There’s not much to love about big tech these days. So many problems can be blamed on it: social media harms, misinformation, polarization, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance—the list goes on. To make matters worse, Silicon Valley’s leaders seem all too eager to cozy up to the Trump administration, showering the president with bribes—sorry, gifts—while staying silent about his growing political overreach. And that’s before we even get to the rampant “enshittification,” as tech writer Cory Doctorow calls it, where many big tech products have become less useful and more exploitative by design compared to when we first signed up.
We’ve entered into a Faustian bargain with these companies. “While it’s brilliant to have access to high-quality products and software, often for ‘free,’ it’s important to remember there’s a trade-off—usually involving our personal data and privacy,” says Lisa Barber, tech editor at Which? We give these companies our attention and information, which they then turn into massive profits and seemingly unshakeable monopolies.
But the good news is we can go elsewhere. The rest of the world is reevaluating its reliance on U.S. technologies, especially in Europe, where we’re realizing there are better alternatives to almost everything big tech is pushing—if by “better” we mean greener, more ethical, more independent, more respectful of your privacy, or simply less disturbingly powerful. Making the switch is easier than you might think. Here are a few suggestions.
Search
Google has held about 90% of the search market for the past decade, but it’s often no better—and sometimes demonstrably worse—than its rivals, possibly on purpose. Doctorow has called Google “the poster child for enshittification,” citing its alleged strategy of worsening search quality to keep users on the site longer. However, changing the default search engine on any device is extremely easy.
I’ve been using Ecosia for years. Instead of using your searches to fill corporate coffers, it uses them to plant trees. The Berlin-based company claims to have planted nearly 250 million trees since launching in 2009 (you can even get a personal counter to track your impact). Ecosia commits 100% of its profits to climate action (over €100 million so far), produces more clean energy than it consumes through its own solar plants, and collects minimal user data. Admittedly, Ecosia’s search results aren’t always as thorough as Google’s (in the “news” category, for example), though the toolbar does offer options to search via Google or Bing if needed.
Too good to be true? A little. Like many search alternatives, Ecosia is fundamentally powered by Microsoft’s Bing (Yahoo and DuckDuckGo also rely on Bing to some extent). It only makes money when users click on ads, so if you ignore the ads, you’re not planting trees. For a genuine alternative, there’s UK-based Mojeek, whose search results are 100% independent of Google or Bing, and which promises not to track users or collect their information—meaning everyone gets exactly the same search results (unlike Google or Bing). The French company Qwant is similarly privacy-focused (its slogan is “The search engine that values you as a user, not as a product”) and is now mostly independent, having started out based on Bing. It’s now partnering with Ecosia to build a new “European search index.”
Browser
Our browsers are often the applications we spend the most time using online, and most of us unquestioningly adopt the default one for whichever ecosystem we’re locked into: Chrome for Google and Android, Safari for Apple, Edge for Microsoft. These three make up about 90% of the market. Our browsingTracking activity allows these companies to gather huge amounts of data about our personal habits, which they then use to market to advertisers or sell to third parties. Fortunately, there are good U.S.-based alternatives in this area, like Mozilla Firefox, which is open-source and offers strong security and privacy. For even greater privacy, there’s LibreWolf—a free, equally effective version of Firefox developed by the German nonprofit Codeberg.
Another major player is Opera, originally created in Norway 30 years ago but now mostly owned by a Chinese company. However, in 2015, Opera’s founder Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner launched a new independent browser called Vivaldi. Based in Norway and Iceland—”where privacy rules are strong, keeping your data safe from big tech’s endless hunger for personal information to sell to advertisers”—Vivaldi reports having 4 million users worldwide. Its highly customizable interface can be a lot to take in, but as PC World noted, “there’s nothing I want to do with Vivaldi that I can’t, and nothing that it wants me to do that it insists upon.”
The top three email providers—Apple’s iCloud, Google’s Gmail, and Microsoft’s Outlook—account for about three-quarters of the market, largely because they’re deeply integrated into each company’s other products. Again, they are quite invasive, tracking your activity to build a profile of you. But there are many more private and secure options that do essentially the same thing.
