn't
               | directly sue them for millions/billions. Hell, the white
               | house banned Associated Press. Is that free speech or
               | freedom of the press?
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Are you sure "the press" doesn't just refer to physical
               | printing presses there?
        
               | rafram wrote:
               | It's worth reading the specific actions they cite that
               | lower the US's ranking. They include the closure of Voice
               | of America, a government-run propaganda outlet for
               | foreign audiences (and I do think that closure is bad!
               | just not relevant at all to free speech); mergers of
               | several big media conglomerates; not to mention,
               | bafflingly, restrictions on journalism by the Iranian
               | government in Iran, which somehow counts against the US.
               | 
               | None of this says anything about Americans' right to
               | speak freely, which is absolute, unlike in any European
               | country.
        
               | dudefeliciano wrote:
               | Can you quote it? Did not see any of those things you are
               | mentioning.
               | 
               | https://rsf.org/en/country/united-states
        
               | kubb wrote:
               | But their free speech protects bribing the politicians
               | with campaign donations. It's true that we don't have
               | such advanced laws over here.
        
             | dudefeliciano wrote:
             | > freedom of speech
             | 
             | Oh please. There's free speech without a free press (US
             | ranks 57/190, behind Sierra Leone) people are just
             | amplifying the same BS they heard from some ignorant
             | influencer. I would argue even your idea of "active
             | enforced blasphemy laws" shows that. That's worse than
             | useless, that is detrimental to a society (case in point,
             | the current president and his whole cabinet).
             | 
             | https://rsf.org/en/index
        
               | rafram wrote:
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492709
        
             | Bewelge wrote:
             | Boiling down the different approaches to freedom of speech
             | to "The baseline level is higher/lower", has always been a
             | pretty simplistic (and if you would actually delve into the
             | topic a little, flat out wrong) view .
             | 
             | Freedom of speech is not absolute. Neither in Europe nor in
             | the US. Both effectively have rules restricting certain
             | speech. For example, speech that may harm others, such as
             | inciting violence or maybe the most famous example:
             | "Shouting FIRE in a full venue".
             | 
             | European countries tend to spell out these restrictions
             | more explicitly. It's completely reasonable to disagree
             | with these restrictions. But the simple existence of them
             | shouldn't lead you to the conclusion that one is "more
             | freedom of speech" than the other.
             | 
             | And at last I want to add, that that is how it's been
             | historically. Sadly, the recent developments in US show
             | pretty well how freedom of speech cannot be measured by
             | "How many specific laws are there about things I cannot
             | say?".
        
               | rafram wrote:
               | > Shouting FIRE in a full venue
               | 
               | "Crowded theater"? In any case, yes, that's a popular
               | understanding of limits on free speech in the US, but
               | it's actually been superseded twice - first by "clear and
               | present danger," then by "inciting or producing imminent
               | lawless action." These days, it's probably (I am not a
               | lawyer) legal to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater under
               | many circumstances.
               | 
               | > Sadly, the recent developments in US show pretty well
               | how freedom of speech cannot be measured by "How many
               | specific laws are there about things I cannot say?".
               | 
               | There are no laws preventing you from saying anything in
               | the US, unless you are specifically, directly inciting
               | people, at that moment, to do things that break other
               | laws. That's the point. You can't measure it in terms of
               | degrees of restrictions; the US has _none_ , and all
               | European countries have at least _some_. The latter
               | approach opens the floodgates to restrictions on any kind
               | of speech that the government doesn 't like. The US
               | Constitution prevents that from ever happening.
        
               | gzread wrote:
               | > There are no laws preventing you from saying anything
               | in the US, unless...
               | 
               | Sounds like there are some of those laws. You covered
               | them with "unless"
        
             | sofixa wrote:
             | > We're talking about a group of countries with active,
             | enforced blasphemy laws
             | 
             | In a very narrow interpretation, yes. Everyone with a
             | modicum of common sense would realise that countries with
             | laws on the books against offending religions / inciting
             | hatred against them are still more free than a country
             | where the fucking Bible is cited in court rulings and
             | political speeches, and where there are active laws
             | prohibiting non-religious people from holding office.
             | 
             | One is for keeping the peace, the other is actively
             | meddling religion and politics.
             | 
             | > baseline level of freedom of speech
             | 
             | Being unable to spout Nazi ideology is technically a
             | restriction on freedom of speech, yes. But again, anyone
             | with a modicum of common sense (and a bit of historical
             | understanding) would understand this to be a _good_ thing.
        
               | rafram wrote:
               | The far right is ascendant in Europe; obviously
               | restrictions on speech haven't prevented that. I am
               | Jewish, I have a strong dislike of Nazis, and yet I think
               | Nazis legally being able to "spout Nazi ideology" is a
               | healthy thing for our society. Criminalizing speech
               | doesn't stop people from holding abhorrent beliefs.
               | 
               | This is an aspect of our country that I think most
               | Americans are proud of. Some relevant reading: https://en
               | .wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...
        
               | messe wrote:
               | My fucking god the American exceptionalism arrogance runs
               | strong.
        
               | rafram wrote:
               | It's fine if you think the American approach to free
               | speech is bad - you don't have to live here - but please
               | justify that rather than just name-calling.
        
               | sofixa wrote:
               | > yet I think Nazis legally being able to "spout Nazi
               | ideology" is a healthy thing for our society
               | 
               | How did that end last time? We know where it ends, we
               | know there's nothing redeeming. Nobody needs Nazis, there
               | is nothing to be gained by engaging with them or giving
               | them a platform.
        
               | rafram wrote:
               | Weimar Germany had laws against hate speech!
        
               | sofixa wrote:
               | That they did not apply. They let a guy who _tried to
               | overthrow the government_ free to run for election again.
               | This kind of thing should never be allowed. Someone who
               | physically demonstrates they have no business in a
               | democratic society doesn 't belong in it.
        
             | tensor wrote:
             | Given the last year, it doesn't seem like any level of
             | suppression of freedom is in fact unthinkable for
             | Americans.
        
           | nozzlegear wrote:
           | For now - the EU is one AfD win away from following in
           | America's footsteps.
        
             | krzyk wrote:
             | AfD is a party in single country in EU.
        
               | nozzlegear wrote:
               | AfD is a far right populist party in the EU's biggest
               | economic powerhouse country, whose explicit goals are to
               | leave the EU (they probably can't due to the German
               | constitution), exit the eurozone, withdraw from the Paris
               | climate deal, leave NATO, and cozy up with Russia.
               | 
               | It's not hard to imagine what kind of damage they could
               | do to the EU if they took power in Germany and started
               | working with Hungary to block EU legislation, veto
               | sanctions, defund programs, etc.
        
             | tensor wrote:
             | The EU governance system is vastly different than the US,
             | and not nearly as fragile. Even if AfD gets sway in one
             | country, it doesn't mean that suddenly they can do anything
             | they want like you saw in the last US election.
             | 
             | My understanding of the EU system is that it's far more
             | proportional in representation, and a simple 51% isn't
             | enough to have 100% control. Parties still need to work
             | together and compromise.
        
               | nozzlegear wrote:
               | > _My understanding of the EU system is that it 's far
               | more proportional in representation, and a simple 51%
               | isn't enough to have 100% control. Parties still need to
               | work together and compromise._
               | 
               | We've already seen with Brexit that 100% control is not
               | needed in a parliamentary system to destroy a country's
               | livelihood. But my point was that AfD doesn't need
               | something like "presidential control" of the EU, it would
               | just need to start working with other far-right parties
               | in the EU such as Hungary and France's RN to sow chaos
               | from within. Is that very far-fetched? You can't tell me
               | that most of Europe doesn't hold its collective breath at
               | every French election, crossing their fingers that Le
               | Pen's party doesn't win this go around.
        
         | Rygian wrote:
         | Valid question, which must be put in the context of US-based
         | providers willingly satisfying US out-of-jurisdiction search
         | requests for EU data without even letting the EU know about it.
         | (And when the providers are not willing, they can be forced by
         | U.S. Cloud Act)
         | 
         | https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2025/07/22/micro...
        
         | deaux wrote:
         | This isn't a downside against EU services when compared to the
         | US, so what are you actually suggesting? Don't just vaguely
         | hint at stuff. Should we be moving to Singaporean services? Oh
         | shit, similar concerns there. Okay, where do you suggest we
         | move? If you don't have any suggestions then there's little
         | substance behind what you're saying.
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | >This isn't a point against EU services compared to the US
           | 
           | In the US the cops actually need a search warrant signed by a
           | judge. In the EU they only sometimes need one.
           | 
           | >Should we be moving to Singaporean services? Oh shit,
           | similar concerns there
           | 
           | Really? I've always been under the impression that it is
           | courts who issue search warrants in Singapore, not the police
           | or prosecutors.
        
             | not_that_d wrote:
             | Does ICE needs something?
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Internal combustion engine? Hydrocarbons, I guess.
        
             | generic92034 wrote:
             | A judge of a secret court, which are known to never deny
             | any request?
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | This is simply not correct. Very few "cops" in the US can
               | go to any kind of secret courts.
               | 
               | Also, what you're describing is still infinitely better
               | than the European system! The cops get to issue the
               | warrants themselves.
        
               | generic92034 wrote:
               | With any number of intelligence services in the USA I
               | would not really be calmed by the prospect that an
               | ordinary cop cannot do that.
               | 
               | What you are claiming about European cops is also not
               | uniformly true. A German police officer cannot "just"
               | self-issue a search warrant.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | >What you are claiming about European cops is also not
               | uniformly true. A German police officer cannot "just"
               | self-issue a search warrant.
               | 
               | Yes. The more worrying situation is that Hungary can just
               | decide that their police officers can self-issue search
               | warrants, and then send those around the EU in the form
               | of EIOs.
        
               | generic92034 wrote:
               | This is more of a theoretical concern, though.
        
         | surgical_fire wrote:
         | Generally comfortable.
         | 
         | While the EIO is s controversial instrument (I particularly
         | dislike the excessive power it gives to authorities in issuing
         | countries and the inability to question the warrant), it at
         | least is something that happens as part of a judicial process.
         | 
         | I'm certainly more comfortable with it than being subject to
         | the whims of the US government and its 3 letter agencies.
         | 
         | That said, yeah, EIO in the shape it exists is bad.
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | >it at least is something that happens as part of a judicial
           | process
           | 
           | Only sort of, because some countries have very weird ideas of
           | what a "judicial process" is.
           | 
           | >I'm certainly more comfortable with it than being subject to
           | the whims of the US government and its 3 letter agencies.
           | 
           | That's fair, but I think it's a mistake. In the worst case
           | the European system grants a village cop in another country
           | the authority to conduct extremely intrusive surveillance on
           | you.
           | 
           | Criminals can easily co-opt this system and steal your crypto
           | or whatever, a far more realistic threat for most people than
           | the NSA.
        
             | surgical_fire wrote:
             | > That's fair, but I think it's a mistake
             | 
             | I obviously don't share the sentiment.
             | 
             | > village cop in another country the authority to conduct
             | extremely intrusive surveillance on you.
             | 
             | > far more realistic threat for most people than the NSA.
             | 
             | If you think some policeman in a rural Frech village is a
             | bigger threat to your freedom than NSA or other 3-letter
             | agencies from the USA, we can all see who is mistaken in
             | evaluating threats.
             | 
             | > Criminals can easily co-opt this system and steal your
             | crypto or whatever
             | 
             | I don't want to say anything, I just wanted to highlight
             | this bit because it made me giggle.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | >If you think some policeman in a rural Frech village is
               | a bigger threat to your freedom than NSA or other
               | 3-letter agencies from the USA, we can all see who is
               | mistaken in evaluating threats.
               | 
               | Just like the random mugger on the streets of Paris is a
               | far bigger threat to my life and limb than the US with
               | their drones.
               | 
               | You're talking from an ideological perspective, I'm
               | looking at this from a rather more practical angle. It's
               | very possible that your line of thinking leads to a
               | better outcome than mine, or perhaps it doesn't.
               | 
               | >I don't want to say anything, I just wanted to highlight
               | this bit because it made me giggle.
               | 
               | It's really not that funny, cryptocurrency thieves have
               | been bribing cops to rob people at gunpoint
               | https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/09/crooked-cops-stolen-
               | lapt...
               | 
               | Now you can bribe a village cop in Hungary or Romania,
               | and have the French cops do your bidding. This is totally
               | gonna end well!
        
               | surgical_fire wrote:
               | > You're talking from an ideological perspective
               | 
               | Given your participation in this whole discussion, that
               | was pretty cute.
               | 
               | There nothing else here even worth addressing. This
               | conversation is a waste of time, for both of us.
               | 
               | Have a wonderful rest of your day.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Having been personally touched by this, I see this as an
               | entirely practical and not ideological issue.
               | 
               | It's harder for me to worry about the NSA than people who
               | have already negatively impacted me in the past.
        
         | throw0101c wrote:
         | > _How comfortable are you guys with the fact that EU countries
         | allow prosecutors and sometimes even police officers to issue
         | their own search warrants without meaningful judicial review?_
         | 
         | (IANAL.) This was reviewed by the courts themselves:
         | 
         | > _The CJEU confirmed that the Belgian, French and Swedish
         | prosecutors were sufficiently independent from the executive to
         | be able to issue EAWs._ [...]
         | 
         | > [...] _Public prosecutors will qualify as an issuing judicial
         | authority where two conditions are met:_ [...]
         | 
         | > _2. Second, public prosecutors must be in a position to act
         | in an independent way, specifically with respect to the
         | executive. The CJEU requires that the independence of public
         | prosecutors be organised by a statutory framework and
         | organisational rules that prevent the risk of prosecutors being
         | subject to individual instructions by the executive (as was the
         | case with the German prosecutor). Moreover, the framework must
         | enable prosecutors to assess the necessity and proportionality
         | of issuing an EAW. In the French prosecutor judgment, the CJEU
         | specifically indicated that:_
         | 
         | * https://www.fairtrials.org/articles/legal-analysis/can-
         | belgi...
         | 
         | The question that the OP asks is fair enough, but there's a lot
         | of subtly and 'low-level' details on how things operate
         | compared to the high-level question that is being asked. Also
         | depends on where the OP lives and what he's used to: common law
         | (UK/US/CA/ _etc_ ) and civil law procedures and laws are (AIUI)
         | quite different.
        
           | Aerroon wrote:
           | For anyone wondering:
           | 
           | EAW = European Arrest Warrant
           | 
           | EIO = European Investigative Order (basically lets different
           | jurisdictions demand information from each other)
           | 
           | CJEU = Court of Justice of the EU (think of it as a supreme
           | court)
        
             | stanac wrote:
             | Also IANAL: I Am Not A Lawyer. If you really want to guard
             | yourself from a legal standpoint, write the full sentence.
             | "IANAL" could mean anything.
             | 
             | That being said, I am not a lawyer, I am not a legal
             | professional, this is not a legal advice.
        
         | mongol wrote:
         | Sweden is a country like this. It is just the way it is here.
         | It can be abused, sure. But all things considered, I much
         | rather have my things hosted here than in the US.
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | Yeah, but you also have Hungary who can decide to do things
           | the same way they're done in Sweden and Finland.
        
             | mongol wrote:
             | In Hungary, sure. But each country has its own
             | jurisdiction.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Yeah, way to not read the thread.
               | 
               | I'll repeat: EIO
        
               | mongol wrote:
               | So what? Can you point to a real example where this has
               | been abused or are we discussing hypotheticals?
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | You can look at past ECHR decisions for countless cases
               | of abuse by various national governments.
               | 
               | You can look at the history of EAW related litigation
               | also, it'll probably prove most informative. Executing
               | states used to constantly deny requests due to judicial
               | review, rules were clarified to remove the possibility of
               | judicial review by executing states.
        
               | mongol wrote:
               | I was expecting you might have a relevant example that
               | applies to this discussion.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Writing "EAW abuse" into google finds endless lawyer
               | marketing posts. The facts of the first one I clicked on
               | sound pretty bad!
               | 
               | https://greatjames.co.uk/martin-henley-secures-the-
               | dismissal...
        
             | microtonal wrote:
             | So don't host your stuff in Hungary?
        
               | icoder wrote:
               | Yeah I think this basically answers this entire sub-
               | thread
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Hungary can send an EIO to France or Germany, and the
               | consistent trend has been to reduce the ability of
               | executing states to review these requests.
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | There's a concerning trend of EIOs issued by Hungary
               | being enforced in France and Germany? What would be an
               | example of this?
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | This is the best I can give you off the top of my head,
               | but look at which countries are the most active in
               | eurojust :) https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/ar2020/data-
               | annex
               | 
               | An LLM can probably find some better links though.
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | I think you might be missing the 'concerning' part. Which
               | specific cases are concerning? I don't find it inherently
               | concerning that people can't escape justice by crossing
               | the Hungarian border, Bonnie and Clyde style.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Oh no, that's totally up to you. If you're happy with the
               | courts in your country not being able to review the
               | requests sent from Hungary, that's cool. Without
               | transparent judicial review, how could we even know if
               | the cases are concerning?
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | EIOs are subject to review by the recipient state. It
               | seems that you can't point to a single relevant example
               | of a concerning EIO from Hungary.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | "Subject to review" means little more than "is the form
               | filled correctly?", it certainly does not mean second-
               | guessing by the courts in the executing state.
               | 
               | Like, yeah, your EIO will be rejected if you don't tick
               | any of the crime-category boxes in the form.
        
