I’ve been taking a hard look at the software I rely on day to day.
It’s partly because the current US political landscape feels increasingly unstable. But it’s also because so much of our default productivity and creative toolkit is dominated by a small set of mega-vendors, again, mostly American.
A quick scan of my own habits makes the pattern obvious: Microsoft Windows, Google, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat, Oracle MySQL. Not all of these are bad per se, and plenty of people have good reasons to keep using them. But when a handful of companies become unavoidable, we all pay for it in lock-in, pricing power and reduced choice.
The risk isn’t just cost; it’s dependency.
If your operating system, office suite, cloud platform, email stack and creative tools all sit inside one country’s corporate orbit, your options narrow fast when politics shifts, policies change, licensing tightens or data rules get complicated.
Why digital sovereignty suddenly feels practical
One encouraging trend is that public sector organisations across Europe are actively moving to Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS), and to European or at least non-US developed alternatives, in the name of digital sovereignty and data protection.
The basic logic is easy to understand:
- reduce dependency on a small number of foreign vendors
- lower exposure to cross-border jurisdiction and surveillance concerns
- improve GDPR confidence by keeping control of infrastructure and data flows
- avoid long-term lock-in and recurring licence costs
That’s not an abstract policy debate. It’s a set of very practical concerns, especially for governments, universities and councils that handle sensitive data and need predictable costs.
A quick glance at what’s happening in Europe
A few examples that caught my attention recently:
- France
There are public pushes towards sovereign, open-source alternatives, including domestically developed collaboration tools, and municipal moves like Lyon adopting Linux and switching away from Microsoft Office to a European-developed office suite. - Germany (Schleswig-Holstein)
A large-scale effort to move civil service desktops from Windows to Linux and to replace parts of the Microsoft stack with open-source alternatives. - Denmark
Public statements and plans aimed at reducing reliance on Microsoft, including moves towards Linux and LibreOffice in parts of government. - Austria
Notable adoption of LibreOffice in parts of the public sector, reducing Microsoft Office dependency. - Switzerland
Strong data protection scrutiny around the use of Microsoft 365 for sensitive public data, pushing organisations to look at alternatives.
These transitions will not be painless; they will have their own challenges. Retraining, migration costs, legacy documents, muscle memory and culture change are all real. But the fact that serious institutions are doing this at scale makes it feel less like a niche hobby and more like a credible path.
Update
I just spotted this video today (Sunday 8 March 2026) on YouTube Shorts, to add to the mix:
The principle I’m aiming for
I’m not trying to be perfectly pure or morally flawless about my software choices. I still need to be pragmatic, while also challenging my reliance on the software monopolies.
My guiding principle is simple: reduce single-vendor dependency, and prefer open standards and open-source where the trade-offs are reasonable.
Sometimes that means switching to open-source. Sometimes it means switching to a non-US commercial product. And in some places, sticking with a smaller US-based company is still the best route.
I’m also interested in the resilience angle: if one product disappears, gets worse, gets expensive, or becomes politically uncomfortable, I want an exit route.
What I’ve already changed
Here are some switches I’ve already made, and why they worked for me:
- Windows → Chrome OS Flex (open-source base, though Google is US-based): a lightweight, stable and focused option for a secondary laptop.
- Microsoft 365 → OnlyOffice (Latvia): word processing, spreadsheets and presentations with great compatibility (I’ve already written about this).
- Adobe Acrobat → PDFgear (Singapore): everyday PDF reading and editing without the Acrobat subscription gravity.
- Corel PaintShop Pro → Affinity Studio (Australia): a serious creative suite that combines photo editing with vector facilities and page layout (ahead of Microsoft retiring Publisher this year).
- TextExpander → Espanso (Sweden): an open-source, fast and flexible text expansion that feels like it belongs to me, not a vendor.
- ExamDiff Pro → WinMerge (International and open-source): I now no longer do enough coding to justify the annual renewal fee. (Added on 5 March 2026)
Already, these choices have reduced costs, simplified my setup, and made me feel less ‘locked in’. Plus these replacement apps truly are first class.
The non-US tools I rely on (and love)
I think it’s worth celebrating how international good software already is. These are tools I use regularly that are not US-based:
- Ferdium (Europe-based) – multi-chat client
- IrfanView (Bosnia) – graphic viewer and editor
- Mp3tag (Germany) – edit audio metadata
- MusicBee (UK) – music manager and player
- PeaZip (Italy) – file archive utility
- Plustek (Taiwan) – desktop scanner
- Scapple and Scrivener (UK) – writing software
- Sublime Text (Australia) – code editor
- Vivaldi (Norway) – web browser
- VLC (France) – media player
- WinSCP (Czech Republic) – SFTP and FTP client
- XAMPP (Germany) –Apache, MariaDB and PHP environment
This list is a useful reminder: moving away from American monopolies doesn’t mean sacrificing quality. In many cases, it just means taking the time to look.
A simple way to do your own review
If you’re tempted to do something similar, here’s a lightweight approach:
- List your top 10 ‘I can’t work without it’ apps.
- Mark which ones are single-vendor dependencies (especially OS, office suite, cloud and identity).
- Identify one or two low-risk swaps (PDF tools and utilities are often easiest).
- Try one replacement for a month, and keep notes on what breaks.
- Only then decide whether to commit.
You don’t need a grand migration plan. Just a steady reduction in lock-in.
Where I’ve landed (for now)
For me, this is partly about politics, partly about privacy and partly about personal resilience.
I want a software stack that I can justify, explain and replace in pieces, without feeling trapped. I also have an eye on possibility moving most of my tech stack at some point to Linux, so finding applications that also work across both ecosystems means less of a shift later.
If more governments and public bodies are willing to do the hard work of migrating, that’s a strong signal that the rest of us can make smaller, practical moves too.
Have you made any good switches lately?
