If you've ever heard of de-Googling your life, you're probably familiar with the Swiss alternative Proton. This service is very accessible and therefore very popular for people looking for more privacy. In addition to the fact that the company has recently taken some suspicious actions according to some privacy lawyers, I see another problem: you are AGAIN transferring all your data to a single company. I am not against Proton, but there is always a RISK when you completely entrust your data to one company. With this list I try to distribute your data as much as possible across services that also respect your privacy, are user friendly and are of course of european origin.
End-to-end encrypted app for email, calendar, and contacts, requiring no personal data, with open source code and quantum-resistant security.
A free VPN like Proton VPN can never be fully trusted. The ones here in my list are one of if not the safest VPNs in the world and that comes at a cost.
IVPN is a commercial VPN service focused on multihop VPN connections and that does not log any data relating to their customers activities.
Mullvad is a VPN service that helps keep your online activity, identity, and location private.
There is nothing european that is cloud based and promises such a privacy. There are ways to self-host LLMs via Ollama for example. However no european local AI chat clients for computer so far. The only european local AI chat client that I recommend is one for in your pocket: PocketPall.
Filen is a cutting-edge cloud storage provider that offers client-side, end-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption. Headquartered and operated entirely in Germany, Filen is at the forefront of combining comprehensive features with uncompromising privacy and security.
Cryptee is a safety and privacy focused, encrypted and cross-platform personal data storage service. You can write personal documents, notes, journals, store photos (including raw photos from DSLR cameras) and all sorts of other files.
KeePassDX is a material design KeePass client for managing keys and passwords in an encrypted database for your Android device.
KeePassXC is a modern, secure, and open-source password manager that stores and manages your most sensitive information.
Aegis Authenticator is a free, secure and open source app to manage your 2-step verification tokens for your online services.
A versatile open-source word processor with robust formatting, style options, and cross-platform availability, ideal for both memos and complex book publishing.
Open-source suite for editing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and PDF files with co-editing modes, plugin support, AI assistant, and integration across 40+ platforms.
LibreOffice Calc is the spreadsheet program you've always needed. A fork of OpenOffice.org Calc, professional data miners and number crunchers will appreciate its comprehensive range of advanced functions.
Organize events with encrypted privacy, zero-knowledge and no tracking. Features include multi-device sync, multiple views, and offline support.
A secure collaboration app with end-to-end encryption and interoperability across web, desktop, and mobile. Includes chat, voice, and video calls.
Electrum is an easy to use Bitcoin client. It protects you from losing coins in a backup mistake or computer failure, because your wallet can be recovered from a secret phrase that you can write on paper or learn by heart.
LeakCheck offers a search engine with a database of more than 7 billion leaked records. Users can search for leaked information using email addresses, usernames, phone numbers, keywords, and domain names. Our goal is to safeguard the data of people and companies.
While making this list I discovered how much Proton has made. They are a company of approximately 600 employees and I am honestly surprised that they have made so much in recent years. This company is fighting big tech the right way. Despite all this praise, we shouldn't make the same mistake we made with Google. Google was once the company with the quote 'don't be evil', they were the founders of user-friendly software for free. Now it is a company with far too much power and that quote has long since been removed.
Comments
I priced this out just to see, and it looks like this isn't super economical:
Tuta Legend - €9.60 ($11.17 USD) IVPN Standard - $6 Filen Pro II - 8.99€ ($10.46 USD) Cryptee 400 GB - 3.99€ ($4.64 USD) Addy.io - $3
De-Proton - $35.27 /month Proton Unlimited - $12.99 /month
Also some things I'd add/change: KeePass - Bitwarden Electrum - Unstoppable Wallet Element - Jitsi Meet LibreOffice - OnlyOffice PocketPal - Kagi Assistant or Venice.ai Aegis - Ente Auth
First of all I made this list because of the problem using one ecosystem is giving all your data to one company. Coincidentally posted a very famous privacy-focused guy, The Hated One, today a whole video about explaining why this is a problem: https://youtu.be/_QdBAa6N3C8 or if you want to see it trough invidious - https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=_QdBAa6N3C8
Proton Unlimited is indeed very cheap and that is their whole plan currently. To convince people to get their ecosystem. Me personally doesn't need these large plans for every service. For example, you can get Addy.io for only $1 or use something like Windscribe as a free VPN. Filen still (until the end of 2025) has a lifetime plan, so you just pay once and you're good to go.
Bitwarden, Kagi, Venice.ai, Ente... they are all American services. My goal is to suggest as much European, fully-independent (from US) software as possible. It is difficult and sometimes there are no European option but if more and more people switch to European open-source software, the world will see the importance of it.
I would also suggest jotty.page as a note taking app.
Self-hosting is maybe the most private way but it is not for everyone. Proton has become famous recently because it is an very easy switch for people who came from Google. Btw. what country of origin does jotty.page have? For my lists it is important that the apps that I suggest are European.
a powerful alternative for authenticator could be ente auth
Very famous alternative but not European... My goal is to use as much European software as possible.
A powerfull alternative to Proton Lumo is Apertus (FOSS), made by the Swiss National Supercomputer Centre CSCS, which is also used by the CERN
Apertus
It is far more ethical than Lumo. Apertus is not discussed much among privacy communities so I don't know enough about it. What I do know, is that Switzerland is not that great for privacy. Data doesn't go out of the country but Switzerland is implement a lot of surveillance so they are not as good as EUs (currently) strong GDPR.
Hey, that's a great list here are some alternatives I could suggest to you for providing more choice and sometimes a better alternatives according to my preferences.
For
Proton Mail I suggest adding 
Posteo and 
StartMail
For
Proton VPN I think 
NymVPN could be a great addition.
For
Lumo by Proton maybe 
Jan.ai to have LLMs on laptop or desktop, 
DuckDuckGo AI Chat for an alternative SaaS and 
Kagi Assistant (I haven't tested that last one).
For
Proton Drive you can have 
Nextcloud hosted by a company or yourself, 
Tresorit and why not adding 
Ente Photos if someone is using the photos backup exclusively.
For
Standard Notes I would suggest adding 
Notesnook and 
Joplin
For
SimpleLogin I think 
Firefox Relay is worth mentioning
For
Proton Pass I think 
Bitwarden and 
1Password would be great to mention.
For
Proton Authenticator I think you should at least have one iOS option like 
Ente Auth or 
Bitwarden Authenticator
For
Proton Docs I think 
CryptPad would better fit there than in the Note alternatives, and I would add 
Etherpad and 
Framapad
For
Proton Calendar I think 
Nextcloud Calendar would also fit and maybe 
OurCal but last time I checked it looked a bit invasive on metadata despite e2ee.
For
Proton Wallet I strongly think that 
Sparrow Bitcoin Wallet would be a better fit with 
Liana and 
Blockstream App (Green) both be worth mentioning too.
Finally for
Data Breach Observatory I suggest 
Have I Been Pwned and 
Mozilla Monitor
Wow, amazing list! The reason I won't put most of these in my list is because most of them are not European or have a free option. As you can see with my username and the lists I made, my focus is on European software for everyone.
Yes sorry I realized the list was focused on european products and services. There a are a few in my list but not all of them are. So I let you go through them to see which one suites your list. I see that you already added a couple of my suggestions.