This article is part of our series on "Switching to European Tech" - a comprehensive guide to European digital consumer services. As we continue to explore the world of European tech, it's essential to focus on creating a seamless app user experience that prioritizes privacy and usability.

The Importance of Switching

As you may know, my digital life was once heavily reliant on US Big Tech infrastructure. But as I delved deeper into the world of European tech, I realized that this dependency is risky. Countries are turning inward, Big Tech-political entanglements are growing, and digital services become geopolitical leverage. Europe spends over €300 billion yearly on US Big Tech; redirecting just 10% could transform our digital landscape.

To help consumers prioritize where to start, we created a Digital Consumer Services framework prioritizing tier-one essentials: e-mail, drive, search, office, and more. If I plot my own usage before switching, only Spotify qualifies as European. And although their music service is great, it's not really a fundamental service. Time to act.

Selecting Viable Alternatives

To select viable European alternatives, we applied three criteria:

  • Repeatable for average consumers (no advanced technical skills needed). Typically, this means the solution should be part of a wider ecosystem in order to avoid using many separate services, which introduces too much complexity.
  • Fully European – owned, jurisdiction, and servers/data centers in Europe. We define Europe as the EU, EU candidate countries, plus the UK, Switzerland, and Norway.
  • Significant scale – €20M+ annual revenue for continuity

The Browser: A Tool to Navigate the Internet

In this article, we'll focus on European browsers that meet our filter criteria (European, fit for average consumers, €20M+ annual revenue). We've included Ecosia, Qwant, and Vivaldi in our analysis.

  • Ecosia: This browser offers a strong search engine and some customization options. For most users, it's an excellent choice.
  • Qwant: Similar to Ecosia, Qwant provides a search engine first and foremost, but also offers mobile browser apps.
  • Vivaldi: Although its annual revenue is below the €20M threshold (estimated €6-16 million), Vivaldi has been included due to its existing presence since 2016 and reasonable popularity.

Benchmarking with Google

For reference, we've used Google as a benchmark to compare European alternatives. While all three browsers are built using Chromium, it's essential to consider the technical foundation of these solutions.

Disqualified Browsers

Some other solutions were considered but disqualified:

  • Startpage: Disqualified due to majority US ownership.
  • Opera: Disqualified due to Chinese ownership.

Assessing How European a Solution Really Is

To assess how European a solution really is, we analyzed several aspects:

  • Owner: Who owns the solution?
  • Headquarters location: Where are the headquarters located?
  • Jurisdiction: Which jurisdiction applies?
  • Data centers in Europe: Are there data centers in Europe?
  • Party who manages servers: Who manages the data centers?

The Verdict

Ecosia, Qwant, and Vivaldi can be considered fully European. Qwant and Ecosia are even fully EU-based, while Vivaldi is fully Norwegian (definitely European, just not EU).