               | ApolloFortyNine wrote:
               | Too explicitly spell it out, op is saying here that if
               | any one of the 27 countries in the EU decides you are
               | breaking one of their laws, they can have 1 of the other
               | 26 enforce an EIO.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Which would be perfectly fine _if_ your local
               | jurisdiction could still properly review those foreign
               | requests.
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | EIOs are subject to a dual criminality requirement. So
               | it's not as if arbitrary Hungarian laws can be applied in
               | France via EIOs. And of course, we all know this is not
               | happening, which is why we get radio silence from the
               | people who are 'concerned' about this whenever specifics
               | are requested.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | >EIOs are subject to a dual criminality requirement
               | 
               | Dual criminality requirement only applies to non-Annex D
               | crimes. Which is... not many crimes. You seem awfully
               | confident for someone so ill-informed.
               | 
               | >And of course, we all know this is not happening
               | 
               | How would you know that it isn't happening? EIOs are not
               | public!
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | Annex D is a list of things that are crimes pretty much
               | everywhere.
               | 
               | Not sure what to make of the claim that Hungary might
               | theoretically be enforcing Hungarian law in France. It
               | seems surprising that no-one has noticed any specific
               | consequences of this that you can point to.
               | 
               | The EIO is mostly just a formalization and
               | standardization of a bunch of ad-hoc processes that were
               | already in place. Law enforcement agencies in different
               | European countries do try to assist each other, on the
               | whole.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | What you're missing is the erosion of the ability of the
               | executing states to say things like "hey this is sketchy,
               | we think this crime might not have happened", "hey the
               | police department in this particular city is notoriously
               | untrustworthy", or "hey this prosecutor is widely known
               | in the local press to be corrupt and owns a collection of
               | ferraris".
               | 
               | Now foreign authorities are trusted by default and
               | significant parts of their reasoning are not subject to
               | review, that's bad.
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | So provide some concrete examples of what you're talking
               | about, if it's a real concern.
        
               | krzyk wrote:
               | Sure, those EIO will be held if Hungary starts applying
               | EIO that it got (e.g. for former Ministry of Justice of
               | Poland which awaits trail, he sits comfortably in
               | Hungary).
               | 
               | Let's hope elections there will change Orban into
               | something saner.
        
         | bean469 wrote:
         | > How comfortable are you guys with the fact that EU countries
         | allow prosecutors and sometimes even police officers to issue
         | their own search warrants without meaningful judicial review?
         | 
         | Just to be clear, according to the DOJ, law enforcement
         | officials in the US can search your home without a warrant if
         | they suspect that you are a "Alien Enemy" [1].
         | 
         | https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25915967-doj-march-1...
        
           | kvuj wrote:
           | Wouldn't source that this is happening in 1 of the member
           | states be enough to raise alarms? Why do all of them need to
           | for you to consider this an issue?
        
           | squarefoot wrote:
           | Don't forget civil forfeiture, which can (an does) happen
           | whether they think you're an enemy or not.
           | 
           | https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-
           | forfeiture/freq...
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | How much is this a practical rather than theoretical problem?
         | 
         | One of the problems with being on the US Internet is that we
         | get lots of coverage of US police overreach and much less
         | coverage of EU police overreach. That could have one of three
         | causes:
         | 
         | - actual incidence is low
         | 
         | - it's not being reported
         | 
         | - it is being reported, but doesn't generate discourse
         | 
         | (And the counter option: sometimes when you do hear about it,
         | it's been laundered through weird US right-wing politics, like
         | almost anything anyone says about Sweden)
        
           | aleph_minus_one wrote:
           | > That could have one of three causes:
           | 
           | > - actual incidence is low
           | 
           | > - it's not being reported
           | 
           | > - it is being reported, but doesn't generate discourse
           | 
           | Fourth possible cause:
           | 
           | - the EU has 24 official languages
           | 
           | i.e. when it is reported, the number of people who are
           | actually capable of understanding the reporting is only a
           | fraction and rather localized.
        
           | megous wrote:
           | Well https://www.devever.net/~hl/xmpp-incident
           | 
           | It's a problem. But it has technical rather than political
           | solutions.
        
         | s_dev wrote:
         | >How comfortable are you guys with the fact that EU countries
         | allow prosecutors and sometimes even police officers to issue
         | their own search warrants without meaningful judicial review?
         | 
         | This is a hilarious 'just asking questions' concern that
         | doesn't address the complete 180 in direction the US is taking
         | and descending in to authoritarianism while moving against the
         | world order it primarily helped build post WWII while
         | threatening other liberal democracies like Canada and Denmark
         | with invasions.
         | 
         | It's a complete false equivalence. ICE agents have straight up
         | murdered two US citizens in broad daylight without consequence
         | and you're querying the nature of some search warrants in the
         | EU.
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | I'm not advertising the US here or trying to troll. I'm an
           | European pointing out things about the European system that
           | many here will not have thought about.
           | 
           | >It's a complete false equivalence. ICE agents have straight
           | up murdered two US citizens in broad daylight without
           | consequence and you're querying the nature of some search
           | warrants in the EU.
           | 
           | Maybe keep your US nonsense to yourself?
        
             | hvb2 wrote:
             | Just saying, the vast majority of services people are
             | moving from would be US based given it is where all of big
             | tech comes from. So comparing it to the US is relevant?
             | 
             | If you're trying to say the eu isn't a saint either, sure.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | >If you're trying to say the eu isn't a saint either,
               | sure.
               | 
               | I'm not trying to say _anything_ about anyone else
               | besides the EU. Therefore I 'm certainly not trying to
               | compare EU to anyone else.
               | 
               | I am an European pointing out issues with the local
               | system, issues that many commenters here clearly aren't
               | aware of given how many replies seem to think that
               | they'll be just fine as long as they don't host in
               | Hungary.
        
             | y-curious wrote:
             | I'm in the US and generally pretty level-headed. Nothing
             | makes me become a red-blooded patriot nationalist
             | temporarily faster than seeing Europeans completely ignore
             | the similarities in our political ills. It always boils
             | down to, "but it's the good kind of authoritarianism we
             | have that preserves social order!!!" as if that has never
             | failed to produce desired results. Thanks for being much
             | more rational. We have a concerning political trend here in
             | the US, it can't be denied, but the EU is following in
             | step.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | Yeah, it's really bizarre how this has to be turned into
               | a competition. We have stupid problems in the EU that
               | don't exist in the US and vice-versa.
               | 
               | The way this particular part of our system works is
               | downright horrifying, but it's exotic enough that very
               | few people (even lawyers) will be familiar with it.
        
               | icfly2 wrote:
               | Sorry what? While there are right wing idiots in various
               | governments in the EU, the Trump admin is on a completely
               | different level. Also the bosses of big tech are
               | clamouring over each other to s** him off.
               | 
               | I'm not particularly patriotic or bothered about nations
               | in general, but the yanks can go take a hike.
        
               | dwedge wrote:
               | Man this whole article and your comment just makes me
               | picture that meme with the fat guy open-mouth drinking
               | from a pipe labelled "media".
               | 
               | By the way, sex him off? Trying to decipher the number of
               | characters
        
           | aleph_minus_one wrote:
           | > the complete 180 in direction the US is taking and
           | descending in to authoritarianism
           | 
           | A similar (though currently a little bit less marked) trend
           | can also be observed for the EU and EU countries.
        
             | s_dev wrote:
             | >(though currently a little bit less marked)
             | 
             | Again this is a false equivalence, 'a little less marked'
             | isn't close to imparting the true state of things and to be
             | honest a little disingenuous.
             | 
             | The EU is not in full motion to dismantle democracy across
             | her 27 states. The US should it not turn this around in the
             | midterms is finished as a liberal democracy.
             | 
             | So 'ah yes but Hungary' doesn't persuade me even though
             | I'll concede it's a problem for the EU. If Tisza is elected
             | in April, Hungary will be on course to turn things around.
             | So you're comparing 1 out of 27 to 50 out of 50 states.
        
               | sunaookami wrote:
               | >The EU is not in full motion to dismantle democracy
               | across her 27 states
               | 
               | But it is? They forced Romania to do a re-election
               | because they didn't like the candidate. And they still
               | try to force Chat Control, try to bypass the unanimity
               | rule and the EU commission gives itself more powers every
               | day with authoritian laws like the DSA. As a European, I
               | don't get the USA's EU-fetish. It's not better here than
               | in the US.
        
               | krzyk wrote:
               | EU did not force Romania. Romania itself annulled them
               | because Russian intervention happened.
        
               | sunaookami wrote:
               | Sure that happened :)
        
               | telmo wrote:
               | Yes, it sure did. Read my comment on your original post.
        
               | telmo wrote:
               | What actually happened was that former EU Commissioner
               | Thierry Breton publicly stated on French TV in January
               | 2025 that if the AfD won in Germany, elections there
               | could also be annulled by the EU "as was done in
               | Romania". That was a stupid thing for him to say, but he
               | is a private citizen, he did not represent the EU in any
               | capacity, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the EU
               | pressured Romania. Of course, post-truth political
               | movements run with a distorted version of this story to
               | play the victim.
               | 
               | Romania's Supreme Court decision was based mainly on
               | illegal campaign financing. The Constitutional Court
               | noted that Georgescu had officially reported zero
               | campaign expenditures, yet had an enormous social media
               | presence. His TikTok account had over 646K followers and
               | 7.2M likes. This was in the context of interconnected
               | declassified intelligence. Around 25000 pro-Georgescu
               | TikTok accounts became highly active in the two weeks
               | before the first-round vote, with nearly 800 accounts
               | created in 2016 that had remained dormant until the
               | election. Activity was coordinated through a Telegram
               | channel. Romania's intelligence service said there were
               | signs of state-sponsored attacks operating in a hybrid
               | manner, targeting critical infrastructure and shaping
               | public opinion through misinformation. The campaign was
               | said to mirror influence operations conducted by Moscow
               | during elections in Ukraine and Moldova.
               | 
               | Romanian prosecutors later charged Georgescu with
               | involvement behind cyberattacks targeting Romanian
               | electoral systems.
               | 
               | Russia has been systematically attempting to interfere
               | with EU elections, and anyone who argues otherwise in the
               | face of mountains of evidence is either being naive or
               | disingenuous. Post-truth political parties such as the
               | AfD are funded and supported by the Kremlin, which is
               | interested in sowing division and wished the collapse of
               | the EU for a long time. Unfortunately, the current US
               | administration is also ideologically aligned with the
               | Kremlin and also wishes the collapse of the EU, as is
               | explicitally stated in the recent strategic document
               | published by the Trump administration. These are the
               | actual facts, that are easy to verify if you are actually
               | interested in the truth.
        
               | sunaookami wrote:
               | Yes it's always the evil Russians and the stupid people
               | are influenced by TikTok so we need to tell them what
               | they should vote!
               | 
               | From e.g. Wikipedia:
               | 
               | >At the time of his exclusion, Georgescu was leading in
               | public opinion polls
               | 
               | D'oh!
               | 
               | >That was a stupid thing for him to say, but he is a
               | private citizen
               | 
               | How convenient he got fired, everything is good now,
               | surely the Commission does not hold the same views as
               | him! Are you really this naive?
               | 
               | And don't get me wrong, I support neither Georgescu (a
               | typical conspiracy theorist nut) nor AfD (who only argue
               | that the evil immigrants are at fault). But I support a
               | free and democratic process and these are no longer in
               | place. If you ban leading candidates and try to ban
               | political parties that are in the lead (AfD and CDU
               | constantly switch #1 positions in polls by 1-2
               | percentagep points) just because they are not on "your
               | side" you are not better than any country that you mark
               | as authoritian.
        
               | exceptione wrote:
               | Hitler and his cronies were so surprised that the system
               | he had vowed to destroy let him in.                 > And
               | don't get me wrong, I support neither
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
               | 
               | It is not about who you support and what your favorite
               | color is.
        
               | sunaookami wrote:
               | And there is the Hitler argument!
        
               | Aurornis wrote:
               | > The US should it not turn this around in the midterms
               | is finished as a liberal democracy.
               | 
               | I wish there was an easy way for me to bet against the
               | imminent fall of the United States as predicted by so
               | many internet commenters. I don't like what the current
               | administration is doing, either, but I would readily bet
               | against all of these "the end is just around the corner"
               | or "the empire is dying" takes in a heartbeat.
        
               | s_dev wrote:
               | I didn't say the US is finished, I said it was finished
               | as a liberal democracy.
               | 
               | It's already slid in to 'electoral democracy' instead of
               | 'liberal democracy' the difference between the two is how
               | 'rule of law' is prioritised and the balance between
               | checks and balances between institutions is enforced.
               | 
               | https://www.v-dem.net/documents/60/V-dem-
               | dr__2025_lowres.pdf
        
               | colin_jack wrote:
               | Not quibbling but to be fair that report shows problems
               | in Europe too, not the same speed of change, and its a
               | different situation, but if you care about democracy its
               | not great.
        
             | Maxion wrote:
             | AFAIK there's no murdering of citizens going on in any EU
             | member country by the same countries government at the
             | moment.
        
             | krzyk wrote:
             | Trends are various. You had Poland remove rightwing
             | goverment 2 years ago (yes and elect righwing president few
             | months ago). Romania electing a European centric president.
             | 
             | We can go on. EU is not a single country, not a single
             | community of people.
        
           | copper4eva wrote:
           | His comment did not even mention the US. Only critiquing the
           | authoritarianism going on in the EU. One of the issues with
           | modern politics is everyone wants to deflect.
        
             | wongarsu wrote:
             | I need to host my emails somewhere. This means that you
             | can't reject the EU in isolation, you have to compare it to
             | the alternatives. And the most prevalent alternative is the
             | US
             | 
             | Now of course if somebody has a better alternative that's
             | neither in the EU nor US (nor Russia, or China) that'd be
             | interesting to hear about
        
               | rglullis wrote:
               | Switzerland, maybe? I've been a happy migadu.com customer
               | for years already.
        
               | gusgus01 wrote:
               | Funny enough, they mention moving to ProtonMail which is
               | at least based out of Switzerland. It makes this whole
               | chain a bit funny, but I don't blame the commenter for
               | not breaking down every service the OP talked about and
               | the OP did shorthand it to "Migrating to the EU", so fair
               | enough.
        
               | mariusor wrote:
               | Didn't proton fold like a wet napkin when they were asked
               | for information about their users? What I mean is:
               | Switzerland as a whole is probably the wrong metric...
        
               | AdamN wrote:
               | These are also political decisions and the EU is much
               | more powerful politically than Switzerland so if your
               | adversary is the US and they're willing to use lawfare or
               | more than you should probably go with the EU and not
               | Switzerland. Germany is considered one of the most robust
               | legal systems for privacy.
               | 
               | But there is always risk no matter what you do.
        
               | littlecranky67 wrote:
               | Switzerland - as well as EU based providers - have to
               | comply with court orders. And the EU as well as
               | Switzerland issue court orders upon request from friendly
               | foreign states ("Rechtshilfeersuchen" in german) - such
               | as the US.
        
               | mariusor wrote:
               | Wasn't Proton launched as a "your data is encrypted at
               | rest, we could never access it without your consent"? The
               | implication being that even if they received said court
               | orders, they didn't have anything to give. Am I
               | misremembering that?
        
               | KAMSPioneer wrote:
               | They encrypt your data insofar as your email, files, etc.
               | but that doesn't mean they don't have information
               | potentially useful to the authorities. See the recent
               | headline where they revealed a user's payment information
               | allowing them to be identified.
        
               | tamimio wrote:
               | Servers of migadu are in france actually
        
               | dwedge wrote:
               | Anywhere you can rent a VPS or dedicated server, install
               | exim or mox or mailcow. Configure dns correctly and
               | you're good to go
        
               | butILoveLife wrote:
               | Do any of your emails actually make it into an inbox
               | though? I did this for a server and I couldn't even get
               | it to land in spam on gmail.
        
               | gadrev wrote:
               | Yes but you may need the IPs to warm up and build some
               | reputation, depending where you setup your server the IPs
               | may be burned. Check logs and reputation with some of the
               | postmaster tools the major providers offer and with the
               | services that allow looking up an IP. senderscore used to
               | be convenient to use now it displays a stupid contact
               | form when you try to check an IP, there are others.
               | 
               | To be honest I haven't done the setup for sending a
               | handful of emails but IPs sending hundreds/thousands per
               | day it's fine as long as you don't start spamming people
               | and get flagged.
        
               | dwedge wrote:
               | Yes they do. I wouldn't try it from a residential IP but
               | as long as you run a blacklist check on the IP before you
               | start, and configure DNS correctly, it's generally fine.
        
               | elAhmo wrote:
               | In email world, this is as far from 'good to go' as you
               | can get. Good luck getting anyone to read your emails
               | this way.
        
