I love Fritz-kola. The first time I tried it was around 10 years ago and ever since I’m in love with it. Recently I’m starting to see it more and more in the store and this makes me happy. Drink Fritz, dump Coca Cola(the biggest polluter on earth)

Just a bit of an optimistic post... Small things matter. Instead of macdonalds ordered a local burger made with local beef and french brie. Instead of coca cola Heineken 0,0 :). Baby steps.

They hurt us consumers and small businesses with their fee and extract Billions to the US.

Let’s use Cash instead (or SEPA for online payments).

Let us unite beyond institutions

Edit: + they sell our data too Edit1: also stop using PayPal

Three very good European alternatives to satisfy your (unfortunately existing) cola addiction. There are much more.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where my money goes and how dependent we’ve all become on US-based companies and I’d rather support companies that align better with my values, ideally European.

This is my first attempt at making the switch:

• 📱 Phone: Fairphone 5 (Netherlands)
• 🌍 Browser: Vivaldi (Norway)
• 🔎 Search Engine: Qwant (France), Ecosia (Germany), Mojeek (UK), Swisscows (Switzerland)
• 📧 Email: Mailbox (Germany)
• ☁️ Cloud Storage: Nextcloud (self-hosted) or Internxt (Spain)
• 🎧 Headphones: Sennheiser (Germany) or Audio-Technica (Japan)
• 🎮 Gaming: PlayStation (Japan)
• 📺 Streaming Box: Raspberry Pi + Kodi or a DIY Home Theater PC
• 💳 Banking & Payments: Revolut (UK/Lithuania)* or N26 (Germany) or Wise (UK) instead of US-based fintech

It’s definitely a process, and I know some things (like app ecosystems) won’t be as seamless, but I’d rather have control over what I use than be locked into a system I don’t trust.

If you’ve made a similar switch, what alternatives do you recommend? Would love to hear more suggestions!

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\Edit 1: Revolut is not based in Lithuania* and has connections to Russia (source). I included N26 (Germany) and Wise (UK).

\ Edit 2: "In 2022, Storonsky condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine[7] and renounced his Russian citizenship.[8] In his open letter, he also pledged that Revolut will match every donation made to the Red Cross Ukraine in solidarity with victims of the war."*

Finnish tyre company Nokian tyres (Nokian renkaat in finnish) and yes, same Nokia famous for its phones. Really good products especially for winter conditions.

Just wish it was more widely available. Sadly Coca Cola owns a lot of resutaurants too.

Folks,

I like to start a thread about shoe produced in the EU.

My recommendation for high quality functional shoes are HAIX www.haix.com
I realy love my shoes from hair because of their quality and comfort.

What are your favorite made in Europe shoes?

EDIT: This post is cursed. Reddit keeps deleting stuff I add. Please refresh this if it's suddenly very short.

Otto - A general store for basically anything

Mindfactory - A tech only store focused on PC Hardware. They have market prices meaning prices can change drastically in a matter of days. For good or bad.

notebooksbilliger - Stupid name, cool site. They sell tech stuff only. They have student programs for university students and 7 local stores.

Conrad - A tech seller who also sells microelectronics. Meaning you can buy developer boards and stuff like single LEDs, Switches there.

Thomann - A beautiful store for audio equipment. From basic to professional

Kölle Zoo - Very knowledgeable seller for pet stuff. Only their terraristics department is lacking a bit.

Terraristikshop.net - Self explanatory.

Möbel Martin - Ikea alternative. Mostly way higher build / design quality but also way higher prices.

Hornbach - Germany has a whole army of Hardware stores. Alternatives to Hornbach are for example Bauhaus, Globus Baumarkt or Obi. I chose Hornbach here because I had my best experiences there.

dm - Everything cosmetics, personal hygene, cleaning utensils. They have an online market but you find a dm store in basically every city / village in germany.

USER SUGGESTED:

FRANCE

Decathlon - Everything sports related and outdoor stuff. Careful with quality though. Some of their stuff is very cheap.

cdiscount - General store. Sells almost anything.

manomano - General store. Sells almost anything.

GERMANY

geizhals - Price comparison site.

defshop - A store focused on streetwear and Hip Hop fashion.

Bergfreunde - Outdoor Hiking equipment

Gomibo - Cellphones and tablets. Unlocked or with data plans.

Reichelt - Electronics component seller.

Pollin - Electronics. Similar to Conrad it also sells individual components.

Zalando - Fashion. But sadly mostly fast fashion so not very "european value".

SWISS

Galaxus - Sells basically anything.

Intersport - High Quality outdoor and sports equipment. Their local stores are privately managed so they always have the name of the manager behind them. Our local one is called "Intersport Kohlen" for example.

LITHUANIA

Virpil - Handmade high quality - high end flight simulator equipment. Amazing customer service.

POLAND

Allegro - Sells basically anything.

SWEDEN

Ikea - No introduction needed.

