91 alternatives
“Que faire de mes objets et déchets ?” is a free website of ADEME, the French agency for ecological transition: typing the name of an object or a type of waste shows how to repair, give away, resell…
Alternative to throwing everything in the bin because you don’t know who repairs, takes back or recycles it
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The French Ministry of Health publishes the results of the official checks on tap water for every commune, free online, so anyone can see what is in their water before paying for bottles.
Alternative to bottled water bought out of distrust of the tap
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The “Économiser” pages of ADEME, the French ecological transition agency, are free guides to spending less on electricity, heating, fuel, water and everyday purchases. They need no account, carry no…
Alternative to energy-saving advice from suppliers and salespeople who want to sell you something
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ARTE.tv is the free streaming site and app of ARTE, the Franco-German public cultural channel: live TV, catch-up, documentaries, films, series, concerts and reports, with no subscription and no…
Alternative to Netflix, Prime Video and other paid streaming services
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The Blauer Engel (Blue Angel) is the German government’s eco-label, introduced in February 1978. It marks products and services that do less harm to the environment than others of the same kind…
Alternative to fresh-fibre paper and office products with vague “eco” claims
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Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) and its partners. It gives free online access to more than 11 million digitised documents (January 2025): books…
Alternative to paid e-book shops and archive services for old books, newspapers and maps
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iFixit is a free online repair manual with tens of thousands of illustrated, step-by-step guides for phones, laptops, consoles, household appliances and more, written by the company and its community…
Alternative to manufacturers’ after-sales services that are expensive or refuse to repair, and replacing a device at the first fault
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parkrun is a free, timed 5 km run held every Saturday morning in parks and run by volunteers. Runners register once online and get a personal barcode that works at every parkrun in the world; they…
Alternative to gym subscriptions and paid races
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Project Gutenberg is a free online library of books in the public domain: nearly 78,000 e-books in March 2026, to read in the browser or download without an account. It is an alternative to buying…
Alternative to buying classics as e-books from Amazon’s Kindle store and other paid shops
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Refill Deutschland is a non-profit initiative that shows where anyone can refill a water bottle with tap water for free: shops, cafés, offices and public buildings put a blue Refill sticker on the…
Alternative to buying bottled water in plastic bottles
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A Repair Café is a free meeting where volunteers help people repair their own broken things: toasters, lamps, clothes, bikes, toys, laptops. It is an alternative to throwing away a broken appliance…
Alternative to throwing away broken appliances and buying new ones, often because repair seems too expensive
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Signal is a free messenger for texts, voice and video calls, groups and file sharing, with end-to-end encryption for everything by default, run by a non-profit foundation. It is an alternative to…
Alternative to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and other messengers owned by advertising groups
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The Man in Seat 61 is a guide to travelling by train and ferry, written since 2001 by Mark Smith, a former British railway manager. For hundreds of routes, it explains which trains to take, how and…
Alternative to flight comparison sites and booking platforms that only show planes
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VLC is a free, open-source media player that plays almost every video and audio file, DVDs and online streams without extra codec packs, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and more. It is an…
Alternative to paid video players and codec packs full of adware
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Zero Waste France is an independent French association that works to reduce waste at the source: it publishes practical guides for households, schools and towns, investigates the packaging and waste…
Alternative to the advice of the packaging industry, which says recycling is enough
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The BZfE Saisonkalender is the seasonal calendar for fruit and vegetables of Germany’s Federal Centre for Nutrition, free as an app and as a poster, showing when each kind is harvested in Germany and…
Alternative to buying strawberries in winter and other out-of-season produce flown or trucked in
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foodsharing.de is a free, ad-free platform run by volunteers in Germany who collect surplus food from shops, bakeries and restaurants and share it, without money, with anyone who wants it, after…
Alternative to shops, bakeries and restaurants throwing away edible food
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Pl@ntNet is a free app and website that names a plant from a photo of its flower, leaf, fruit or bark. It was built by French public research institutes, and every confirmed photo feeds a public…
Alternative to commercial plant identification apps with subscriptions
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The Complémentaire santé solidaire (C2S) is France’s public complementary health cover for people on low incomes. It pays what the Assurance Maladie leaves to the patient, for free or for at most €1…