               | dwedge wrote:
               | Do you run your email server? I run two, have next to no
               | problems (the key is in setting up DNS correctly, as I
               | mentioned) and keep getting told this by people who have
               | never tried.
        
               | wwweston wrote:
               | More elaboration on what's involved in "correctly" would
               | probably drive the point home -- "this works because" vs
               | "works for me."
        
               | dwedge wrote:
               | I made sure to include the word correctly in the reply.
               | Mox mailserver tells you exactly what to do. I think
               | mailcow does as well. A lot of people don't do it and
               | then tell others that selfhosting email with good
               | deliverability is impossible. You set it up once and
               | you're good to go
        
             | surgical_fire wrote:
             | The comment does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in a
             | thread where the topic is, eminently, migrating away from
             | US services to EU ones.
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | >The comment does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in a
               | thread where the topic is, eminently, migrating away from
               | US services to EU ones.
               | 
               | Even then, there's no interesting conversation to be had
               | unless we pretend it does.
        
               | surgical_fire wrote:
               | I, and apparently many others in this thread, disagree.
               | 
               | I personally found some interesting comments here,
               | including but not limited to services based off EU that I
               | can use.
               | 
               | If you find it uninteresting, you should stop wasting
               | your time in it and go do something more productive with
               | your time.
               | 
               | Unless, of course, you just want to do some "concern
               | trolling". You know, the "just asking questions" and
               | "just noticing" behavior.
               | 
               | I'll be charitable and presume you are talking in this
               | thread accidentally, and will find your way to more
               | productive activities instead.
        
             | krzyk wrote:
             | > critiquing the authoritarianism going on in the EU
             | 
             | What?
        
               | andix wrote:
               | It's happening in the EU too, just not at such a fast
               | pace than in other regions. And it's still far away from
               | authoritarianism.
               | 
               | Currently it's just smaller pieces and no bigger agenda
               | is visible (or even exiting). But there are constantly
               | new regulations that would make an authoritarian coup
               | (like currently in the US) easier.
        
             | ahtihn wrote:
             | The post is about moving stuff from US to EU, so it's not
             | like the US is brought up out of nowhere.
        
           | nozzlegear wrote:
           | > _the complete 180 in direction the US is taking and
           | descending in to authoritarianism while moving against the
           | world order_
           | 
           | The EU is just one AfD win away from doing the same thing.
           | It's not immune to this issue either, you have the same
           | problem happening right under your noses.
        
             | epolanski wrote:
             | Not really.
             | 
             | Most European countries have parliamentary democracies.
             | 
             | It's not a winner-takes-all system ala presidential and
             | semi-presidential republics where effectively individuals:
             | 
             | 1. rule without opposition. There's no opposition it's not
             | represented in that branch.
             | 
             | 2. rule without even needing support of their own parties.
             | The Italian prime minister or the German chancellor have to
             | fight every day in parliament to have support of their
             | parties and the other parties coalitions.
             | 
             | 3. a single _individual_ can claim popular mandate. In
             | parliamentary systems you vote for parties /coalitions, not
             | individuals
             | 
             | There's a reason why this authoritarian trend goes from the
             | Philippines, Nicaragua, to Belarus, to Turkey, to Russia,
             | to most African countries and now US. They are all
             | presidential republics.
             | 
             | The last parliamentary democracy to turn authoritarian has
             | been...Sri Lanka. Almost 50 years ago. Presidential ones?
             | It's basically every year.
             | 
             | Systems with winner-takes-all mechanics do not represent
             | voters, and power is too concentrated.
             | 
             | Parliamentary democracies might be labeled as less
             | efficient, that I can agree, but they have strong
             | antibodies to such people.
             | 
             | See Austria or the Netherlands as examples where strong far
             | right authoritarian-wannabes individuals became prime
             | ministers...and then nothing happened and their governments
             | didn't last.
        
               | nozzlegear wrote:
               | I agree that presidential systems in particular are
               | problematic, and the EU is lucky that Germany and France
               | use parliamentary systems. But the nasty thing about
               | populism is that it happens in waves and it _does_
               | overtake parliaments. We need only look at what happened
               | to the UK with Brexit for a recent example. It 's not
               | hard to imagine that a wave of far-right populism could
               | one day overtake Germany, or send France's RN, Austria's
               | FPO or Poland's PIS to a majority position.
               | 
               | We can cross our fingers and hope that nobody would work
               | with them (I know that Germany's parties all have a pinky
               | promise not to work with AfD), but it was only 10 years
               | ago that everyone in the US was laughing at the prospect
               | of a Donald Trump presidency - and now here we are, much
               | sobered. These things happen, and AfD, or RN, or whoever,
               | could wreak havoc to the EU from within the EU if they
               | took power and started working with Hungary to block EU
               | legislation, veto sanctions, defund programs and more.
        
               | epolanski wrote:
               | Well nobody has figured out the perfect political system
               | yet.
               | 
               | Except the Swiss.
        
             | noobermin wrote:
             | Europeans are so blind to how they are essentially on the
             | same path as the US, the US just got there first.
        
               | messe wrote:
               | While there is a trend toward the right in many (not all)
               | EU countries, it's a far cry from the shit show on the
               | other side of the Atlantic.
        
               | sofixa wrote:
               | Most European countries have functioning legal and
               | electoral systems, and more than two parties. On top of
               | that, constitutional courts aren't political
               | appointments.
               | 
               | So it would be incredibly hard for a political entity
               | like AfD or RN to gain full and absolute power like the
               | orange has achieved. Even in the worst cases, those
               | parties usually only have ~30% popular support at most,
               | which usually translates to at most ~30-40% of seats in
               | parliament. Which means they cannot even get
               | parliamentary majority, and probably can't get head of
               | state either.
               | 
               | Americans just like to pretend things aren't that bad and
               | they aren't the only ones falling into the abyss.
        
               | u8080 wrote:
               | Could you explain to me (non-US and non-EU resident), how
               | people in EU are okay with mandatory photo scanning on
               | your devices(aka CSAM protection)?
               | 
               | Who does this weird proposals like Chat Control?
               | 
               | AFAIK, it is not "alt-right" parties - so it really does
               | not clicking for me, why AfD and others constantly
               | brought in during online privacy discussions?
        
               | messe wrote:
               | Can you remind me when those actually passed? I can pull
               | equally up equally ridiculous bills from the US that
               | never came to fruition.
        
               | u8080 wrote:
               | I am not saying passing, but seems there is a large group
               | of politicians(supposedly backed by voters?) who lobby
               | such initiatives who are not some alt-right fascist
               | outliers?
               | 
               | (I am not from US, please keep that strawman out)
        
               | nozzlegear wrote:
               | I'm not pretending things aren't bad, I'm pointing out
               | that things could be bad for you as well. America had
               | functioning legal and electoral systems too, and we only
               | need to look at Brexit for a shining example of how
               | parliamentary systems can also fail to resist a populist
               | wave. By refusing to acknowledge that, you look no wiser
               | than the Americans who were laughing at the idea of a
               | Donald Trump presidency just ten years ago.
        
               | gzread wrote:
               | Isn't AfD winning 20% of the vote and increasing, and it
               | already has won some states?
        
               | exceptione wrote:
               | Not every European country, but unfortunately many
               | countries are at risk. Someone like Orban is so deeply
               | and openly corrupt, you have to wonder why anyone besides
               | his cronies vote for him. But as an autocrat, you
               | apparently only have to chase lgbti people and immigrants
               | to cheer people up. Going to CPAC with all your kinky
               | friends doing the Sieg Heils on stage (yes, that
               | happened, even if someone doesn't want to hear that).
               | Conservatism is a depressing view of the world.
               | 
               | And then you have all kinds of charlatans that are
               | basically Orban doubles. You hear the same stupid talking
               | points and bullshit, the same cozying up with Putin. And
               | to top it off, the USA has openly vowed to fuel and fund
               | that fire of self destruction, so the billionaires can
               | eat the corpse. Because that is where the term
               | conservatism came from, to conserve the power of the king
               | and the ruling elites, as a god given construct (the only
               | original moral aspect of conservatism).
        
           | dbvn wrote:
           | Lol what does ICE have to do with a local police officer
           | being able to bully a tech worker into providing your private
           | communications?
        
             | WhrRTheBaboons wrote:
             | what example are you talking about? assuming it's non-UK
             | would like to read about it.
        
           | thesmtsolver2 wrote:
           | The US is sliding to a place that many EU countries are
           | happily occupying and pontificating from
           | 
           | https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/07/06/since-20.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/17/refugees-
           | jew...
        
             | panda-giddiness wrote:
             | What a disingenuous comparison. The wiki article you've
             | linked ("List of killings by law enforcement officers in
             | Germany") sums to 552 people over the last 100 years. In
             | contrast, the corresponding wiki article on the US ("Lists
             | of killings by law enforcement officers in the United
             | States" [1]) estimates more than 900 deaths per year.
             | Indeed, the number of slayings is so great that the article
             | does not tabulate the sum in a single table (as the German
             | article does) but instead links to separate wiki articles
             | with tabulated results _by month_.
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_
             | enfor...
        
               | _osud wrote:
               | >The wiki article you've linked ("List of killings by law
               | enforcement officers in Germany") sums to 552 people over
               | the last 100 years
               | 
               | I think we can probably agree that this number is not
               | very accurate.
        
               | panda-giddiness wrote:
               | Over the last 100 years, almost certainly not. For the
               | most recent decade? Yes, of course I would expect these
               | statistics to be fairly accurate.
               | 
               | Between 2021 and 2025 (inclusive), Wikipedia lists 68
               | dead in Germany versus 5882 dead in the US, despite the
               | US only being ~4 times larger. More people have been
               | killed by police in the US this year than in Germany in
               | the past ten years, and it's not even April yet.
        
               | thesmtsolver2 wrote:
               | > 552 people over the last 100 years
               | 
               | What a disingenuous comment. Do we really think that is
               | the case?
               | 
               | You ignored my other link. Imagine the outrage EU would
               | have had if US seized immigrants jewelry. Yet, Denmark
               | gleefully does that.
               | 
               | Funnily, I had friends from Europe participate in the No
               | Kings protest here, while coming from countries that have
               | literal kings.
        
               | bigfudge wrote:
               | > Funnily, I had friends from Europe participate in the
               | No Kings protest here, while coming from countries that
               | have literal kings.
               | 
               | This is either disingenuous or misunderstands the nature
               | of European constitutional monarchies.
        
               | messe wrote:
               | Don't discount that it could be both. It's still early in
               | some parts of the US, they might not have had their
               | coffee yet.
        
               | sofixa wrote:
               | > Imagine the outrage EU would have had if US seized
               | immigrants jewelry
               | 
               | The US literally deports people to concentration camps in
               | countries with no civil liberties. Many have disappeared
               | there. A whole other group have been raped and become
               | pregnant and are being moved around to force births.
               | 
               | And you are concerned about fucking _jewelry_. Genuinely,
               | are you taking a piss here?
        
               | panda-giddiness wrote:
               | It's your source, not mine; if you have a better one,
               | post it. I won't do your own research for you.
        
               | claytongulick wrote:
               | Per capita vs absolute numbers seems particularly
               | relevant here.
               | 
               | There are four times as many people in the US.
               | 
               | Germany has four cities with around a million people.
               | 
               | The U.S. has at least 15.
               | 
               | Also, absolute numbers don't reflect justified shootings,
               | which is an entirely different and much more nuanced
               | conversation.
               | 
               | No part of this should be taken to mean that I don't
               | think there's a problem in the US, I just object to
               | complex issues being overly simplified.
        
               | panda-giddiness wrote:
               | Per capita vs absolute numbers are not especially
               | relevant in this case. The figures differ by orders of
               | magnitude.
        
         | nottorp wrote:
         | US legal protections do not apply to EU citizens keeping their
         | data in the US, do they?
         | 
         | So what's the point of this comparison, since if I host my data
         | in the US they don't need a warrant at all?
        
           | PeterStuer wrote:
           | The geo-location of where you keep your data is irrelevant to
           | US legal reach.
        
           | paganel wrote:
           | They don't, they don't even apply to EU citizens keeping
           | their (our, in fact) data on our (EU's servers) if what we're
           | doing happens to cross some interests of the US Government. I
           | mean, there are some legal "protections" in place for that,
           | but notice the quotes. Thinking otherwise is delusional, but,
           | hey, people should be allowed to enjoy the liberty of their
           | slightly larger iron bird-cage.
        
         | shevy-java wrote:
         | > you might be in a reasonable EU country and still be hit with
         | an EIO from one of the unreasonable countries.
         | 
         | Are you certain this has happened? I never heard that happen in
         | central Europe. I am pretty certain legislation of other
         | countries is irrelevant, unless it would be an EU regulation -
         | and I am unaware of an EU regulation that could bypass local
         | laws and that has not been made a EU law. Which EU law
         | specifically do you refer to?
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
           | content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
        
         | dangus wrote:
         | Maybe the motivation is more to stop giving American big tech
         | MAGA fascists money rather than any kind of gain in
         | privacy/security against state level law enforcement.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | > What Is An Administrative Warrant?
         | 
         | > An administrative warrant is a legal document issued by a
         | government agency, rather than a court, that authorizes the
         | agency to take specific actions such as conducting inspections,
         | searches, or seizing property. Unlike judicial warrants,
         | administrative warrants are frequently issued on less than
         | probable cause of a crime.
         | 
         | > Administrative warrants are typically used for regulatory or
         | civil enforcement purposes and allow agencies to enforce rules
         | and regulations within their jurisdiction, such as health
         | inspections, building code enforcement, or immigration-related
         | actions.
         | 
         | > The problem with administrative warrants is that they make
         | the agency both the prosecutor and the judge in the very same
         | matter. The entire point of having agencies go to court for a
         | warrant is because courts are an independent branch with an
         | independent mission. Rather than solely focusing on identifying
         | and prosecuting violations of law, courts seek to check agency
         | errors and overreach. When the very same agency that wants to
         | execute a warrant is the one deciding whether it issues, those
         | checks disappear, and Americans' security pays the price.
         | 
         | https://ij.org/issues/ijs-project-on-the-4th-amendment/admin...
        
         | watwut wrote:
         | > Some EU courts will not exclude illegally obtained evidence
         | either, so challenging the warrant later on will be pointless.
         | 
         | Generally speaking, I trust EU countries criminal systems more
         | then USA one. USA one is too procedure oriented - like for
         | example with this rule.
         | 
         | Unlike in USA, in general European cops and prosecutors can be
         | punished when they do illegal stuff. That provides better
         | protection then the pretend fairness rule you just cited.
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | >Generally speaking, I trust EU countries criminal systems
           | more then USA one. USA one is too procedure oriented - like
           | for example with this rule.
           | 
           | Those procedures are written in blood
        
             | watwut wrote:
             | They are not and also dont do much to protect you.
             | Untouchable cops due to qualified immunity and presumption
             | of reguparity and simple fact that there is no remedy if
             | they break your rights make this entirely moot.
             | 
             | Just now, like today, a decision was made that cops who
             | literally made up a gang to go after innocent people ...
             | wont be investigated.
             | 
             | Pretending you found proofs legally when you did not is
             | easy. Especially when you are untouchable. And the rule
             | does absolutely nothing to protect innocent people. It is
             | just trying to make up for one injustice by creating
             | another smaller one.
        
         | FabCH wrote:
         | You are technically correct but seem to be applying common law
         | standards to civil law countries.
         | 
         | Unlike common law judiciary, civil law judiciary in and of
         | itself has investigatory powers and judges don't just hear
         | arguments but can order their own investigations and are
         | significantly more independent than in common law.
         | 
         | This can cut both ways, yes in theory the judge can accept
         | evidence the prosecution obtained illegally, but the judges can
         | also call the prosecutions bluff and call their own witnesses
         | or order an independent expert to provide their own opinion,
         | even if defense is unable to.
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | You forgot about the Nordic countries.
        
             | FabCH wrote:
             | Scandinavian law is commonly considered to be a subcategory
             | of civil law. Judges in Scandinavia have investigative
             | powers and can judge the truth of the matter.
        
         | zulban wrote:
         | Not comfortable. But making choices in the real world is about
         | choosing the best option, not the perfect option.
        
         | PurpleRamen wrote:
         | As long as you stay away from questionable behaviour, there is
         | very little chance to encounter the police in the EU or having
         | problems with your privacy. USA is different in that regard.
         | Your existence can be a problem. Or monetary interests will
         | risk your privacy to whoever wants to make money with you.
         | 
         | EU is not perfect, but saver than the USA in those matters (if
         | you want to only invest a reasonable amount of effort and
         | money), which is kinda the point here, isn't it?
        
           | _osud wrote:
           | EU is not a single uniform blob. There are neighbourhoods
           | where you have to worry about being shot, and there are
           | neighbourhoods where people leave their keys inside their
           | cars.
           | 
           | So, with the police? YMMV.
        
             | PurpleRamen wrote:
             | Obviously, but we are talking about online-activity here,
             | not randomly walking the streets. The normal sketchy cop on
             | the streets will not be accessing your mailbox just because
             | they don't like your skin. Attending certain events would
             | trigger this more likely, but then you should also know how
             | to protect yourself in those cases.
        