For example, over 100 million people use Proton Mail, whose slogan is “A better internet starts with privacy and freedom.” This Switzerland-based email service offers stronger end-to-end encryption than Gmail or Outlook (Proton’s VPN service is also popular). Notably, the first email new subscribers receive explains how to “set up automatic forwarding from Gmail in one click.” The free version only provides 1GB of storage, compared to Gmail’s 15GB. If you want more storage—up to 1TB—you’ll need to pay. As Ruaridh Fraser, a tech writer and reviewer at Ethical Consumer, points out, this is common among these competitors: “If you’re not selling data, you need to get money somewhere else. But a lot of people might quite reasonably feel that, actually, £1 a month is very worth it.”
There are also greener alternatives. Berlin-based Tuta claims to run on 100% renewable energy and has a strong privacy policy. The UK nonprofit GreenNet also says it is 100% renewable and sustainability-focused in every aspect, though it costs £60 a year. It ranked highest in Ethical Consumer’s ratings, where Gmail and Outlook both scored zero.
Office Tools
It once seemed like Microsoft Office—Word, Excel, PowerPoint—was the only option, and for many businesses, it still is, though Apple and Google offer their own competing suites. Recently, Microsoft’s role as a foundation of IT infrastructure for businesses and governments has come under scrutiny, as has Europe’s broader reliance on big tech.
Microsoft executives had to deny allegations that they threatened to cut off email services to the International Criminal Court last year after the U.S. imposed sanctions on the ICC for issuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Prosecutor Karim Khan’s email was cut off, but Microsoft denied direct responsibility. Last November, ICC judge Nicolas Guillou also lost access overnight to many U.S.-controlled digital services like PayPal, Expedia, and Airbnb. Additionally, Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform was linked last year to an Israeli military mass surveillance program targeting Palestinians.In Gaza and the West Bank, Microsoft terminated its service last September. Given such developments, many European governments are concerned about their reliance on U.S. technology and are looking for alternatives. Several, including Austria’s military and local governments in Germany and France, are switching to LibreOffice, which is developed by the nonprofit Document Foundation based in Berlin. Businesses and individuals are following suit. Ethical Consumer has been using LibreOffice for a while, says Fraser. “It’s an open-source version of Word and all the Office tools. It works and looks basically the same.”
Smartphones
Apple’s prominent position in the tech world is largely due to its sleek hardware—iPhones account for about half of its revenue—and its tight control over the iOS App Store, where it charges a 30% commission on sales (similar to Google Play). However, regardless of the brand, smartphone production often involves exploitative labor and questionable sourcing of raw materials. They also tend to have surprisingly short lifespans, pushing consumers to upgrade every few years. While companies like Apple have improved their sustainability and repairability efforts in recent years, you’re still indirectly supporting actions like CEO Tim Cook awarding a questionable gold trophy to Donald Trump.
Leading the ethical smartphone market by a wide margin is the Dutch brand Fairphone. Its products receive consistently positive reviews, and the brand scored an impressive 98 out of 100 in Ethical Consumer’s survey, which evaluates factors like climate policies, conflict minerals, company ethos, and repairability. In comparison, Apple scored 25 and Samsung 17. “Fairphone is the clear winner for us,” says Fraser. He explains that when conflict minerals and exploitative supply chains became a major issue about a decade ago, most companies responded with superficial measures, but “Fairphone chose to engage directly with artisanal miners, working on the ground to create transparent, traceable supply chains. It’s very genuine—not greenwashing.”
Other options include UK-based Nothing, which produces stylish, semi-transparent phones, and France’s Crosscall, known for sustainable, durable, waterproof models used by French police and national railways. There’s also privacy-focused Murena, another French brand. However, there’s a catch: most of these phones still rely on Google’s Android operating system. But any phone can be fully “de-Googled” by installing the /e/OS operating system, which comes standard on Murena phones and is developed by the global nonprofit e Foundation, largely based in Europe.
Shopping
Amazon’s dominance in retail is hard to match, with its competitive pricing, fast delivery, and vast selection. Yet, many find Jeff Bezos’s extravagant lifestyle, his management of the Washington Post, and the company’s apparent disregard for employee welfare hard to stomach—not to mention Amazon’s long history of tax avoidance, estimated to have cost the UK £575 million in lost tax revenue in 2024. Ethical Consumer has recommended boycotting Amazon since 2012.