Alternative to a paid mutuelle for people on low incomes
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The Energie-Info comparator is the official comparison tool of France’s energy ombudsman (médiateur national de l’énergie). It lists the electricity and gas offers of every supplier and ranks them by…
Alternative to commercial comparison sites paid by suppliers that sell your contact details
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Framasoft is a French non-profit association, based in Lyon, that promotes free software and runs free online services as alternatives to those of big tech: Framadate for polls, Framaforms for forms…
Alternative to Google Forms, Doodle and the other free services of big tech that live from your data
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France Rénov’ is the French public service for home energy renovation, run by the national housing agency Anah. Its advisers give free, neutral advice on insulation, heating, ventilation and the…
Alternative to commercial renovation companies that cold-call households and sell expensive works
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FUN MOOC is the French public platform of free online courses made by universities and grandes écoles: videos, quizzes and forums on hundreds of subjects, mostly in French, with about one course in…
Alternative to commercial online course platforms such as Coursera or Udemy
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Gesundheitsinformation.de is the health information site of IQWiG, the German institute that assesses the benefits and harms of medical treatments. It explains illnesses, examinations and treatments…
Alternative to health websites financed by advertising, supplement sellers and “Doctor Google”
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GIMP is a free, open-source photo editor and image creation program for Windows, macOS and Linux. It crops, corrects colours, cuts out shapes, works with layers and masks, paints and draws.
Alternative to Adobe Photoshop and its monthly subscription
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KeePassXC is a free, open-source password manager for Windows, macOS and Linux. It keeps logins, passwords, passkeys and notes in an encrypted file, in the common KeePass (KDBX) format, opened with a…
Alternative to cloud password managers such as LastPass, 1Password or Dashlane
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Khan Academy is a US non-profit organisation that offers free courses with videos and exercises, mainly in mathematics and science, but also computing, economics, history and test preparation, from…
Alternative to paid tutoring and online course platforms financed by advertising or subscriptions
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LibreOffice is a free, open-source office suite with a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), presentations (Impress), drawing (Draw), a database (Base) and a formula editor (Math). It…
Alternative to Microsoft Office and Google Docs, with their subscriptions and data collection
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Lumni is the free, ad-free educational platform of French public broadcasting: videos, quizzes, games, articles and podcasts for learning and revising school subjects, from nursery school to the…
Alternative to paid tutoring and revision books
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Mastodon is open-source software for a decentralised social network: thousands of independent servers, run by associations, universities, media, public bodies or individuals, connect with each other…
Alternative to X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and the other advertising-funded social networks
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Open Food Facts is a free, collaborative database of food products run by a French non-profit association: volunteers scan barcodes and photograph packaging, and the app and website then show the…
Alternative to the marketing on food packaging, and commercial food-scanning apps
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Place des Libraires is a French website that shows which bookshops have a book in stock: readers choose a title and a nearby shop, then reserve the book to collect there, or order it if it isn’t in…
Alternative to ordering books from Amazon and the big online retailers
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The taz is a national daily newspaper from Berlin, founded in 1978, that belongs to a cooperative of more than 26,000 readers, so no publisher or investor can buy it. Its website has no paywall…
Alternative to news sites that live from clicks and advertising, and newspapers owned by billionaires and media groups
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The DGE recommendations, “Gut essen und trinken”, are Germany’s food-based dietary guidelines from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung, which since 2024 take the environment into account as well…
Alternative to diet trends, influencers and nutrition advice paid for by food brands
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Ecosia is a Berlin search engine that spends all its profits on climate action, mainly tree planting and renewable energy, and has been legally barred from being sold since it became steward-owned in…
Alternative to Google Search, whose ad profits go to shareholders
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Energy Saving Trust is a British organisation that gives free, impartial advice on insulating and heating a home, and runs government advice services such as Home Energy Scotland, without selling or…
Alternative to energy advice from installers and sales companies that sell the product
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Incredible Edible is a movement of local groups that grow vegetables, fruit and herbs in public places, for anyone to pick for free. It started in Todmorden, in northern England, in 2008.