         | rich_sasha wrote:
         | Without disagreeing at all, can you think of a major
         | jurisdiction that's better? US I basically assume everything is
         | searchable without a warrant, if not leaked on a ex-DOGE intern
         | USB stick.
         | 
         | Who else is there with a major infra ecosystem? Russia? China?
         | UK? Not sure these are better than EU. Japan seems quite inward
         | looking.
        
         | danilocesar wrote:
         | Whataboutyism much?
        
         | kgwxd wrote:
         | Sounds terrible. Guess we should all just accept the worst of
         | the worst and shut up?
        
         | mafuy wrote:
         | This account is sockpuppeting. They are not participating on
         | this site in good faith.
        
         | victorbjorklund wrote:
         | Do you seriously think that US requires warrants from US judges
         | to spy on non-citizens abroad? That is 100% false. There is
         | zero protection from the US govt for non-citizens living
         | abroad.
        
         | XCSme wrote:
         | How comfortable are you guys with the fact the US has just
         | partnered with OpenAI to enable mass surveillance?
        
         | NoLinkToMe wrote:
         | I'd say don't let perfect be the enemy of good/better. Moving
         | from US to EU is a move for the better. But EU isn't perfect,
         | and there might be even better options available, but unless
         | you have them, I'd recommend starting with the move to EU.
        
         | tamimio wrote:
         | It's why I don't trust anyone. Sure, EU has better policies and
         | regulations than the wild west (US/Canada), but they still can
         | and will do monkey business when needed, and they are more
         | twisted about it than the US. The best strategy is to host your
         | own and encrypt all, if it's too much effort for some services
         | try to use one from a country that has no interest in you
         | (outside the west for example).
        
       | axegon_ wrote:
       | I've migrated just about everything I was relying on a while
       | back. Not only that but I've self-hosted just about everything,
       | with the exception of my email and I've moved whatever I have
       | public on github to codeberg. With the exception of github pages,
       | though I plan on doing that too, when I find motivation to going
       | through the tedious DNS management. I've been on and off on qwant
       | and ecosia for search(lately ecosia has been stepping up their
       | game it seems). But I am considering switching over to searxng, I
       | just want to put it behind a squid proxy somewhere remote, away
       | from my apartment.
        
       | andix wrote:
       | Is there a good tool to automatically (and continuously) mirror
       | all GitHub repositories to another provider? Something with GH
       | API integration that also catches newly created projects/repos?
       | 
       | Issues and PRs would be a bonus, but not a requirement in my
       | case.
        
         | patcon wrote:
         | Haven't used it, but I've been intrigued by git-bug (stores
         | issues in got itself) for years, to use as the issue/pr sync.
         | 
         | Bonus that now the issues aren't vendor locked either
         | 
         | https://github.com/git-bug/git-bug/blob/trunk/doc/feature-ma...
        
       | brandrick wrote:
       | Proton ticks a few of those boxes for me. Mail, VPN, Cal.
        
         | robertlagrant wrote:
         | Also docs collaboration, and now video calling as well. And
         | they've just bought Standard Notes, so that'll be next. It's
         | definitely chugging along fast.
        
         | sime2009 wrote:
         | proton.me? That is in Switzerland, not the EU.
        
           | knorker wrote:
           | The stated reason in the article seems like Switzerland
           | should be as good as EU, if not better.
           | 
           | > I have decided to move as many services and subscriptions
           | as possible from non-EU countries to the EU or to switch to
           | European service providers. The reasons for this are the
           | current global political situation and improved data
           | protection.
           | 
           | "or switch to European service providers". EU or not, CH is
           | still in Europe, so would qualify?
        
       | vertnerd wrote:
       | Used Chromebooks are plentiful and cheap on eBay and many of them
       | are easy to convert to Linux using the tools and instructions at
       | https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/. I used to have a house full of
       | Chromebooks, but now all but one of them are Linux laptops. My
       | favorite is the Acer CP713 because it comes in flavors with lots
       | of RAM and drive space. I also prefer the convertible touchscreen
       | models because they can go on a shelf and make cheap and
       | attractive Home Assistant dashboards.
        
         | wraptile wrote:
         | You can also get a refurbished thinkpad with Ryzen and 16gb of
         | ram for 400EUR or so on european Ebay.
        
         | bluebarbet wrote:
         | You seem to know what you're talking about. I used a cheapie
         | Taiwanese Intel netbook for years, on Linux, with great
         | success. When it came to replace it, there was nothing left in
         | that niche (i.e. small and cheap) except ARM Chromebooks with
         | (apparently) locked bootloaders. So I reluctantly bought a
         | heavy and expensive Intel laptop.
         | 
         | Was I wrong to assume that the average big-box-store Chromebook
         | cannot be jailbroken, or has only driverless hardware, or are
         | things changing here? If the latter, surely this opens a
         | boulevard for Linux? Any insight much appreciated.
        
         | dangus wrote:
         | I never understood why bother with these.
         | 
         | You get a dealbreaker keyboard because of the lack of an alt
         | key and you don't even save much money for the effort of
         | working around the Chromebook restrictions. A laptop originally
         | sold with Windows is so much more straightforward to work with.
         | 
         | I'd just grab something like an HP EliteBook 840 G10 on eBay.
         | Around $300, upgradable RAM and SSD, and reasonably recent.
         | Relatively modern/attractive aluminum build.
         | 
         | Or I'm sure there's some other 2-in-1 not-Chromebook
         | convertible model you can grab if you need the touch screen.
        
         | mixmastamyk wrote:
         | Buy and support vendors that ship proper Linux laptops. I know
         | of Star labs and Nova Custom in the EU, both use coreboot as
         | well.
        
       | _pdp_ wrote:
       | Our company started migrating our tech stack from USA to EU. We
       | are about 90% there with a few small dependencies that could be
       | resolved but we have not yet tackled.
        
         | flowerthoughts wrote:
         | Could you summarize the easy and hard aspects? Have you had any
         | unexpected benefits or downsides?
        
           | spiderfarmer wrote:
           | For me:
           | 
           | - SES was a big one. There was no affordable alternative at
           | my (not big, not small) scale.
           | 
           | - I'm still waning myself personally of GMail. That
           | dependency took decades to build and it will take years for
           | all ties to sever.
        
             | Aachen wrote:
             | Maybe this comment downthread helps for the email problem?
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47489711
        
       | atoav wrote:
       | One tip in the EU is to consider just renting a Hetzner Storage
       | Share. This is a 1TB (or more) Nextcloud that Hetzner manages for
       | you for 5.11 Euros per month.
       | 
       | A Nextcloud can give you many things at once, file syncing, file
       | shares, contact syncing, calendar syncing, etc.
       | 
       | I have been using this for years now after having hosted my own
       | Nextcloud instance. The space and performance they give you for
       | that price is unbeatable with nearly no downsides. The one
       | downside is that you can't just ssh into the server, but you can
       | even run occ managment commands via their web interface. It is an
       | absolute no-brainer.
        
         | robertlagrant wrote:
         | I had no idea how cheap this was. Thanks.
        
         | majoe wrote:
         | Had a self hosted nextcloud instance runnning on my homeserver,
         | but migrated away two years ago to a Hetzner Storage share. All
         | in all I'm quite happy with that.
         | 
         | There are some downsides, though:                 - No support
         | for collabora online, so no way for collaborative editing of
         | office files       - Data is not encrypted
         | 
         | Hetzner also has classical web hosting offerings, which are
         | cheap as well. I'm using that for email and a website of mine.
        
         | gib444 wrote:
         | I've just rented one a few days ago!
         | 
         | It's not a full-on Nextcloud instance, mind. For example there
         | is no ffmpeg for generating video thumbnails.
         | 
         | But liking it so far
        
         | 4k93n2 wrote:
         | just to piggyback off of this, theres also Pikapods (based in
         | malta i think) that have about 100 or so self-hosted apps that
         | can be installed with one-click and then you just pay depending
         | on what you use. im more into self-hosting on my own hardware
         | but its a nice option for people who want to get their feet wet
         | or that dont have the time to manage a VPS themselves
        
       | lynx97 wrote:
       | I find it pretty ironical that people seem to want to move to Von
       | der Leyens vision of the future. As a EU citizen, my trust in
       | what recently has been going down is almost non-existant.
        
         | ludvigk wrote:
         | I guess when the alternative is Trump's vision of the future
         | ... - at least I know what I would choose.
        
           | CalRobert wrote:
           | I agree, and moved to the EU from the US for related reasons,
           | but Von der Leyen's entire strategy for handling Trump seems
           | to be immediate capitulation to horrendously one-sided deals,
           | which doesn't give a lot of confidence.
        
           | mytailorisrich wrote:
           | Trump will be gone in 2028 and policies may radically change
           | depending on who replaces him. There is no change on the
           | horizon in the EU when Von Der Leyen is replaced (she is just
           | the current public face of the blob...)
        
             | konradx wrote:
             | Do you believe this ? Even if the Americans get out of
             | their zombie existence and get out to vote (on another
             | candidate), I cannot imagine Trump will accept an election
             | loss. (A reminder: The US has had a 24% drop in the Liberal
             | Democracy Index score in just one year and your supreme
             | court is owned)
        
               | Acrobatic_Road wrote:
               | >The US has had a 24% drop in the Liberal Democracy Index
               | score
               | 
               | Yet another index detached from objective measures.
               | 
               | >your supreme court is owned
               | 
               | The same court that declined to take up Trump's attempt
               | to overturn the 2020 election?
        
               | saulapremium wrote:
               | >The same court that declined to take up Trump's attempt
               | to overturn the 2020 election?
               | 
               | Yes, that same court. It's incredible how rapidly the
               | legal system has eroded in the US.
        
               | Acrobatic_Road wrote:
               | So you think SCOTUS should have entertained Trump's
               | frivolous claims?
        
           | nslsm wrote:
           | Von der Leyen has made it clear the values of the EU are
           | exactly the same as those of the US:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEbQoT3Xlho
        
             | s_dev wrote:
             | That video is from 11 months ago, long before Trump was
             | elected for his second term. Once was an anomaly. Twice is
             | nearly a pattern but not an anomaly. Third time is an
             | established pattern.
        
       | deaux wrote:
       | https://bunny.net/ seems solid as a Cloudflare and S3
       | replacement. I'm not affiliated but they deserve more mentions in
       | these threads.
        
         | christophilus wrote:
         | Used them in my last project for around 5 years. They were
         | boring in a good way and inexpensive.
        
         | recroad wrote:
         | I use them too. Highly recommend. Have never had an issue with
         | them.
        
         | spiderfarmer wrote:
         | Hetzner and Bunny are solid choices for EU projects.
        
         | jauco wrote:
         | Too bad they don't support mtls client certificates or
         | something that would allow me to limit the connection to just
         | their servers.
        
         | vanviegen wrote:
         | I recently used Bunny for a small project. Pretty good
         | experience. And they're rolling out new functionality at a good
         | pace.
        
       | hbbio wrote:
       | Still not accepting Codeberg moral stance.
       | 
       | Yes, gitea (and originally gogs) are released under permissive
       | licenses, so it's legally allowed to fork them.
       | 
       | But forking complete working projects with years of work,
       | rebranding with a "good guys" attitude, and progressively erasing
       | the name/history (mentioning a gitea fork has moved down the faq
       | now) is not fair.
       | 
       | Edit: even worse, the word "fork" is not in the FAQ. It is
       | "Comparison with Gitea" now (fork is mentioned on that page).
        
         | jen729w wrote:
         | > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
         | obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
         | files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
         | restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
         | copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
         | sell copies of the Software...
         | 
         | - https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/blob/main/LICENSE
         | 
         | If you don't want your software used like that, don't choose
         | this licence.
         | 
         | You can't post-hoc decide how people behave.
        
           | jdiaz97 wrote:
           | open source is all fun and games until they fork you
        
             | cobalt60 wrote:
             | I mean you build a base for your oss tooling. You reject a
             | base's notion, what do you expect?
        
         | looperhacks wrote:
         | This is already a crazy take on its own, why would a fork have
         | to describe their relation to the parent project front and
         | center? Both the Readme and the comparison page link to the
         | origin blog post [1] that describes the lineage clearly.
         | 
         | But even if there were some "ethical reason" to do this, I
         | don't think Gitea is the right project to play up as a victim.
         | Their homepage [2] doesn't mention that Gitea itself is a fork
         | either. Their Readme does, but is this so much better?
         | 
         | [1]: https://forgejo.org/2022-12-15-hello-forgejo/ [2]:
         | https://about.gitea.com/
        
       | jagermo wrote:
       | Uberspace is solid and a lot of fun to try stuff out. For
       | domains, i would also recommend inwx.com, they have been around
       | for ages, good prices and no-fuzz admin stuff.
        
         | FinnKuhn wrote:
         | The author mentions using them as well, but I personally would
         | have a really hard time trusting any service run by any
         | individual and be it just in case something happens to them.
        
           | jasonvorhe wrote:
           | It's a team of 10+ people though.
        
         | shafyy wrote:
         | I tried Uberspace for email and what bothered me that you can
         | only set up one email domain per Asteroid. So if you have
         | multiple domains, it gets expensive quickly... (depending on
         | how many users per domain you have). But other than that, great
         | company with a great ethical stance (and as far as I can tell,
         | great technical infrastructure). I will definitely be going
         | back to them if I need a simple VPS.
        
       | debugnik wrote:
       | And yet the hardware had to stay all American brands, how sad we
       | barely compete there.
        
         | dude250711 wrote:
         | That ship had sailed long ago.
        
       | _joel wrote:
       | You can take fastmail from my cold, dead hands :D About the only
       | thing I can rely on to actually work.
        
         | shafyy wrote:
         | Yes, same here. I tried some EU providers like Mailbox, Tuta
         | and Uberspace. In the end, even though Fastmail is not EU-
         | based, at least it's based in Australia (and not US) and they
         | have a solid track record as a company to make the right
         | decisions and not chase every hype. So, this is good enough for
         | me. For now.
        
           | evan_a_a wrote:
           | Australia is a member of five eyes and the US basically
           | treats them like the 51st state.
        
             | AlexandrB wrote:
             | Heyyy! I thought Canada was the 51st state!? Get in line
             | Aussies!
        
               | _joel wrote:
               | Oh come on guys, everyone knows it's the UK
        
       | s_dev wrote:
       | https://european-alternatives.eu/
       | 
       | I recommend Scaleway for cloud hosting. I recently migrated from
       | Digital Ocean who I really loved, to Scaleway and have I have to
       | say impressed with both dashboard interface and pricing so far.
       | 
       | In work we still use AWS but everything is hosted in eu-west
       | (Ireland) in AWS EU Sovereign cloud but not sure how truly
       | compliant this is in a CloudAct vs GDPR showdown.
       | 
       | I've yet to migrate from namecheap but planning on moving my
       | domains to inwx. My MacBook Pro will be hard to replace so that
       | will be years away. Nothing phones look cool but I would like to
       | go with EU solutions rather than British ones.
       | https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-sep-ii-2026 looks
       | cool but some the HackerNews guys have been quite critical so I'm
       | still considering what those next devices will be.
        
       | severino wrote:
       | > First, I tried mailbox.org, which I can generally recommend
       | without reservation. Unfortunately, you can't send emails from
       | any address on your own domain without a workaround, so the
       | search continued.
       | 
       | I had read about other problems about this mailbox.org service,
       | but not this one. Anyone knows what's the catch when trying to
       | send emails from your own domain?
        
         | kioleanu wrote:
         | I think he means that he can have a catch-all, but to reply
         | from that address, there needs to be an alias created on the
         | account
        
       | chairhairair wrote:
       | "This way, I can enjoy YouTube ad-free and without an account."
       | 
       | Not having the gumption to actually give it up. Pathetic.
        
       | dragochat wrote:
       | how about the OPPOSITE problem: _anyone knows of any non-EU AND
       | non-US email providers_? with email accounts as the roots of
       | trust for many things, i'd really wanna know how can I get a
       | trustworthy one not-attached to eithern an unstable system (US),
       | or a very overregulating one like the EU juristictions...
       | 
       | and ofc, non-CN too
        
         | realusername wrote:
         | Fastmail is australian
        
           | roelschroeven wrote:
           | But their servers are in the US.
        
         | petesergeant wrote:
         | For email and calendaring, Fastmail, although Her Majesty's
         | Australian government has strong overreach instincts.
        
           | dragochat wrote:
           | ...would those "overreach instinct" expand to "handing over
           | access an overreaching and likely corrupt EU or US
           | prosecutor"? (I don't care about 5eyes etc, spyies will spy
           | me, I just don't want stuff to be easily and unexpectedly
           | draggable in a court case, or am email used as bolt-key to
           | access other things to get blocked by a prosecutor's
           | regulation...)
        
             | ffsm8 wrote:
             | If your threat model includes the USA government then you
             | can only go with obscurity, honestly - preferably self
             | hosted with a completely locked down system that cannot
             | initiate any network communication besides on the relevant
             | mail protocol ports, completely immutable filesystem beyond
             | the mail data with encryption at rest
             | 
             | And with all of that they'll still be able to pwn you
             | through network equipment which relays your mail, eg some
             | router or switch which they backdoored and mirrors all
             | traffic to their datacenter.
        
