This is an update on my european setup since my last post. Yeah, I know WhatsApp belongs to Meta and is handing over all my data to the US, Israel, Iran, China, the Vatican, and Mars, but for personal reasons, I can’t ditch it right now. How can I improve my setup?
Ditch Uber for Bolt. They’re European and pay the drivers a bit better
Or use local by phone call.
I’ve heard of Bolt, but I can’t use it as an alternative because I’m not European (as ironic as that may be); I’m Latin American. I prefer using services from EU countries because I admire their privacy laws.
Get Signal, maybe some of your contacts are already on it!
Thanks for this! Switched from Organic Maps.
That looks a lot like Organic Maps 🤔. Oh, I see, it’s a fork.
I can’t really leave WhatsApp at the moment, but some European clients called “Haiket” and “Birdychat” were recommended to me for WhatsApp, so I’m going to try using them.
Use Bolt instead of Uber. An actual European service from Estonia.
Edit: and if you want to be more European in this regard, use your city’s public transit. There might be an app for it too.
I can’t use Bolt because I’m not European, but that last suggestion is actually quite interesting.
Ah, I see. Well, I hope that helps too. Plus there are apps that use the @transitous database. Maybe your city is there too.
Not truly European setup. Besides Meta apps, Play store, Uber, Kagi and Roblox at least aren’t European.
it’s for reasons like this that I wrote “how can I improve my setup?” at the end of the post, with the intention of having people point out the mistakes and suggest alternatives, not just point out the flaws—that’s only half the job you should be doing, bro!
I’m so disappointed to learn that Europe has Uber
We do but we mostly prefer Bolt, though it depends per country. Personally I only used Bolt once, and Uber zero times (though I’ve used Uber Eats multiple times before)
Actually, I’m not European, I’m Latin American, but I like to make sure the services I use daily are from EU countries, since I really admire their privacy laws. As for Uber, there’s not much I can do; I need it to get around in my day-to-day life, and I can’t replace it with other apps.
I’ve just been using taxis, same as always
there are very few taxis in the places I go to
Kagi is not European, it’s from U.S.
it’s for reasons like this that I put “how can I improve my setup?” at the end of the post; I want suggestions on how to replace the apps that aren’t European
I know WhatsApp belongs to Meta and is handing over all my data to the US, Israel, Iran, China, the Vatican, and Mars, but for personal reasons, I can’t ditch it right now
You can y’know… - Old article, they work now
Birdychat is from Latvia - Madeometer
Haiket is from Cuba (I think), - Madeometer
Both are interopereable with whatsapp while we wait for the others.
I didn’t know either of them, I found it interesting, I might try using one of them, thanks for the suggestion.
Notesnook looks very nice but is Pakistani, right? Does anyone have any other good European suggestions? I’ve been using Joplin for a while but feel that it’s a bit clunky.
You can replace the play store by aurora store, at least try it (I’m kot sure it’s always working)
I already use Aurora Store; the problem is that without it, some apps that are extremely important to me stop working.
I hate heliboard. It’s as if the developers deliberately design keyboards that are slightly wrong every single time.
What don’t you like about it ? Can you pinpoint it ? I use this keyboard as my main keyboard and that’s the first app I reinstall when I set up my phone.
Look, I used to use Gboard, and Heliboard was the one I liked the most (maybe because it looks like the old keyboard I used to use). Heliboard isn’t perfect out of the box, but if you take a few minutes to set it up, it becomes perfect. For example, when I install it, the first thing I do is increase the font size to 120%, because I think the letters are too small at 100%. I tried using Futo Keyboard but I thought it was awful; maybe it’s partly my fault because I didn’t take the time to configure it properly.
May I recommend OpenBoard? It’s discontinued but simplistic and works great. :)