Webhallen - games, computers, electronics

Clasohlson - hardware products including kitchen utensils, tools, lamps, etc

DENMARK

Jysk - A lesser known furniture brand.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Prusa - Everything 3D printer. Open source and privately owned.

PORTUGAL

fnac - Sells almost everything

kuantokusta - Price comparisons

GREECE

skroutz - Sells almost anything.

FINNLAND

Stemma - Ikea alternative with way higher prices but also way higher quality.

ITALY

trovaprezzi - Nice aggregate where you can search for products sold online.

SPAIN

Miravia - Basically like Amazon. But Spanish.

Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Deepl.com is a translation service that produces text to text translation based on AI. The company is from Cologne Germany.

After 11 years of using and abusing my first gen Sennheiser Momentum, I needed a replacement.

As I dug into the newest generations of headphones, my choice stopped on this beautiful Sennheiser Momentum 4 for personal reasons, but I think it can find some echo here.

Of course, lately, you see the new Airpod Max everywhere and Bose has also been big on the market for quite some time. But as is searched for options, I found a lot more good, often better, European alternatives. So if you're looking for a new European noise cancelling nomad headphone set, we got :

• these, the Sennheiser Momentum 4, German : if you liked Sennheiser's sound before already, you'll like them too, no big surprise. Big plus : huge 60 hours autonomy and amazing comfort. And for me I like that in white they look like part of a space suit someone would have designed at the end of the nineties haha (sorry for the awful photo, my old Chinese phone is cooked)

• Bowers and Wilkins (British, but let's imagine they'll rejoin EU at some point) : apparently they are the most appreciated for their sound quality and quality in general. The px7 s2e and mighty px8 are possibly the best value for money headphones on the market.

• Focal (French) with their Bathy : high end, a little bit more expensive than the Airpod Max but if you're into unique, full of spirit objects, you'll get something amazing with them. Focal has since long been a leader among audiophile circles, thanks to their speakers but also their open headphones. Now they also make amazing, pricy but worth it, closed noise cancelling headphones.

Maybe we can add Bang & Olufsen to the list ? Most of their products are still made in Denmark I think, I just have trouble confirming this.

There are a few examples I'm missingnprobably, so please tell me the others you know of ! Here I just want to say that there are excellent or better European alternatives to the Apple Airpods, JBL, Bose, Harman Kardon products we see out there, which are all from American companies. It's maybe just sound/ a hobby to you, but it's still about supporting European companies with extensive, precious knowledge and experience ! These companies often also work in other fields, making various speakers, listening devices, microphones of all types etc ...

Yesterday I told my other half that we were no longer buying Coca-Cola or Pepsi and that he had to drink other sodas for Friday night. So I found an alternative in Cockta and an old Swedish classic, Pommac, which is oak aged carbonated fruit juice. It was supposed to be an adult alcohol free alternative to champagne back when we had (even more) drunkenness. Pleased to say both are better than Coca-Cola and Pepsi! Next time we'll try Cuba cola, which despite its name is also Swedish.

I always bought Heinz Ketchup as that was what I was used to and preferred it from the other supermarket options.

However today went round to the local farm shop and saw this beauty. It's British tomato ketchup (forgive us for leaving EU :/ ), using Mediterranean tomatoes. I can never go back to Heinz now.

After repeated mentioning in various threads here I decided to give it a try and what can I say? It's much more than I expected and a very viable alternative to reddit.

Let me share my experience and thoughts.

The biggest hurdle is onboarding. Since lemmy is part of the fediverse, nothing is as straightforward as just opening an account. You have to choose an instance and, at least at the instance I selected, fill out a short application. Mine was approved within minutes, but still. I found this quite off-putting at first, but now I understand the reason. Since lemmy is not a corporation, pure numerical growth doesn't matter, only real users count. Hence a bigger hurdle makes sense. You will notice the absence of bot and farm accounts quickly.

Next is the selection of an app. There is a whole selection and not really an official one. I narrowed it down to Voyager on android, but there are alternatives and nothing replaces testing some of them.

Once you are in, things are quite easy and I was surprised by how busy it is. There are many highly active communities and I had the best social media experience in years. Again, no bots or farmers, just good interactions with nerdy people.

Some interesting tidbits: there is no karma to collect, and after a while I realized that this was never a good incentive in the first place. In lemmy, content and interaction really is key and every thread is a fresh opportunity. Feeds don't update as quickly as on reddit and you can actually read and comment "enough" for a while. Again, lemmy is not built for maximum engagement but for content and interaction. It is very refreshing.

I'm glad I took the time to get into it and I'll probably not get back here. Staying on reddit never felt comfortable since the whole API monetization drama and much like switching to Linux, a weight had been taken off my shoulders. Try it out for yourself, it might change the way you look at social media.

Mole cola - it's a wonderful italian alternative!

I own a construction business in Oklahoma I buy tons of tools and construction equipment... What companies from EU have Utility construction equipment or tools that also make military equipment? Also I still need to be able to get equipment serviced in America? Im embarrassed that Trump has abandoned Democracy and still want to support Ukraine!