               | tbihl wrote:
               | >If your threat model includes the USA government then
               | you can only go with obscurity, honestly
               | 
               | Or move to Russia. Not recommending, just saying
        
           | lonelyasacloud wrote:
           | > For email and calendaring, Fastmail, although Her Majesty's
           | Australian government has strong overreach instincts.
           | 
           | The Queen died of 8th September 2022.
        
           | mkl wrote:
           | Fastmail's servers are in the US:
           | https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-
           | us/articles/1500000280221-Ho...
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | So where do you want to host your email?
         | 
         | Name a country and it probably has its own problems: some
         | combination of instability, corruption, authoritarian
         | governments, collaboration with the US and EU governments that
         | you want to escape...
         | 
         | ProtonMail is in Switzerland, so it's perhaps the best
         | mainstream bet. But the Swiss are absolutely not immune to US
         | and EU pressure.
        
           | lynx97 wrote:
           | Isn't Proton planning to move to .de?
        
         | stingraycharles wrote:
         | Singapore, Japan have reliable ISPs.
        
           | lmz wrote:
           | If the goal is to stay away from US or European influence
           | then the Russians would be a better bet.
        
             | stingraycharles wrote:
             | Yes but that has the same downsides as China.
        
               | tbihl wrote:
               | And that's pretty much the thread. You're either subject
               | to a large power's jurisdiction or subject to a
               | jurisdiction whose sovereignty is at the pleasure of
               | large powers... Pick a threat model, plan appropriately,
               | and keep things in perspective.
        
         | PeterStuer wrote:
         | I'm using Zoho (Indian company, hosted in Europe). Maybe not
         | perfect from a geopolitical pov, but it will do for now.
        
         | dangus wrote:
         | lol, you want trustworthy stability without "too many"
         | regulations. Good luck with that.
         | 
         | I'm not sure you know what instability means if you think the
         | US is unstable. If anything, the fact that the dumbest person
         | on the planet is in charge of the United States and the country
         | still functions as well as it does proves a lot about the
         | stability of the USA. The country runs on geopolitical easy
         | mode.
         | 
         | Maybe there's a libertarian fantasy novel where you can host
         | your services.
        
         | keybits wrote:
         | Runbox are a good option - company and servers in Norway:
         | https://runbox.com/
         | 
         | Been around since 2000. They're also working on JMAP support
         | and are the top financial contributor to the Stalwart mail
         | server (https://opencollective.com/stalwart) so I think they'll
         | have a more compelling offering soon.
         | 
         | Also worth keeping an eye on Thunderbird pro which will also
         | use Stalwart: https://www.tb.pro/en-US/
        
           | Nemo_bis wrote:
           | I agree, as a happy Runbox customer of several years. But
           | probably the parent post meant non-EEA too, as Norway is
           | effectively subject to any and all EU regulations.
        
           | Aachen wrote:
           | Can recommend Runbox for a lot of reasons, but one gotcha
           | that bothered me in day-to-day use was that emails are
           | delayed by a minimum of 30 seconds, with no real upper bound,
           | just a probability curve with, say, the 90th percentile
           | around 5 minutes. On rare occasions, that means OTPs or login
           | links valid for 5 minutes have expired when you get them. Yes
           | this was really on Runbox' side, yes I talked to support, yes
           | they cared, yes they subsequently ghosted me when delivering
           | the requested headers of emails delayed for more than 5
           | minutes which they considered a normal delay "because email
           | wasn't _supposed_ to be real-time " (be that as it may, that
           | doesn't take away that you sit there 30 seconds... 60
           | seconds... 90 seconds, wondering if you should go do
           | something else while you wait for the confirmation link and
           | get back to your current task later)
           | 
           | Seriously though, nothing but recommended in every other
           | regard. Alias management, anonymous domains you can use,
           | configuring the sender in Thunderbird no problem, everything
           | else was great. My colleagues didn't seem to mind this delay
           | so much as me so it's something to be aware of but might work
           | fine for you
           | 
           | Edit: I realised this is already like four years ago now, it
           | could have gotten fixed in the meantime. It was an issue for
           | several years before we switched away for some reason related
           | to calendars (don't remember the details, I wasn't my choice)
        
           | pllbnk wrote:
           | Recently Runbox had a couple significant outages which made
           | me rethink hosting my email with them. I and my family have
           | used them for many years and I liked what they offered
           | (didn't like bad web UI) but will probably be migrating to
           | Fastmail or other when my current subscription expires.
           | 
           | I was disappointed more by their lack of communication than
           | by the outages. And one outage wasn't even reported on their
           | status page although they confirmed it via support. That's a
           | very bad communication.
        
         | PurpleRamen wrote:
         | > how about the OPPOSITE problem: _anyone knows of any non-EU
         | AND non-US email providers_?
         | 
         | Yes, your own server at home. All countries have fundamentally
         | the same problems, so you will have everywhere the same
         | tradeoffs as a customer. So it really depends on what your
         | specific circumstances and requirements are. If laws are your
         | problem, then stay away from countries where you break them;
         | otherwise, just don't go where they will sell your data for any
         | random penny.
         | 
         | > or a very overregulating one like the EU juristictions...
         | 
         | WTF is this kind of demand? Those regulations do not concern
         | you as a user, but can be very beneficial for you, don't you
         | understand this?
        
         | groguzt wrote:
         | Proton is in Switzerland, which is not part of EU
        
       | dinowars wrote:
       | > First, I tried mailbox.org, which I can generally recommend
       | without reservation. Unfortunately, you can't send emails from
       | any address on your own domain without a workaround
       | 
       | I use mailbox for a long time, one account for 2.50EUR/month with
       | multiple custom domains and I can send emails from any address.
       | To send from a different address the process didn't really seem
       | different than other providers.
       | 
       | From Thunderbird mobile on Android I just add a new sender
       | identity. If I need to send from webmail, similarly I just add a
       | new alternative sender. Are these the workarounds you mentioned?
        
         | dragochat wrote:
         | ...also migrating AWAY from Fastmail (Australian) and TO an
         | European provider sounds like a very bad idea - I'd kind of
         | want _both_ the US and the EU legally away from my coms at all
         | costs (!)
        
           | sakisv wrote:
           | While I agree in principle, I have to remind you (and to
           | myself) that Australia is part of the Five Eyes:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
        
             | kioleanu wrote:
             | The problem is that, even if Fastmail are Australian, they
             | host exclusively in the US. They state that sure, there is
             | the possibility of interference at the data center level,
             | but they rely on their anti-hacking measures to prevent
             | unlawful access
        
           | severino wrote:
           | Is it that different? Being Australia in alliances like "Five
           | Eyes" I don't think you can keep your stuff away from the US
           | at least when using Fastmail.
           | 
           | If you want both US & EU away from your data, I suppose you
           | will have to consider things like Yandex Mail, which comes
           | with its own set of problems too, of course :)
        
             | atmosx wrote:
             | Fastmails servers are in the US IIRC.
        
           | johannes1234321 wrote:
           | As EU citizen I at least got some influence into EU policy. A
           | government far away doesn't even have to pretend to care
           | about me.
        
           | icfly2 wrote:
           | Fastmail runs exclusively of AWS in the US.
           | 
           | I looked into this, there are lots of people in forums
           | discussing/ asking for EU based servers.
        
             | nmjenkins wrote:
             | Fastmail does not run on AWS:
             | https://www.fastmail.com/blog/why-we-use-our-own-hardware/
        
         | AndyMcConachie wrote:
         | I also use mailbox.org and use my own domain for email. Not
         | sure what issue the author ran into.
        
           | MPSimmons wrote:
           | SPF or DKIM maybe?
        
             | okanat wrote:
             | See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492820
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | My understanding is that the number of such sender aliases is
         | limited, at most 50 or 250, depending on the plan. There are
         | ways to use a custom domain for sending where you end up using
         | a larger number of localparts fairly quickly, and it would be a
         | hassle to have to manage them, instead of just typing whatever
         | sender you want (or on replies, having the email client
         | automatically use the address from the original email, without
         | having to worry whether it's still in the set of registered
         | aliases).
        
           | v20 wrote:
           | The limit is only enforced in the web interface. You can send
           | from any alias using any third party email client, and on the
           | website you can configure a catchall mailbox and create a
           | rule to filter out the aliases that receive spam.
        
           | tpetry wrote:
           | When you have a custom domain you can list @mydomain.com as
           | sending domain allowing you every string before the at
           | character. So that means you could use 50 different domains
           | with infinite adresses on these domains.
        
         | patapong wrote:
         | Hmmm this looks like a really nice option! Any issues with
         | deliverability?
        
         | akvadrako wrote:
         | I use mailbox for the past few years and I think it's the best
         | option out there. But they have one major issue, which is that
         | anyone can impersonate your domain:
         | 
         | https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/anti-spoofing-for-cus...
        
           | solstice wrote:
           | Oof, what a drag
        
           | okanat wrote:
           | I think that is not up to date. Mailbox publishes DKIM
           | records: https://kb.mailbox.org/en/private/custom-
           | domains/spf-dkim-an...
           | 
           | SPF is here https://kb.mailbox.org/en/private/custom-
           | domains/spf-dkim-an...
           | 
           | DMARC is up to the domain owner to set.
        
             | akvadrako wrote:
             | Lack of records isn't the issue. You authorize mailbox's
             | servers to send on behalf of your domain. Then they let
             | anyone with a mailbox account set the from to your domain.
        
               | okanat wrote:
               | I see, so their SMTP authentication is woefully broken
               | and they let anybody who can send an e-mail from their
               | SMTP server to put anything in From: ? That's rather hard
               | to believe. The defaults of most SMTP servers like
               | Postfix prevent that. Since I don't want to get banned I
               | don't really want to test that option with their SMTP
               | server.
               | 
               | I took the https://emailspooftest.com/ and while the
               | "spoof" mail gets delivered to mailbox.org's Inbox, my
               | Thunderbird client is all red and it warns me about DKIM
               | and SPF fails.
        
               | brewmarche wrote:
               | I think on the sending side, being able to send from
               | others' addresses is fixed by now: https://userforum-
               | en.mailbox.org/topic/anti-spoofing-for-cus...
               | 
               | But it definitely used to be possible, I tried once with
               | success.
               | 
               | Anti spoofing for incoming mails was not perfect the last
               | time I checked either, but is a different issue.
        
               | okanat wrote:
               | For incoming mail, your client should check regardless of
               | the server provider. On Thunderbird I have this
               | extension: https://github.com/mcortt/EagleEye . It checks
               | for any SPF, DKIM and DMARC fails and shows a banner.
               | SPF/DKIM/DMARC is minimum and pretty useless against spam
               | though. All phishing e-mails in my GMail account have
               | impeccable SPF/DKIM records.
        
         | scrollop wrote:
         | Works for me as well.
        
         | mentalgear wrote:
         | Have been using mailbox.org with a custom domain (including
         | catch-all wildcard) for the last 5 years or so, so it's
         | definitely possible and as far I remember quite
         | straightforward.
        
         | subzero06 wrote:
         | Yea been using mailbox.org for couple months and i can send
         | from any address of my own domain...this is bad article. He
         | probably doesn't know how to.
        
         | tomgag wrote:
         | Can confirm, I use mailbox.org with my own domain and can send
         | from any *@mydomain
        
         | shelled wrote:
         | I wish they had retained one awesome Thunderbird desktop
         | feature on mobile as well - being able to set the "from"
         | address on the go while composing the email, without having to
         | add an identity/sender-mail in advance. Alas, it seems that
         | hasn't been the case.
        
       | piokoch wrote:
       | I wonder what will happen when Jordan Bardella will be new France
       | president and Alice Weidel will be German Chancellor. Where
       | people are going to migrate to then...
        
       | Raed667 wrote:
       | > set up catch-all addresses but also send emails from any email
       | address I wanted
       | 
       | I have been frustrated with ProtonMail for this exact reason, i
       | have a catch all but responding is a hassle where i have to
       | manually create an address.
       | 
       | I wish Proton would just allow me to respond to an email from the
       | address it was addressed to
        
       | BrunoBernardino wrote:
       | For search, I'd suggest Ecosia [1] or Qwant [2] if you don't mind
       | ads, or Uruky [3] if you don't want them (full disclosure, I've
       | created Uruky with my wife).
       | 
       | [1]: https://ecosia.org
       | 
       | [2]: https://qwant.com
       | 
       | [3]: https://uruky.com
        
         | eino wrote:
         | Thanks, uruky sounds quite promising, giving it a try
        
           | BrunoBernardino wrote:
           | Thanks, please reach out with any suggestions or problems you
           | find!
        
         | Schlagbohrer wrote:
         | For anyone who wants some eco-optimism, Ecosia has a youtube
         | channel where they film their reforestation efforts.
        
           | BrunoBernardino wrote:
           | And a nice blog [1] too!
           | 
           | [1]: https://blog.ecosia.org
        
         | jruz wrote:
         | Ecosia is just Google/Bing depending on location.
         | 
         | Qwant is the way to go
        
           | BrunoBernardino wrote:
           | Both use Google and Bing, though not exclusively, and both
           | joined efforts to create the new, independent EUSP index.
           | 
           | Sources for Ecosia indexes/providers:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosia#Ecosia
           | 
           | Sources for Qwant indexes/providers:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant#Development
           | 
           | EUSP: https://www.eu-searchperspective.com
        
       | tonydav wrote:
       | For mail I've been using migadu.
       | 
       | I self host most services: contacts, calendar, git, ..
       | 
       | Agree on mullvad, buy giftcard on amazon.
       | 
       | Tried hetzner, but it wouldn't allow me to create an account. Ovh
       | it is.
       | 
       | I haven't thought about registrars, I don't think it matters for
       | most tld. (Moniker, porkbun)
        
         | aktau wrote:
         | > Agree on mullvad, buy giftcard on amazon.
         | 
         | I've heard this before. Is this just to add another hop in the
         | chain to make it harder for someone to track the user down?
         | Apart from someone needing to order Amazon to pony up the
         | details ("Which credit card was this Amazon item bought with?")
         | 
         | Is there another layer of privacy I'm missing?
        
           | actionfromafar wrote:
           | Or send cash in an envelope.
        
           | tonydav wrote:
           | Doesn't cost extra
           | 
           | No need to share my cc with yet another company.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Giftcards from Amazon will be enough of a stumbling block to
           | stop copyright trolls and such.
           | 
           | it won't even slow down actual criminal investigations by
           | nation states and might not even stop a determined civil
           | suit.
        
           | drcharris wrote:
           | The gift card is a scratch off and has a number that is used
           | to fund your Mullvad balance. So Amazon doesn't know which
           | instance of the gift card you ordered, meaning there's no
           | link to your specific Mullvad account payment.
           | 
           | The authorities might know you ordered _a_ gift card, but not
           | which Mullvad account you funded it with.
        
         | kioleanu wrote:
         | If you buy directly from Mullvad, they delete the transaction
         | details after two weeks. Sure, your payment procesor knows
         | you've bought from Mullvad, but in this case so does Amazon,
         | no?
         | 
         | Regarding Migadu, after extensive research it seemed to be the
         | best option, but man that 20 outgoing emails limit is just so
         | off-putting and the next tier is so far apart. I would be
         | comfortable paying 50-60 euros per year for 50 outgoing emails,
         | but no, it's either 20 for 20 euros or 100 for 90 euros
        
           | zie wrote:
           | I have like 20-ish[0] people using my Migadu account and I've
           | only hit the hard limit once, and it was because one of them
           | was trying to do a mailing list....
           | 
           | Once I got them on a better path, I haven't had any issues. I
           | don't remember what plan exactly, but I've been a customer
           | for a long time, since they were founded pretty much.
           | 
           | 0: I host a non-profit and we use my migadu account, since
           | they are broke and I'm too lazy to count the actual number.
        
       | lvales wrote:
       | This is something I've been trying to help people and companies
       | with excipio (shameless plug). Data and digital sovereignty are
       | fundamental nowadays.
        
       | drstewart wrote:
       | Another daily thread on this topic. Interesting. What makes this
       | one unique and not exactly like every other one?
        
       | pennaMan wrote:
       | > the EU currently has the most user-friendly laws when it comes
       | to data protection
       | 
       | This is laughable. The EU has the most big-tech regulatory
       | capture friendly data laws that make it really hard for small
       | companies to compete, nicely packaged under consumer protection
       | pretenses.
       | 
       | Those same laws give the institutions of the state complete and
       | total right to silently wiretap the digital existence of anyone,
       | at any time, for any reason.
        
       | retinaros wrote:
       | migrating to a re gion that votes laws to restrict freedom of
       | speech, wants to remove anonymity from social network and can
       | block your bank account for opinions that do not align with
       | european stance on things like for instance mass migrations from
       | third world countries. Yeah seems a smart move.
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | Slight detail: EU does not know how to design performant
       | mobile/server/desktop CPUs (and GPUs). But they have ASML and
       | "obsolete" foundries.
        
         | jdiaz97 wrote:
         | yeah the blog is about software, not hardware
        
           | sylware wrote:
           | software runs on hardware.
        
