Buy European

They're so entrenched in OS/2, it came as a complete surprise to me as well.

What happened to all the "Your games will run fine in OS/2", "it feels just like windows"?

While Signal's home base is the US, they are a non profit org that doesn't operate in the same way as for-profit corporations. Also, Signal collects basically zero data so there's no incentive to sell out, and who would want to buy them anyway when they have no data and the server and client are open source.

Matrix is great, but I wouldn't compare it to Signal. I use both for very different purposes.

Also simplex is a good alternative, it's decentralized:)

For FF and Chromium to, their source is open so if there ever was a need to make it fully European, it would be doable. Or did I miss something? (novice question, here)

It's also a paid product with multiple flaws found in a recent-ish audit:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/01/messenger-billed-as-better-than-signal-is-riddled-with-vulnerabilities/

I tried Mistral and it's awesome, I am upgrading to the paid version

Last spring Mistral (free tier) was better for my usage (mainly JS programming) than ChatGPT (free tier). No idea which is better now (esp. after openai launched chatgpt 4, but Mistral improved too) but at least Mistral isn't bad at all.

I don't think I have to elaborate on Linux > Windows. If that's really needed ask for it please. Summary: It's simply better, the times where it was only for nerds are long gone.

Search engine doesn't matter too much. I usually use DuckDuckGo and it works fine (does what a search engine should do without displaying ads, unlike Google).

Signal over WhatsApp also is pretty obvious, but it's the hardest one to change because so many people simply don't want to switch once one thing is running and you want to communicate with those people.

LibreWolf basically is Firefox (which is far better than Chrome in terms of privacy, ad blocking, customisability, ...)

System1 acquired Startpage and they are based in the US.

Startpage gives very good results, I recall reading somewhere that they use search results from Google, but I honestly don't know. I use it over Ecosia because it has slightly better results and is more privacy focused. Plus I never click any adverts, so Ecosia wouldn't generate an awful lot of trees from my usage haha.

I also used Qwant, but the search results weren't great for more complex search queries.

You can self-host Signal, although you’d need your friends to sign up with your server.

What we really need is a federated messaging platform. I don’t think it’s been done yet, but encrypted email efforts are kinda in that direction.

Yes, but ecosia is currently building a European search index together with qwant. In my view, the two are therefore worth supporting

They're planning to eventually switch to a european index alongside Qwant.

So is Startpage, if I recall correctly.

So is Qwant, yes.

Qwant apparently supports something similar

https://help.qwant.com/en/docs/qwant-search/searching/comment-utiliser-les-raccourcis-de-recherche-qwick/