We live in an increasingly digitalized society 🌐, with growing access to a wide range of digital products. Due to strong, sometimes aggressive marketing strategies 📢, we often gravitate towards products from tech giants like Google or Microsoft, sometimes at the detriment of small start-ups offering equal or higher quality services. We argue that the intentions and decisions of tech giants are not always ethical ⚖️, often driven by profit and political interests, despite concerns about sustainability, privacy 🔒, and market monopolies.

We are kicking off SoftwareEU, a project run at Network Institute with weekly spotlights on European alternatives to digital services we use every day. The SoftwareEU campaign is dedicated to promoting EU digital services 🇪🇺 that adhere to computer science and societal ethics, especially privacy, sustainability, fair competition, and open-source principles. This initiative will feature weekly posts introducing European alternatives to commonly used digital services and products, such as cloud services or software-as-a-service platforms.

We mainly use resources from European Alternatives, a platform offering a comprehensive list of European digital tools and services across various categories. European Alternatives presents tools developed, hosted, and operated within the EU, EEA, EFTA, or DCFTA regions, as well as open-source projects that can be self-hosted.

This initiative supports a safer, more ethical, and competitive digital ecosystem in Europe, empowering users and businesses to choose alternatives that respect their rights and values.