         | chupasaurus wrote:
         | Yeah, and ARM is based outside of EU, just across La Manche and
         | Irish Sea.
        
           | sylware wrote:
           | One: ARM has been softbank for a good while now. And softband
           | is japanese. Two: ARM ISA is heavily IP locked.
           | 
           | For the moment, would be much more appropriate to design
           | performant implementations (mobile/server/desktop) on RISC-V
           | ISA.
        
       | aborsy wrote:
       | Some of these European countries such as France are quite
       | authoritarian. They frequently pass (update: propose/push for)
       | laws to ban VPN and even social media, request access to private
       | messages, etc. It seems to me the situation is equally bad in EU.
        
         | 9dev wrote:
         | You have no idea what you are talking about, really. We don't
         | "frequently" pass such laws. Nobody is accessing private
         | messages, even if there have been such attempts.
         | 
         | The EU has still the strongest privacy laws world wide, and in
         | contrast to others a strong ethical foundation. It may be slow,
         | it may be torn, it may be overly beaurocratic, but sure enough
         | not authoritarian.
        
           | antievropean wrote:
           | Two words: chat control
        
             | Aldipower wrote:
             | Defeated! (At least for now...)
        
             | prmoustache wrote:
             | https://www.brusselstimes.com/eu-affairs/2030171/end-of-
             | chat...
        
           | mytailorisrich wrote:
           | France is routinely criticised for its police, justice
           | system, and rule of law [1]. In general only the French
           | believe that they are a shining beacon.
           | 
           | [1] https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-
           | index/country/Fr...
        
             | prmoustache wrote:
             | I don't think the french as a whole believe that. A lot of
             | people in France are highly critical of the way the current
             | government (and how it is more and more far right leaning)
             | has been handling things in the last decade. There is a big
             | issue of the police forces syndicates being highly far
             | right biased which doesn't help.
             | 
             | Like many countries, it is not homogeneous.
        
               | mytailorisrich wrote:
               | None of the issues highlighted are because of the last
               | decade of any alleged "far right leaning". In fact things
               | have probably improved compared to a few decades ago.
        
       | kouunji wrote:
       | Honestly this is part of a macro trend of everyone outside the US
       | scrambling to get off a US tech stack...these are going to be the
       | longer term economic consequences for the country, as it is no
       | longer seen as a safe option for any kind of data or service
       | exposure.
        
       | gradus_ad wrote:
       | The EU is going to fail in the next decade or two. It is a
       | financially and politically unsustainable patchwork that will rip
       | apart in the great power conflict that is coming. The sick man of
       | Europe is now Europe itself.
        
         | alexejb wrote:
         | Assuming your assessment is correct, how do you think this will
         | affect the digital sector?
        
           | gradus_ad wrote:
           | Capital flows to where it enjoys the greatest returns. That
           | is not Europe, not now nor in any foreseeable future. There
           | is no reason for a skilled professional interested in making
           | money to go there.
        
             | Aldipower wrote:
             | You know, making money is not everything. Why should I be
             | rich in a third-world country (the US).
        
             | alexejb wrote:
             | I don't think that this was the intention of the original
             | blog post. It's about _digital_ migration for tech savvy
             | folks who want to decouple from us-based tech monopolists.
        
       | ankit7000 wrote:
       | "Running a EUR5 Hetzner VPS in Helsinki for 1+ year -- CPX22
       | gives 3vCPU 4GB RAM. For most indie devs the EU infra is
       | genuinely better value than US providers at the same price
       | point."
        
       | twoquestions wrote:
       | For the longest time it was an economic axiom that regulations
       | drive off businesses, and here stronger laws are directly
       | attracting business!
        
         | varjag wrote:
         | It's the rule of law that attracts business.
        
       | darthcloud wrote:
       | As a Canadian, I've been thinking since last year about migrating
       | to non-US services and applications.
       | 
       | My main goal is simply to avoid giving money or data directly to
       | US corporations. I have no illusions, these non-US services
       | probably still benefit US companies in some ways.
       | 
       | They're rare, but I've consciously decided to stay away from some
       | Canadian alternatives. The main customers of most Canadian tech
       | companies are in the US, and I feel they would happily move there
       | if needed.
       | 
       | I started with this:
       | 
       | Gmail / Drive - Proton Mail / Drive
       | 
       | NameCheap / GoDaddy - Infomaniak
       | 
       | Google Maps - TomTom
       | 
       | Google Chrome - Vivaldi
       | 
       | Google Search - Startpage (Vivaldi default)
       | 
       | GitHub - Codeberg & Codefloe (for private)
       | 
       | I do like Proton Mail. The main thing I hate is how often the app
       | and web versions get out of sync for read and archive states.
       | 
       | I'm really happy with Infomaniak, migrating all my domains was a
       | breeze.
       | 
       | Vivaldi is based on the Chrome codebase, but I really love all
       | the extra customization options. It was a very easy switch.
       | 
       | Startpage took me some time to get used to. It's not as good as
       | Google, but whatever.
       | 
       | TomTom isn't great, but it's not like Maps has been great over
       | the last few years either.
       | 
       | Forgejo is much better than what GitHub has become.
       | 
       | Next, I'm thinking of moving away from Google Photos. I'm
       | considering pCloud for that.
        
         | ekianjo wrote:
         | > Next, I'm thinking of moving away from Google Photos. I'm
         | considering pCloud for that.
         | 
         | Maybe try Immich?
        
           | dwayne_dibley wrote:
           | Seconded.
        
           | nsbk wrote:
           | I'm in the process of migrating to self-hosted immich and the
           | experience is being great so far. If you have a beefy home
           | lab it is incredibly fast and performant. One thing to
           | mention is that you should have a good backup strategy not to
           | risk losing your photo library
        
         | Besticle wrote:
         | If you're going through all that effort why not migrate to
         | open-source/self-hosted?
        
           | kgwxd wrote:
           | Email? The rest of your life will be spent wondering if
           | anyone got your message or if you've missed something
           | important.
           | 
           | Registrar, and search? Not possible.
           | 
           | Maps? Paper would be more practical.
           | 
           | Browser, done.
           | 
           | Git, a lot of extra work for no gain.
        
             | bluebarbet wrote:
             | >Maps? Paper would be more practical.
             | 
             | On the contrary, maps are (IMO) one domain where FOSS is
             | genuinely better. OpenStreetMap data is _far_ more detailed
             | than any corporate map, and the available clients (Osmand
             | in particular) are far more powerful.
             | 
             | You-know-who can only compete because of its (admittedly
             | useful) data on businesses. And, alas, because of ignorance
             | among normies, many of whom are still clueless that, for
             | example, for hiking or outdoor wayfinding, there are much
             | better alternatives available.
        
               | delusional wrote:
               | We weren't talking FOSS, we were talking self-hosted, and
               | self-hosting OSM is ridiculous, especially if you want to
               | do routing.
        
               | bluebarbet wrote:
               | The maps can be considered metadata. The data is the
               | points and tracks, which should be self-hostable. I have
               | them synced locally (desktop-mobile). The setup was
               | admittedly an absolute PITA involving shell scripting and
               | Python.
        
               | kgwxd wrote:
               | The map data is great but I guess I really mean
               | navigation, which is... not great.
        
               | bluebarbet wrote:
               | Yes, that's what's commonly said.
               | 
               | Some anecdata I can offer: since last year I have used
               | exclusively Osmand for navigating over 3000 km of cycle
               | touring, on roads and paths of all types. The most common
               | problem that arises is wrongly tagged surfaces (and
               | occasionally access rights) for tracks and paths, i.e.
               | for "roads" that do not even appear on the corporate
               | maps. There is no comparison in terms of detail.
               | Obviously this is less relevant for regular car drivers.
               | 
               | And certainly the situation for FOSS public-transit
               | navigation is still quite poor.
        
               | habi wrote:
               | > And certainly the situation for FOSS public-transit
               | navigation is still quite poor.
               | 
               | https://transitous.org/ (https://github.com/public-
               | transport/transitous) works quite well.
        
             | lostmsu wrote:
             | I am a little optimistic about radicle for Git
        
         | wolvoleo wrote:
         | Yeah I was thinking of getting infomaniak for my mail. I don't
         | really care for the encryption thing of proton (all email comes
         | in in plain text anyway!) and I want to just be able to do
         | plain imap without bridges.
         | 
         | But their stuff just feels a bit weird somehow. I didn't really
         | want to commit yet. I'm glad to hear you had good experiences.
        
           | thejohnconway wrote:
           | I'm using it Infomaniak, including their KDrive as a Dropbox
           | replacement (with 2TB of data). I've even used their video
           | conferencing app. No complaints so far. All seems to work
           | just fine.
        
             | omnimus wrote:
             | The infomaniak KDrive has also pretty great pricing and
             | surprisingly great linux client (it even supports
             | "online/offline" files.
        
           | frevib wrote:
           | Proton has mail, calendar, drive, docs, sheets and more
           | coming. Everything is done e2ee where possible. In case of
           | mail, when the peer has no Proton, mail is indeed send
           | plaintext.
           | 
           | Mail is stored e2ee on server, so not even Proton can read
           | it. Proton mail has also made PGP very easy to use. It's
           | Swiss based and a foundation, not a corporation. They've done
           | this so they cannot easily be bought.
           | 
           | It ticks most boxes in terms of privacy and security.
        
             | Bombthecat wrote:
             | Proton is moving out of Swiss, because of privacy concerns
             | and new laws...
             | 
             | Just fyi
        
               | frevib wrote:
               | They aren't. They do have made their IT such that they
               | can move very easily. If the Swiss government will pass
               | worse privacy laws, Proton said they will move to Norway
               | or Germany.
        
             | exceptione wrote:
             | > Mail is stored e2ee on server
             | 
             | Exclusively, or do they keep caches around? I am asking
             | since everything is clear text in the webmail. I wonder if
             | they handle the rare case of proton to proton (encrypted)
             | mail differently from regular unencrypted mail. I assume
             | they have to decrypt a master key stored on the server with
             | your password, and then decrypt every encrypted email on
             | the fly on the server, or they have to send the master key
             | to the client side.
             | 
             | Now think that through when you have thousands of
             | searchable e-mails, sorted arbitrarily. I won't say it is
             | impossible, but I think that maintaining plain text indexes
             | rather than encrypted ones are really tempting.
        
               | frevib wrote:
               | You're post is full of misconceptions and mistakes.
               | 
               | Mail is stored e2ee exculsively. The've been summoned to
               | hand over mail many times, which they weren't able to do.
               | Quick search on Ecosia and find the articles.
               | 
               | They don't have a master key or else the whole e2ee story
               | is a fad, which it isn't. The Proton code is in Github so
               | you can check how it works yourself. Part of the password
               | is used to decrypt the data.
               | 
               | Search is done client side. You have to download a big
               | search index in order to have proper search. The iOS app
               | doesn't support downloading the index so search is
               | limited there.
               | 
               | Please think and do some work before you reply.
        
               | exceptione wrote:
               | > They don't have a master key or else the whole e2ee
               | story is a fad, which it isn't
               | 
               | You can store an encrypted master key (like Luks),
               | download that key to the client and decrypt it there. Or
               | you can have it in decrypted in server memory, but only
               | during an interactive session with the user. But that
               | quickly turns into a fad, as you pointed out, which was
               | exactly my question.
               | 
               | > The Proton code is in Github so you can check how it
               | works yourself. Please think and do some work before you
               | reply.
               | 
               | I asked a simple question, so that at others could chime
               | in about the exact details and limits. I don't understand
               | why that was highly offensive to you, but I assume it is
               | something like a Monday Mood.
        
             | Lapel2742 wrote:
             | > Proton has mail, calendar, drive, docs, sheets and more
             | coming
             | 
             | As of today, there is no official Proton Drive client for
             | Linux that I'm aware of. There is unofficial support via
             | Rclone, but it is still beta and I try to avoid mounting
             | via Rclone anyway. I recall that it wasn't a really
             | convincing experience when I tried it with OneDrive.
        
               | frevib wrote:
               | Proton Drive for Linux (and Drive SDK) are announced for
               | this year. Unfortunately not more specifically than "this
               | year".
        
             | pnw wrote:
             | I love Proton but it's really low on usability since their
             | calendar doesn't integrate with anything (by design). If
             | you are used to managing a busy calendar it's quite a
             | shock. And their docs and sheets apps are extremely minimal
             | and basic.
             | 
             | And of course the recent allegations that they hand over
             | your metadata on >90% of requests. See
             | https://x.com/DoingFedTime/status/2030108076531995016
        
             | wolvoleo wrote:
             | I only want it for the mail. Everything else I self-host
             | anyway. It's just that mail is hard with bad actors like
             | Microsoft demanding certain reputation standards (e.g. you
             | have to send X amount of _legit_ mail per month or you get
             | blocked even if they 've never seen spam from you!). But
             | for mail the encryption is just useless in my opinion.
             | 
             | The encrypted mail storage adds no value for me because I
             | pull all my mail from the server immediately anyway. It's
             | just a big hassle to deal with that bridge. And when a mail
             | comes in they have to handle it in plaintext (and also, the
             | other party sees it which is 90% of the time microsoft or
             | google or another bad actor). I just view email as a lost
             | cause really.
             | 
             | The only thing I get from Proton is the VPN.
        
         | mentalgear wrote:
         | For Photos, consider Ente (e2ee).
         | 
         | Instead of Startpage, try DDG (DuckDuckGo) - been using it now
         | for several years instead of Google as I found no difference in
         | search quality.
        
           | wccrawford wrote:
           | Their whole point was to avoid US companies.
        
           | dv_dt wrote:
           | Consider ecosia for search. It's not perfect but is decent
           | for most general searches
        
         | cicko wrote:
         | Hasn't TomTom completely pivoted to OpenStreetMap? From direct
         | contact, I know that they are very active in OSM communities
         | now.
        
           | erikvanoosten wrote:
           | OSM is one of multiple data sources for TomTom.
        
           | jandrewrogers wrote:
           | TomTom isn't OSM, they just use OSM as one input among many
           | into their mapping model. OSM has significant limitations as
           | a standalone mapping model but many companies find it useful
           | for augmenting more sophisticated mapping models.
        
         | commandlinefan wrote:
         | > avoid giving money
         | 
         | You're paying for any of these?
        
           | hedora wrote:
           | Most of those services are paid by terrible people when you
           | use them.
           | 
           | Look at their revenue breakdowns.
        
         | boringg wrote:
         | This doesn't make a lot of sense:
         | 
         | "They're rare, but I've consciously decided to stay away from
         | some Canadian alternatives. The main customers of most Canadian
         | tech companies are in the US, and I feel they would happily
         | move there if needed."
         | 
         | So in an effort to veer from the US based on idealogical
         | positions you wouldn't support your own countrymen because you
         | think in some future state that said copmany might
         | hypothetically move to the US?
         | 
         | Canadians unable to support Canadians is what everyone around
         | the world should read from this comment. Tall Poppy Syndrome in
         | its purest.
        
           | joe_mamba wrote:
           | Isn't it compounded with issue that something like 75% of UW
           | grads move to the US for work?
        
             | boringg wrote:
             | Im not sure I follow your point exactly?
        
           | sodapopcan wrote:
           | Agreed, this is a VERY odd statement. There are a bunch of
           | Canadian companies that have been here for a long time. I
           | don't have the data but would DNS and hosting providers like
           | EasyDNS and HostPappa really have primarily US customers?
        
           | bluebarbet wrote:
           | >What utter BS
           | 
           | Consider for a moment how you would feel if, after carefully
           | composing and sharing your thoughts in good faith, you
           | received this response.
        
             | boringg wrote:
             | Im sorry but saying you won't support your own people
             | because you THINK they MIGHT move to the US is BS (I
             | removed it originally because I toned down my knee jerk
             | reaction but I defend it as you brought it up). I hope OP
             | has enough emotional capability to handle some gentle
             | feedback.
             | 
             | FWIW in case you are unfamiliar with it -- Canada has a
             | history of not supporting its own products and companies -
             | so this sentiment expressed above is tough one to swallow
             | given the exceptional talent and capability of Canadians
             | and some countries efforts to undermine that.
        
           | tamimio wrote:
           | > Tall Poppy Syndrome
           | 
           | I learned something new today, thanks! I did face this a LOT
           | in Canadian workforce, never knew it had a term, but the way
           | you get undermined and attacked for not being an average is
           | crazy, taking/sharing the credit, and pushing you on the
           | sides, excluding you from meetings and all shenanigans haha.
           | Completely the opposite in the US, not just productivity
           | wise, but US companies embrace individualism and "as long as
           | you get shit done", go wild! It's why US companies do better,
           | I doubt it's the market size as always brought as a
           | justification, I am sure if Canadian companies did better
           | they will have US based customers too just like Switzerland
           | had European ones.
        
         | detectivestory wrote:
         | I've moved to pCloud for photos and I've found it to be a good
         | alternative. One frustrating thing is that if you are cycling
         | through your photos on the default pcloud app, they are usually
         | slow to render which can be frustrating. Playing music on the
         | app is also a little frustrating. It works, but it it's not an
         | amazing UX. Other than that I am completely content with pCloud
         | though, and I would recommend it.
         | 
         | One other thing to be made aware of is that the macOS ecosystem
         | seems to be a little hostile towards pCloud and it seems to be
         | fighting a never ending battle in order to the get the remote
         | drive functioning reliably there. It works, but it can be a
         | little annoying at times.
        
