Easy switches to replace American big tech

[CambridgeCats]

I am interested in making small changes away from American big tech and over to European / British models. I’m appalled by the US tech bros stranglehold on us and the US administration’s approach to Europe and I feel that if more people switched we could help shore up UK/ EU tech capabilities / competitiveness and back ourselves basically.

its not always easy but there are a few really easy quick things everyone can do. Firstly we can switch from Google as our default search engine to Ecosia or Mojeek. Ecosia is a German not-for-profit which commits all its profits to climate action and Mojeek is a British search engine based in Britain which promises not to track users data.

I have changed my default search engines on my phone and laptop.

I’m also looking at changing my browser to Librewolf. I’m also trying to avoid Amazon as my default online shop and use John Lewis where items are the same.

Easily done if you care about this stuff!

For anyone interested I found this article really helpful. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/26/how-to-replace-amazon-google-x-meta-apple-alternatives?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Thanks for the reminder.

Until you look deeper into something like librewolf and the core of the browser engine is written by….. an organisation based in the US.

Its just a fork of Firefox

Yes I looked at this a few weeks ago, except it's all underpinned by Google, Microsoft or Amazon Web Services, or other US tech. It's also woven into many people's working lives. It probably underpins this forum.

So essentially, it's too late.

Argos offer fast delivery on many items. (Even same day if you order early enough)

Ecosia is just Bing is just Microsoft. Mojeek is independent though.

Ten reasons to avoid Amazon.Ethical Consumer article

And their reviews are genuine.

Not the case for all of these ideas, eg Mojeek.

i think if we just roll over and say “it’s too late” and continue to enjoy the convenience of the US big tech we are not helping.

we need to look critically and take the small steps we can.

This is just never going to happen, and it's our own fault really. Europe chose not to invest in big tech, to leave it all to the US and China. We've wasted decades. Even after Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany and the EU could have gone for a moonshot on renewables and been free of Russian gas and oil by now. Instead they are still sending them tens of billions a year for fuel, while supposedly enforcing economic sanctions. It's a joke.

Unfortunately, the EU and UK have made national level infrastructure decisions that mean we’ll never be able to compete with the US for big tech, and a lot of switch outs will be for substandard products. There isn’t the power grid structure for the data centres we currently have, much less for what would be needed for us to compete in an AI led tech global marketplace.

Added to that that the US legislature is much more accommodating to start ups and innovation than certainly the UK, even if every EU/UK citizen boycotted US big tech, we are decades away from having any sort of truly competitive options across the board.

Weirdly my dh sent the exact same article to me today OP! I get other posters points that it’s not going to be easy but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, any little thing we can do - like using Argos or JL will at least make me feel better than relying on Amazon prime!

And yes I’m bloody cross that our Governments and EU didn’t invest in big tech and renewable energies when they should have been.

I didn't mean we should just roll over, more that my argument was that we didn't take the small steps fast enough and now it's incredibly difficult to untangle. For example, you don't use Amazon and have switched to JL, but JL uses Google Cloud platform for its infrastructure. Mumsnet is on Amazon Web Services I believe. So it's the entanglement, we just don't have the alternatives.

Of course, there is an alternative to stop using the internet. Buy a European mobile phone. Only shop locally. There are indeed always choices.

You can make choices, but please remember that many businesses that appear to be American (eg amazon, eBay, McDonald’s) are often either franchises that are British owned or small British businesses which list on the us platforms. My local McDonald’s franchise is owned by a local family who employ many local people including 6th form students (it’s really hard to get a part time job currently) and also returners to work who need set shifts, im not boycotting them as it’s hurting my local community. Same goes for amazon marketplace retailers (though do check and see if they sell direct!)

Start with dumping windows - with the added bonus that Linux needs much less grunt to run better than Microsofts slop. Which will be handy as new kit becomes much more expensive.

Get ChatGPT to help you setup. Most Windows users tend towards Linux Mint.

Avoiding Google and Amazon (Web services) is less easy - depends what you are doing.

I would also recommend Mistral to replace ChatGPT. In some benchmarks it actually comes out ahead of ChatGPT, is based out of France and will likely be the default European AI provider before long.

It’s called Le Chat which I find quite cute.

Spotify is Swedish I think

Ooh yes I forgot to mention LeChat! That’s my next switch! I have chat gpt plus account for work and have therefore been using it a lot for things and am already worried how much it knows about me.