Buy European

Well, I left reddit and now I am here.

I bought a pair of Mustangs (German brand) instead of buying new Converses, and I'm very pleased by them.

A small win, but still a win.

Bit by bit moving everything off Google Docs and into CryptPad.

Switched from Tidal to Qobuz.

I ditched Gmail for protonmail

Left Amazon a while ago, which is a big win.

But for special items, I kept ebay. It's funny though, that some deliveries from ebay came with an Amazon packaging...

With Wero I hope, I can ditch Paypal soon.

Setup koofr on my gf's laptop recently so that we can use that for sharing documents

I just installed Ubuntu on my mom's laptop. I also considered Mint, but Ubuntu seems to me to be the distribution with the least risk of any major issues.

Either way, the point was to finally get away from Windows, especially since my mom doesn't use any applications for which there isn't a reliable Linux alternative anyway.

Donations to LibreOffice and so on have also been transferred - in the amount of the license costs for Windows 11 and MS Office for now.

bought a secrid wallet (Netherlands) and a silpat oven sheet (France) very pleased with both

Tbh: while I try to use/buy European products where I can, sometimes it's not practical (for lack of European manufacturers in a certain sector) or can't be attributed properly (because some products, such as free software, do not have a fixed "origin"). A lot of what I do can be more broadly described as "flipping off fascism", i.e. adopting products that are produced in democracies or compatible with democratic values.

Given this broad definition, here's a brief run-down of my 2025:

• immediate termination of Amazon account in early '25 and switch to Galaxus (Swiss), among other European online shops.
• bought Toshiba HDDs (JP) instead of my usual WDs and Seagates (both U.S.)
• switched about a dozen people and a company over to Linux (Mint)
• expanded homelab services to allow others to ditch big tech offers.
• growing determination and courage in others to switch away from harmful and/or hostile services, leading to the termination of several paid big tech subscriptions.

Dropped Google drive in favour of Filen

Just set up a mailbox account.

Before this it was probably some plus12 socks.

I ditched my iPhone for a Fairphone 6 with /e/OS. That was over six months ago now, but I'm still very happy about the switch!

Also bought some new winter boots last week. Swedish brand (Sneaky Steve), produced in Portugal.

Just an hour ago I created a Proton account and transferred and redirected my gmail to it.

This is going to be a loong process transferring our family drive over. And I'm sure there will be some change resistance inside the family.

I'm replacing my old and battered Marshal headphones with some Repeat ones (repeat.audio) from the Netherlands. Also opened an account (Standard) with Mailbox.org, quite pleased. Currently analyzing/considering moving from Spotify to Qobuz.

I dropped:

• 1password
• NordVPN
• Gmail
• Google Drive
• Google Docs
• Claude

And replaced all of them with a Proton family subscription. Amazing change tbh, highly recommend it.

I am migrating my data from onedrive to nextcloud.

Switched our company‘s Backup from Backblaze to Infomaniak (swiss). In addition to simple backup we really enjoy the cloud features for team collaboration (ksuite). Turns out that they offer excellent Email service as well (they offer a super essy email import tool, so the move of all coworker‘s emails was a breeze). And all that for less than what we paid at Backblaze for just backup. Best decision ever.

reMarkable, E Ink writing tablet.
It has a pressure sensitive marker that you can draw with like a wacom tablet, runs a Linux os you can ssh into and do tons of custom stuff with... It's just wonderful.

Bought cannabis seeds from a European breeder.

A pizza

A pair of locking pliers from Parkside. My brain defaults to aliexpress or amazon, but checked Lidl as they tend to have ok tools at ok price.

will try on the weekend, already look better and cheaper than anything in amazon.

Finally set up email forwarding from my gmail to my proton account (since I already pay for the vpn)

CMF (by Nothing) Buds 2. Really inexpensive and surprisingly good sound quality earbuds.

I set up a self hosted nextcloud on my homeserver

Ditched Bridgstone and got some Mitas enduro trail+ for my bike.

I have a Proton Unlimited subscription which has replaced Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, and Express VPN. Proton is a fantastic company. Definitely worth the money.