           | mft_ wrote:
           | > the macOS ecosystem seems to be a little hostile towards
           | pCloud and it seems to be fighting a never ending battle in
           | order to the get the remote drive functioning reliably there
           | 
           | pCloud seems to have been having a few wobbles in the past
           | few months, and it's unclear to me whether the root cause is
           | external or internal. Two different Windows machines both
           | needed manual removal and reinstallation, and the Mac
           | installation needed manually updating to a later version due
           | to (apparently) an SSL certificate renewal. FWIW the current
           | version on my Mac (on Sequoia) seems solid outside of rarely
           | needing to select 'Enable Drive' from the menu.
        
         | neonstatic wrote:
         | For email I have been quite pleased with RunBox (Norway)
        
         | expedition32 wrote:
         | This is why I'm sticking to Spotify.
         | 
         | Maybe corporations can start to market this: we are not an
         | American company.
        
         | danilocesar wrote:
         | Pcloud is a security nightmare. If you really have to use it,
         | add your own crypto layer on top of it.
         | 
         | Gocryptfs works well for that.
        
           | PLMUV9A4UP27D wrote:
           | Can you motivate why Pcloud is a security nightmare?
        
         | dzjkb wrote:
         | I've recently moved my storage to Jottacloud (Norway), highly
         | recommend - they do - gdrive style storage - dropbox style
         | synced folders - photo app/backups - PC folder backups with
         | apps for mac/win and a cli for linux
        
         | CIARobotFish wrote:
         | I've more or less made a similar migration towards non-US
         | alternatives for most of my services. In my case, I switched
         | from GitHub to Worktree (https://worktree.ca/).
        
         | awongh wrote:
         | I'm still waiting and hoping that open street map becomes a
         | viable alternative to google maps- it would be great to get a
         | firefox of mapping (maybe not the best analogy, but....)
         | 
         | I definitely know that an open mapping solution could gain
         | traction and be supported by bigger companies that would use
         | it. It seems like a good candidate for the kind of collective
         | OSS work that supports other projects- that there are enough
         | big-enough companies out there that want an open non-google
         | reliant mapping solution that are willing to pool resources.
         | 
         | I know that with mapbox and others that active work is being
         | done, but it just doesn't quite seem like it's there yet.
        
           | arielcostas wrote:
           | What do you miss about Google Maps in OSM? Just business
           | information (schedules, contact info, reviews...), or
           | something else?
        
             | snowpid wrote:
             | Somebody else, but there is no good OS mobile app for OSM.
             | CoMaps is clunky currently.
        
           | patmorgan23 wrote:
           | Lyft pays people to help map in OSM. meta and Microsoft have
           | both made big contributions as well (like allowing the use of
           | Bing imagery)
        
             | chucksmash wrote:
             | Amazon also uses and contributes edits to OSM.
        
               | jorvi wrote:
               | It doesn't matter if Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook
               | contribute or pay huge sums.
               | 
               | Even Apple Maps is heavily, heavily behind Google Maps
               | simply because very few users are entering Point of
               | Interest info into Apple Maps.
               | 
               | New restaurant opens, or store closes, or opening hours
               | change? Google Maps has the updated info within a few
               | days. Apple Maps in a year or two, maybe.
               | 
               | That's the moat. The only way either Apple or the other
               | corpos catch up is by offering massive financial
               | incentives for their users to contribute PoI data.
        
               | chucksmash wrote:
               | > It doesn't matter if Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook
               | contribute or pay huge sums.
               | 
               | It may not matter for your purposes (i.e. replacing
               | Google-Maps-the-product in your daily use as a consumer).
               | 
               | I'd naively expect that having hundreds of thousands of
               | Amazon drivers dogfooding these maps daily does help with
               | data quality though. So maybe OSM dataset works best as a
               | Google Maps replacement if you can shoehorn your usage
               | into something that overlaps with the things a gigantic
               | logistics operation cares about.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | A few years ago I got annoyed at Google and switched to
               | Apple Maps. Earlier this year I got annoyed with Apple
               | Maps and tried Google Maps again before switching back.
               | Point of interest data was a minor factor in all of this.
               | It might be enough to lock me into using Google to find
               | local businesses I didn't know about before, but that
               | doesn't force me to use Google Maps for turn by turn
               | navigation.
        
         | pkulak wrote:
         | I can't recommend Immich enough if you want to move off Google
         | Photos.
        
         | carlosjobim wrote:
         | Google has two products without competition: YouTube and Google
         | Maps.
         | 
         | Don't waste your time trying different map services.
         | 
         | Everything else is super easy to switch to better alternatives,
         | especially search, e-mail and browser.
        
           | gib444 wrote:
           | Organic Maps is great for offline. It even did better
           | directions in Europe recently, because Google Maps does not
           | have an "avoid unpaved roads" option.
           | 
           | Apple Maps does driving directions way better in general -
           | better visuals, speech etc. It does foreign pronunciations
           | better too IIRC. It's even not bad as a PWA on Android (
           | https://maps.apple.com ).
           | 
           | Google Maps loves to say take eg "exit Via Emilio Enrico" on
           | some random roundabout in some random Italian town, seemingly
           | with no idea that there are big signs to eg "VERONA". The
           | street name is often totally useless.
           | 
           | I also find Google Maps does a great job at directing me into
           | traffic. Like, not unexpected traffic at all.
           | 
           | Google Maps is great at giving you terrible recommendations
           | because of the heavily, heavily filtered/gamed reviews
           | however. Nothing more untrustworthy than a 4.7 star review on
           | Google.
           | 
           | And of course there is also Mapy, HERE, TomTom etc...
        
         | gattilorenz wrote:
         | To you people who moved email to a different provider... how
         | did you do that, practically? Email signature, reply from
         | another address and hope your contacts pick it up, or something
         | else? How well did it work?
         | 
         | I have been a user of gmail since you needed an invitation to
         | register, and even though I have felt for years the pressure to
         | de-google myself, I find it a daunting task due to the amount
         | of people/services that think my email account is gmail, and
         | forever will be.
        
           | jagermo wrote:
           | If you use their domain, its a paint and you need to do the
           | steps you mention. If you have your own domain for emails,
           | its basically a line in the dns settings and your emails go
           | to the new provider. Everyone should own their E-Mail domain
        
           | philwelch wrote:
           | This is a lot simpler if you own a personal domain name.
           | You're still going to have pain setting that up the first
           | time, but afterwards any future migrations will be much
           | easier.
        
           | Aachen wrote:
           | When first migrating away from Hotmail as a teenager, I just
           | registered for new accounts/contracts on my own domain and
           | migrated only the stuff I was still actively using
           | 
           | At some point I downloaded the emails from Hotmail by adding
           | the account to Thunderbird and copying the contents to a
           | local folder. Probably imapsync or some other dedicated tool
           | would be more reliable but it seems to have worked for me
           | (don't forget to also copy the sent folder). I don't really
           | look back at it anymore, after a few years nothing of
           | interest lands there. It's still out there though. Data
           | hoarder issues with definitively deleting the data from it
           | 
           | I'd keep the account name just in case someone finds that it
           | can be re-registered and used to gain access via password
           | reset somewhere
        
           | darthcloud wrote:
           | I was on gmail since the invitation too. Using their domain.
           | 
           | I started to use my own domain within Gmail 2 years ago.
           | Transitioned things I cared about to use that email at that
           | time.
           | 
           | Then this years I moved to Proton using that domain. And I'm
           | forwarding Gmail to proton indefinitely.
           | 
           | I told my family, friends to start using that address going
           | forward.
           | 
           | Slowly but surely as I get email into my gmail folder on
           | proton I take the time to go change the address.
           | 
           | The big change is using an address from you own domain.
        
           | Wool2662 wrote:
           | Yes, pretty much. I bought a domain to make sure I only have
           | to do this once and parked it with Infomaniak.
           | 
           | Then I setup a new mail account (by now I abandoned Proton
           | for Infomaniak there as well)
           | 
           | The next year I just kept responding with my new email
           | address, asking people to update their contact data and each
           | time I logged in somewhere I changed my email address. This
           | went really well, just 1 or 2 services where I couldn't
           | change it because they only accept the big providers, no
           | custom domains.
           | 
           | In the end the first 3 weeks were really painful, afterwards
           | it was smooth sailing.
           | 
           | Since then I've swiched provider quite a bit from Proton to
           | Zoho and now to Infomaniak (where I will stay for a long time
           | I think) and each of those changes took me about 2h each
           | time.
           | 
           | So in sumnary, you will curse yourself for a few weeks and
           | thank yourself later!
        
           | js-utm32 wrote:
           | I auto-forwarded to protonmail and replied from there. It
           | took two years before I stopped receiving email that way.
        
         | KomoD wrote:
         | > Google Search - Startpage (Vivaldi default)
         | 
         | Startpage is owned by an American advertising company
         | https://system1.com
        
       | nopakos wrote:
       | One concern is that if an EU company becomes very successful, it
       | could easily be acquired by a large U.S. corporation.
        
         | Invictus0 wrote:
         | Don't worry, EU companies never become that successful
        
           | gib444 wrote:
           | Weird, I've worked for multiple that got acquired by US
           | companies
        
         | gib444 wrote:
         | You're not wrong. But no SaaS is forever. Price rises,
         | bankruptcies, ToS changes, change of CEO etc. Being acquired by
         | a US company is just one of the things that can happen.
         | 
         | For someone like the author, it's not a reason to stay with a
         | US company
         | 
         | And helping European companies be more successful might prevent
         | them from selling out...
        
         | mafuy wrote:
         | If you have a good path and a bad path that may or may not
         | converge sometime later on your journey, you still should walk
         | the good path.
        
       | u8080 wrote:
       | Reminder: Hetzner/Linode were MITMing their client(jabber.ru)
       | withour any legal basis and past prosecution:
       | https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/jabber.ru-mitm/
        
       | silexia wrote:
       | The EU has far worse freedom of speech laws than the US, most
       | websites would be insane to migrate to the EU.
        
         | OrangePilled wrote:
         | The people who publicize this kind of stuff are not the sort to
         | ruffle major feathers.
        
           | surgical_fire wrote:
           | I wonder what kind of freedom of speech you would require.
           | 
           | There's many a way to ruffle feathers eh?
        
       | dwedge wrote:
       | > For various reasons
       | 
       | Because it's trending. Likely the same reason they ended up
       | outside the EU in the first place.
       | 
       | I find this to be a non article. They moved from Google to Google
       | and Apple, installed Graphene but installed the play store for a
       | "significant number of apps", and didn't even consider self
       | hosting email or git.
       | 
       | I've probably seen a dozen of these articles now, not to mention
       | posts on LinkedIn, and it's a shame that there is almost never
       | any real substance to them because on the surface it's an
       | interesting thought experiment
        
         | microtonal wrote:
         | /r/BuyFromEU is a continuous enumeration of individuals posting
         | from what US services to EU services they moved. I agree that
         | these posts get uninteresting once you have seen a few. I would
         | be more interested in _I have used European service X for 6
         | months, these are the up /downsides I found_, since they
         | actually help people picking alternatives.
        
       | achayala wrote:
       | I did the same! The only problem with this is the uptime of
       | codeberg.org, it sucks haha, but that is not a problem for me. I
       | have not critical services there.
        
       | bkolobara wrote:
       | Shameless plug. We have been working on building a European
       | GitHub alternative for private repos at https://lubeno.dev.
        
       | mads_quist wrote:
       | If you need an on-call / incident management platform like
       | PagerDuty or incident.io All Quiet offers EU based Hosting and is
       | operated from Germany:
       | 
       | - https://allquiet.app
        
         | dwedge wrote:
         | While it's in your bio, I feel like you should have made it
         | more obvious that this is your company
        
         | evnsio wrote:
         | Just for completeness, both PagerDuty and incident.io offer EU
         | hosting.
        
       | dipshady wrote:
       | hello
        
       | fmajid wrote:
       | The EU is not a privacy and human rights panacea, as shown by the
       | continuing efforts to impose Chat Control. Switzerland is no
       | better.
       | 
       | Then again one of my wife's friends is high up in the Canadian
       | policy establishment and some of her positions on surveillance
       | and political control over social media were chilling, and I
       | assume widespread among the Five Eyes. Certainly the UK and
       | Australia have deeply authoritarian policies far beyond even
       | Trump's wildest dreams.
       | 
       | Small countries like Iceland have enlightened policies but are
       | vulnerable to coercion and in fact were militarily occupied
       | during WW2.
        
         | AlexandrB wrote:
         | Yup, I don't get someone who would look at the US and say that
         | their government overreach is _particularly_ bad compared to
         | the rest of the  "first world". For example, the UK is
         | arresting people for getting too spicy in school Facebook
         | groups[1]. It just feels like "grass is greener" mentality
         | because folks on here are most familiar with US political
         | issues.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/police-
         | arrest-...
        
           | askonomm wrote:
           | Do the immigration police in UK also murder their own
           | citizens in broad daylight? What about incarceration (and
           | falsely incarcerated) rates? What about general cases of
           | police brutality? What about pedophile-run government where
           | nobody ever gets arrested? What about a government that's
           | bailing out known criminals for money? Or one that rug pulls
           | its own citizens via crypto scams, phone scams, citizenship
           | scams? USA is so far beyond comparison to any other country
           | that it's not even funny. The whole place is a con artists
           | paradise, run by con artists, for con artists.
           | 
           | Not to mention that they are actively hostile towards its own
           | allies, threaten to annex ally territory, don't want to help
           | its allies, and then when it can't pull off a war it on its
           | own started, then EU is supposed to come help? And when we
           | don't, we get insulted for not being friendly? Honestly, F
           | USA, and everything that place stands for. What a toxic
           | cesspool of a place.
        
             | gib444 wrote:
             | Indeed. USA is gone, got taken over and is now RUSA. The
             | rest of the world can see it. Look at the pain their latest
             | stupid war is inflicting on Europe. Cui bono...
        
             | Acrobatic_Road wrote:
             | >What about pedophile-run government where nobody ever gets
             | arrested?
             | 
             | This is just complete nonsense. We are not run by
             | pedophiles. Nobody is being arrested because the people you
             | want arrested have committed no crimes. Being in the
             | Epstein files doesn't make someone a pedophile.
        
         | askonomm wrote:
         | I find it odd that EU is judged by efforts that have time and
         | time again _failed_, when I'd see that as a perfect example of
         | a system actually working, because people do have the power to
         | stop hostile legislation, whereas I see no such thing at all in
         | the US.
        
       | awongh wrote:
       | > The reasons for this are [...] improved data protection.
       | 
       | Didn't the Snowden leaks just prove that the NSA is listening to
       | most things anyway?
       | 
       | I suppose this has more to do with the specific case of a lower-
       | level agency being able to access your data, rather than it being
       | actually secure?
       | 
       | I get that people would be concerned about that scenario, but
       | also it seems like a little bit of hair-splitting.
        
         | Schlagbohrer wrote:
         | GDPR is real, and real good
        
           | awongh wrote:
           | I think GDPR is a good example of why it doesn't really work
           | in practice.
           | 
           | I think the fines and enforcement have been a generally good
           | balance to the status quo in the USA.
           | 
           | But- in practice, is your data materially used differently
           | than in the USA?
           | 
           | The problem is that no one is abandoning facebook, instagram
           | or youtube and that data is being used in the exact same way
           | as it is in the USA- to sell you things and track you across
           | the web. Technically there are more barriers to getting and
           | using that data, but I would argue that it's not a blocker,
           | just an inconvenience to those using that data- it just makes
           | the targeting etc. 10% less accurate. The whole system still
           | runs the exact same way.
           | 
           | And, to make it look like it seem like it works now everyone
           | has to deal with these dumb popups that don't mean anything.
        
       | pelzatessa wrote:
       | > I've always been a happy Mullvad customer. For 5 euros a month,
       | I pay a Swedish company that has proven it doesn't log any data
       | 
       | How did they prove that? Is such proof even possible?
        
         | crosa wrote:
         | Start by the fact that in their system you are just a random
         | number that is generated at the moment you arrive in their
         | website. They make very easy to pay without having to use any
         | of your personal data, like Credit Card. Overall I think if a
         | company put so much effort on that side, they simply don't have
         | any data to log, or if they do is pretty anonymous anyway :)
        
           | pelzatessa wrote:
           | While their account privacy policy is commendable, it isn't a
           | proof for not collecting logs.
           | 
           | Even without personal details you can collect quite a lot of
           | data - ip address that uses certain VPN account, which
           | servers it talks to while using vpn, at what hours, at what
           | intervals, also all the plaintext data exchanged between
           | client and server. A lot of data that someone (who might
           | already have your ip address mapped to your personal info,
           | for example your ISP, or an online store where you shopped
           | something before you turned on the VPN) would be willing to
           | pay good money for. And companies like money.
        