The best alternative is to shop around. “Our general rule for buying online is to choose refurbished or secondhand items whenever possible,” says Fraser. “And there are really good markets for that.” For example, Backmarket is recommended for tech products because it’s French-owned, refurbishes items to a high standard, and offers consumer protection.
For secondhand books, Oxfam in the UK is a great starting point. For new books, Bookshop.org shares a portion of its profits with independent bookshops. When buying new products, look for eco-friendly stores.Companies like Veo and Shared Earth, or cooperatively run retailers that share profits and pay their taxes—John Lewis and the Co-op are shining examples in the UK. Which? also recommends Richer Sounds for new tech, praising its “unparalleled technical expertise” and noting that its price-matching service gives consumers confidence they are getting the right product at the right price. “For big-ticket appliances, John Lewis, Euronics, Lakeland, AO and Next boast not only an extensive range of options but are also highly rated for customer care,” says Barber.
Social Media
This is where things get tricky—not because there aren’t good alternatives to big platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, but because a social media platform needs a critical mass of users to work. So despite their harms, misinformation, and troubling tools like deepfake porn generators, these U.S. giants continue to dominate. But only because we let them.
The steady exodus from Elon Musk’s X has benefited smaller, independent alternatives such as U.S.-owned Bluesky and German-developed Mastodon. Their feeds contain far less hate, misinformation, bot-generated content, and AI “slop,” and they have appreciable followings—about 1.5 million and 800,000 monthly active users, respectively—though still dwarfed by Facebook (3 billion) and Instagram (2 billion).
A promising new contender is W, a fully European platform (unrelated to the EU, despite conspiracy theories). “We believe there is an urgent need for a new social media platform built, governed and hosted in Europe—with human verification, free speech and data privacy at its core,” said W’s CEO Anna Zeiter on LinkedIn. It launches in March.
Artificial Intelligence
Even more than other tech sectors, AI is dominated by deep-pocketed U.S. brands like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Given the enormous costs of chips, data centers, and other essentials, few others can compete—apart from China. But as the AI chat market matures, performance differences between rivals are shrinking.
If there’s a European contender, it’s France’s Mistral, founded in 2023 by former Google DeepMind and Meta staff. Its chatbot, Le Chat, is gaining ground on rivals like ChatGPT and Claude according to user reviews. It can handle tasks from coding to holiday planning and reportedly generates answers faster than other AIs—up to 1,000 words per second. It’s fluent in French, English, and other languages, and Mistral offers an open-source option, allowing anyone to download and modify it for free.
The company is transparent about confidentiality and privacy settings, draws on Agence France-Presse archives for accuracy, and operates its own data centers in France, with more under construction in Sweden. While its investors include Microsoft and Nvidia, Mistral isn’t entirely free of big tech influence—but it sees itself as “a major step toward Europe’s technological independence.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions Ditching the Tech Giants
Getting Started The Basics
Q What does ditching the tech giants even mean
A It means consciously reducing your reliance on major platforms like Amazon Google Meta Apple and X You swap their services for more private ethical or decentralized alternatives
Q Why would I even want to do this Isnt it a huge hassle
A People do it for privacy to avoid targeted advertising to support smaller companies or for ethical reasons It can be an adjustment but you can start smallit doesnt have to be an allornothing switch overnight
Q Is this just for supertechy people
A Not at all While some alternatives require more technical knowhow there are now many userfriendly options designed for everyday users You can choose your level of involvement
Q Wont I be cut off from friends and family who still use these platforms
A This is a common concern The strategy is often asymmetric You might keep an account to stay in touch but use it minimally while moving your primary communication photos and shopping elsewhere
Benefits Motivations
Q Whats the biggest benefit Ill notice right away
A Many people report feeling a greater sense of digital calm and control You might see fewer creepy targeted ads and spend less time on addictive algorithmdriven feeds
Q Does this actually make a difference or am I just one person
A Every user who switches sends a market signal It supports competition and shows demand for privacyfocused products Collectively it challenges the dominance of a few companies
Q Are the alternatives actually better or just different
A Theyre often better in specific areas like privacy data ownership and lack of manipulation They might be worse in terms of universal convenience or seamless integration which is the tradeoff
Common Problems Solutions
Q My biggest worry is losing all my photosemailscontacts How do I move them safely
A