         | eviks wrote:
         | The usual proof is whether law enforcement agencies can force
         | the company to share such data
        
         | Aachen wrote:
         | Also based on your reply on a sibling thread, is this a legit
         | question (you expect that there is a way but you're not sure
         | how) or are you just waiting for someone to bite just so you
         | can state your case about proving a negative?
        
           | pelzatessa wrote:
           | Not sure which thread you're referring to, but yeah, it is a
           | legit question. I genuinely wondered what made the OP state
           | that it's proven that mullvad doesn't collect logs. While I
           | don't think it's possible at all to prove that some software
           | is running on a remote server, or that this software doesn't
           | collect logs, some people try to find a way to do that, for
           | example Signal claimed that one can verify code running on
           | their servers by code attestation feature embedded in their
           | Intel SGX enclaves, see https://signal.org/blog/private-
           | contact-discovery/
        
       | Aldipower wrote:
       | For transactional email, Lettermint is a great email broadcaster
       | from the Netherlands. Saying this as a German means they really
       | must be good!
        
       | NoSalt wrote:
       | > _" the EU currently has the most user-friendly laws when it
       | comes to data protection"_
       | 
       | I have not done any research into this facet of EU laws, but
       | isn't the EU simply horrible when it comes to privacy of your
       | data from a nosy government?
        
         | cl3misch wrote:
         | I think OP means user-friendly in the relationship user-
         | company, not user-government.
        
         | jojomodding wrote:
         | In what sense are governments in the EU more nosy than the one
         | in the US or China?
        
         | SlinkyOnStairs wrote:
         | > but isn't the EU simply horrible when it comes to privacy of
         | your data from a nosy government?
         | 
         | It's a case of "better is not perfect".
         | 
         | Yes, the EU & it's member states allow the police quite a bit
         | of access to data and servers. However, there are still
         | decently functional checks and balances. Unlike China, unlike
         | Russia, unlike the US, where there is a carte-blanche already
         | employed by authoritarian governments.
         | 
         | What the line really seems to refer to is _General_ data
         | protection. While  "the state spies on you" is one attack
         | vector, and one certainly becoming dangerous for oppressed
         | minority groups in the US, it's not the only one.
         | 
         | For most people, really, all people because the authoritarian
         | systems rely heavily on data from breaches, the chief risk to
         | one's wellbeing are said data breaches. Of companies recklessly
         | collecting all data they can get their hands on and retaining
         | it forever.
         | 
         |  _There_ , the EU does have notably better laws. Where data
         | collection and retention are restricted, and user-requested
         | deletion is a legal right. (Enforcement of this is still a
         | mess.)
        
         | Ylpertnodi wrote:
         | > but isn't the EU simply horrible when it comes to privacy of
         | your data from a nosy government?
         | 
         | Depends on the country, as much as it would xState in the US.
        
       | canmi21 wrote:
       | Big companies never treat your data good. It's better to store it
       | privately :(
        
       | max_ wrote:
       | > The reasons for this are the current global political situation
       | and improved data protection
       | 
       | I don't understand why people keep saying this when Europe is
       | more hostile towards privacy.
       | 
       | The constantly insist on schemes like chat control, and
       | GrapheneOS users are often confronted by legal authorities.
       | 
       | They may have "the laws", but its way less trust worthy.
        
         | mafuy wrote:
         | You misunderstand this. Yes, there have been moves by some in
         | the EU to reduce privacy, but they face resistance and have
         | actually been repelled often. The ChatControl debacle you
         | mention is one such instance. And on the other hand, sometimes
         | there is actual progress, like with GDPR.
         | 
         | But more importantly, at least there are privacy laws in the EU
         | that do _something_. In the US, there are virtually none, so of
         | course you won 't hear about their erosion.
         | 
         | I trust the EU ten times more than the US in this regard.
        
       | kuon wrote:
       | For domains, spread them across multiple registrars.
        
       | Invictus0 wrote:
       | Foolish blunder
        
       | gib444 wrote:
       | Not a fan of Mailbox.org. It's Nextcloud for starters. The UX is
       | clunky. They feel a 30 day web app session expiry is perfectly
       | fine.
       | 
       | I've gone back to FastMail for the time being
       | 
       | I think what I really want is:
       | 
       | - FastMail or similar for sending, and receiving new emails
       | 
       | - An email archive system that syncs from my main email provider,
       | deleting from the remote anything over eg 4 weeks old
       | 
       | I like hosted providers for their IP reputation, spam systems,
       | deliverability etc (and in the case of FM, the excellent web UI)
       | but I don't like them having 15 years of my email which they can
       | read whenever they wish. (edit: yes, I realise they could just
       | keep copies)
       | 
       | Does anyone else have this kind of set up? Any recommendations to
       | remove the pain of having a mailbox split into 2?
        
       | gib444 wrote:
       | There are reasons other than privacy to move to non-US companies:
       | e.g. not wanting contribute to the US economy and the further
       | expansion of US tech companies. This is my main motivation in
       | fact.
       | 
       | So criticisms about these kind of posts and initiatives along the
       | lines of "EU privacy bad too" are insufficient and are
       | unpersuasive.
        
       | ta9000 wrote:
       | Frankly many in the US are over the Trump administration and I
       | expect a massive backlash in the midterms. Do what you want of
       | course but I think the descent of the US is slowing and there
       | will be a return to normalcy after this admin.
        
         | Ylpertnodi wrote:
         | Promise?
        
         | Lapel2742 wrote:
         | It's still the same population that voted for Trump twice. It's
         | the same constitution, the same supreme court, the same
         | parties, the same oligarchie and the same god-king like office
         | of the US president.
         | 
         | Nothing will change with respect to trust after the midterms.
        
       | vldszn wrote:
       | Not sure if it counts, but I'm based in Warsaw, Poland (EU) and
       | working on a free and open-source invoice generator:
       | https://easyinvoicepdf.com
       | 
       | Github: https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf
       | 
       | It doesn't have any backend and all data is stored in the
       | browser.
        
       | unsupp0rted wrote:
       | > For a long time, I was a satisfied Namecheap customer.
       | 
       | Other than them suddenly and arbitrarily deleting your account on
       | a week's notice if you chose to have been born in the wrong
       | country, they're great.
       | 
       | Arbitrarily because you can always email them and explain why you
       | chose to be born in the wrong country and how you're actually one
       | of the good ones.
       | 
       | But you don't understand: most of their employees are from a
       | country that the wrong country is currently in conflict with, so
       | they can't stand idly by while you sit there with your birth
       | certificate hanging over you.
        
       | _the_inflator wrote:
       | European here.
       | 
       | "Migrating to the EU" is serving a self-fulfilling delusion just
       | as joining the so -called revolutionary forces after WW2 and
       | moving to eastern Europe.
       | 
       | The EU does everything to de-industrialize itself and protect its
       | ground by using surveillance tools branded as "child protection"
       | rules.
       | 
       | Europeans don't have any tradition in thinking in freedom, in
       | civil rights, in having a state that isn't there to spoil you,
       | but grant basic service to allow you to shape your life the way
       | you want it. Instead, Europeans hunger for "the state", thrive
       | under more and more "protection rules" and supervision over the
       | economy.
       | 
       | Anything and everything that requires financial and economic
       | freedom is deemed suspicious and under the disguise of equality
       | needs to be taxed into the ground.
       | 
       | Almost no one takes offense by the fact that the predominant
       | topics in the EU center around perceived life-style threads all
       | caused by one person thousands of miles away while wondering that
       | the quality of life and public service going down the hill and
       | every still existing local newspaper looks like an international
       | outlet like New York Times: local topics don't exist. Anything
       | and everything has to be linked to something that can be linked
       | to "the fight against XYZ" not simply pragmatism or anything
       | rational.
       | 
       | In Germany there is a former major party imploding in record
       | time, having absolutely no representation anymore. And what these
       | radicals do, is building a self-serving kraken, that checks off
       | any and every checkmark of an totalitarian playbook.
       | 
       | And this shall be the basis for making my future depend an
       | services having to exist within these given circumstances?
       | 
       | The genius thing about US constitution is the inherit limitation
       | of terms. You see exactly the opposite in anything and everything
       | in the EU and Germany. 14 or 16+ years of being in control means
       | there was never any need to readjust.
       | 
       | I am more than happy and willing to move everything out of the
       | EU.
       | 
       | Given the fact that europeans think, that a "Hosted in the EU"
       | service is 100% European (whatever the term means) is some sort
       | of discriminatory - something that is dealing with the double
       | standard rampant in the EU.
       | 
       | BTW, I am still waiting for full autonomy: nothing from Github or
       | any open source project that traces back to Github was used in
       | this service.
       | 
       | European arrogance is so disgusting. Instead of simply changing
       | the tune and accepting the fact, that different circumstances
       | lead to different results, there is some sort of ego distorting
       | the decision making process.
       | 
       | How much more evidence is needed, that the EU is lost compared to
       | services done in the US? And you should look at the whole
       | picture, instead of using your gut to draw conclusions.
       | 
       | I admire and acknowledge anything and everything that has been
       | achieved in the US in regards to Computer Science.
       | 
       | I will never ever migrate to the EU. Never.
        
         | Ylpertnodi wrote:
         | > European here. > in Germany....
         | 
         | We're not all Germany over here.
        
         | oblio wrote:
         | Linus Torvalds is Finnish.
         | 
         | Guido Van Rossum is Dutch.
         | 
         | Anders Hejlsberg is Danish.
         | 
         | Bjarne Stroustroup is Danish (I think?).
         | 
         | Rasmus Lersdorf is Danish.
         | 
         | Bram Molenaar was Dutch.
         | 
         | Edgar Dijkstra was Dutch.
         | 
         | Niklaus Wirth was Swiss.
         | 
         | Andrei Alexandrescu is Romanian.
         | 
         | I can probably think of many others.
         | 
         | The US is good at inventing things but it's amazing at
         | marketing them and making money and drawing others to do the
         | inventing for them.
        
         | keybored wrote:
         | I haven't talked to all Europeans, like Albanians, but I can't
         | imagine that we all monomaniacally obsess about all the
         | trending culture war talking points. Like you just breathlessly
         | throw out Child Protection Rules at the end of a sentence. Huh?
         | 
         | Is one supposed to go over such a laundry list/dump of talking
         | points one by one? It hardly seems serious.
        
         | saulapremium wrote:
         | Mate, you need to work on your communication skills. Or just
         | get an LLM to boils things down a bit.
        
       | cdrnsf wrote:
       | Migrating away from US services altogether is an admirable goal.
       | In cases where that's not possible, it's still worth moving off
       | the services and platforms offered by large tech companies.
        
       | levmiseri wrote:
       | For a European alternative to Google Docs / Notion, we made
       | https://kraa.io/about that might work for you if all you need is
       | a simple editor with collab features.
        
       | XCSme wrote:
       | Shameless plug: if you think about switching from Google
       | Analytics/Hotjar, check out my project[0] (built in EU, started
       | in Romania, now working on it remotely in Netherlands).
       | 
       | If not, happy to hear any criticism or the alternatives you
       | decided to go with instead.
       | 
       | [0]: https://www.uxwizz.com
        
       | stronglikedan wrote:
       | What a waste of time. It's all the same regardless of location.
       | There's better things to do than worry about bogeymen.
        
       | leftytak wrote:
       | I'd like to get out of the matrix as much as the next guy, but I
       | haven't found any reliable alternatives that actually provide
       | equivalent services.
       | 
       | And in terms of degoogled phones, I like the idea, but the
       | conspiracy theorist in me tells me, "hhhhmmmm, people are leaving
       | the google / apple ecosystem, and the best phones out there for
       | degooling is Pixel phones by google..."
       | 
       | That's like the best move Google made, their "free" services are
       | the main driver for selling their phones.
        
       | whiterose1214 wrote:
       | Lot of discussion about different privacy laws across
       | jurisdictions, and while I understand a lot of users have
       | different approaches to privacy and opinions on political
       | matters, realistically if your threat model is the NSA or some
       | other three-letter agency:
       | 
       | a) migrating to a different jurisdiction isn't realistically a
       | massive barrier for them (related:
       | https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf)
       | 
       | b) if they're taking the time to get a "secret" warrant for you,
       | you have much larger issues. It's like building a car that's
       | resistant to hellfire missiles. It'll help, but if you're getting
       | hellfire missiles thrown at you, you have much larger problems
       | than the structural integrity of your vehicle.
       | 
       | Realistically, there's a reason that a lot of these services are
       | underused. Many of them lack reliable support, many of them
       | aren't as useful, and the vast majority lack the
       | interconnectivity that makes services like Drive and Gmail so
       | useful to the vast majority of consumers. In addition, if your
       | evaluation of the utility of US companies is based on which party
       | is in power, you should know that both parties equally don't care
       | about your privacy, and never have.
        
         | jrexilius wrote:
         | If your threat model is the NSA, moving to non-US providers
         | actually lowers the barrier as they no longer have to deal with
         | the US constitution and US citizen data. If your threat model
         | is law enforcement (or border/customs, et al), moving to EU
         | really doesn't cause much in the way of speed bumps.
         | 
         | In my opinion though, the real threat model is not the actual
         | government, its the US corporations. The NSA wont sell your
         | information to any bad actor with a credit card and,
         | realistically, doesn't care about you. But there is much that
         | can be stolen or exploited for financially-motivated bad-actors
         | from non-extradition countries or others with differing
         | interests than your own.
        
         | cjs_ac wrote:
         | Yeah, sure, but this idea that the government is the threat
         | you're defending against is very American. I'm not saying I
         | trust my government with a lot of my personal data, but they're
         | not the most important threat I'm defending against when I look
         | after my privacy online.
        
         | mixmastamyk wrote:
         | Defeatism; alternatives don't have to be perfect to be useful.
         | In other words, it's a journey, not a destination.
        
           | whiterose1214 wrote:
           | Totally get what you're saying, and improving personal
           | security can also be fun as a mental exercise. It's just
           | there's a lot comments in this thread (hundreds) about how
           | you can migrate EU to escape USG surveillance, which is just
           | not realistic.
        
       | jwr wrote:
       | I can recommend:
       | 
       | * Hetzner.de for servers (I've been using their physical servers
       | for many years now, incredible performance per EUR spent)
       | 
       | * Fernand as your CRM, it's smooth and nice and so much better
       | and faster than all the zendesks and freshdesks it's not even
       | funny. (https://getfernand.com/)
       | 
       | * AISLER if you design electronics and need to make PCBs
       | (https://aisler.net/)
        
         | matt-p wrote:
         | AISLER are AMAZING at printing boards, but sadly are very very
         | expensive for assembly.
         | 
         | Love them though.
        
         | deepsun wrote:
         | Thanks, just a note that by "CRM" people typically think of
         | Sales (Salesforce, Hubspot etc), not Support (zendesks and
         | freshdesks).
        
           | perch56 wrote:
           | Ehm sorry but no. CRM stands for Customer Relationship
           | Management so ... a support ticket is, by definition, a
           | customer relationship event.
           | 
           | Salesforce spending millions to conflate "CRM" with "sales
           | pipeline" was just marketing.
           | 
           | Also, Zendesk calls itself a CRM. Freshdesk's parent is
           | literally named Freshworks CRM. Gartner and Forrester have
           | always put support under the CRM umbrella.
        
         | varispeed wrote:
         | I like that German company offers Blitz service. Tempted to
         | order something from the UK.
        
           | matt-p wrote:
           | You do pay import tax, plus admin fee to the carrier - or did
           | last time I ordered. But factoring it in its still a great
           | deal.
        
             | varispeed wrote:
             | That's fine. Same from China etc.
        
         | frevib wrote:
         | Scaleway for cloud: great UI, CLI, Terraform. Like you've never
         | left Azure.
        
           | antonkochubey wrote:
           | >great
           | 
           | >like you've never left Azure
           | 
           | hmmmmmm
        
       | esher wrote:
       | I don't like all the 'us against them' rhetoric going on. All
       | that European alternatives talk is not much better than America
       | first.
        
         | Insanity wrote:
         | It's a geopolitical reality. Not liking the 'us against them'
         | mentality is fair enough, I agree with that, but we can't be
         | blind to what's happening around us.
         | 
         | Also, I do think that there's benefit to opting for EU
         | products, as they are generally more 'consumer-rights' friendly
         | than the US alternatives.
        
         | vages wrote:
         | Most of the articles I read about this is about showing that
         | going all-European is possible at all. If that feels like it's
         | an us vs. them thing, I'm not sure how I could change your
         | mind.
        
       | malbs wrote:
       | For email, I've been using migadu for a number of years now. Very
       | happy with the service/support I get for the amount I pay per
       | year
        
       | moltar wrote:
       | Fastmail is Australian
        
       | ellieh wrote:
       | > Codeberg is a German-based nonprofit organization, and it's
       | hard to imagine going wrong with this choice.
       | 
       | I like what they're doing, however Codeberg's 14 day uptime is
       | _97.05%_. I've heard from many that downtime is normal there, and
       | is worse than GitHub (which is already... bad). This makes them a
       | non-starter imo, until that improves.
       | 
       | With the current trend of things going down _all the time_ , the
       | best way to compete is just to be available.
        
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