Alternative to buying every vegetable at the supermarket and to ornamental-only public planting
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PeerTube is free, open-source software for sharing videos, developed by the French non-profit Framasoft, on which anyone can run a video platform that connects with the others, so there is no single…
Alternative to YouTube and its ads, recommendation algorithm and single owner
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Les Petits Frères des Pauvres is a French association, founded in 1946, whose volunteers visit isolated older people at home, organise group activities and holidays, and answer a free, anonymous…
Alternative to leaving older people alone, or paying a private company for company
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Shelter is a British housing charity whose free online advice explains tenants’ rights in England on deposits, repairs, rent rises and eviction, with a helpline and webchat for urgent cases and…
Alternative to relying on lettings agents and landlords for advice on your rights
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Visale is a free rent guarantee from Action Logement that stands in for a personal guarantor: it covers unpaid rent and charges for the landlord, at no cost to either landlord or tenant, for young…
Alternative to paid guarantors, guarantor companies and unpaid-rent insurance
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The Wohnprojekte-Portal is a free German directory of about 890 co-housing projects and groups, run by the non-profit Stiftung trias, where people can find a shared housing project with room for them…
Alternative to looking for a flat alone on commercial property portals
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Zu gut für die Tonne! (“Too good for the bin”) is the German federal government’s campaign against food waste, with a free app of about 800 leftover recipes, storage tips for each food and a…
Alternative to throwing away leftovers and food past its best-before date
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Datan is a free website that shows how each member of the French National Assembly and each parliamentary group votes, from the Assembly’s own open data. A reader can check an MP’s actual votes on…
Alternative to what MPs and parties say about their own votes
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The Krankenkassenliste is the official list of Germany’s statutory health insurance funds (gesetzliche Krankenkassen) with their additional contribution rates, published by their umbrella body, the…
Alternative to comparison portals such as Check24 and Verivox that show only the health insurance funds paying them
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abgeordnetenwatch.de is a German website where anyone can put a question to a member of parliament in public and read the answer. It also shows how each member voted in important roll-call votes and…
Alternative to political news shaped by spin and party advertising, and politicians who are hard to reach
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The ADIL (agences départementales d’information sur le logement) give free legal, financial and tax advice on housing in France: leases and rent, unpaid rent, co-ownership, buying a home, loans…
Alternative to paid legal advice and the vague answers of internet forums
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Aeternitas is a German consumer association for funerals and cemeteries, the “Verbraucherinitiative Bestattungskultur”. Its website explains how burial works in Germany, what each part of a funeral…
Alternative to funeral homes that sell expensive packages to grieving families in a hurry
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Bienvenue à la ferme is the network of French farmers who sell their produce directly or welcome visitors, and its free website maps them: farm shops, farmers’ markets, producers’ shops, “drives…
Alternative to supermarket fruit, vegetables and meat that pass through several middlemen
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Don en Confiance is a French association that awards a label to charities and foundations that sign its ethical code and accept continuous checks. Donors use it to see which organisations appealing…
Alternative to giving to street or phone fundraisers without checking the organisation
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The DZI Spendensiegel is a German seal for charities that collect donations. The DZI (Deutsches Zentralinstitut für soziale Fragen), a foundation in Berlin, awards it each year after checking the…
Alternative to giving to the organisation with the most emotional advertising, without knowing how the money is used
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Good On You rates fashion brands on their impact on people, the planet and animals, on a five-step scale from “We avoid” to “Great”. Its website and free app for iOS and Android cover more than 7,000…
Alternative to the green marketing of fashion brands, which nobody checks
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Karte von morgen (“map of tomorrow”) is an open map of sustainable initiatives and businesses: organic shops, repair cafés, community gardens, cooperatives, sharing places, places to eat and more, in…
Alternative to commercial map apps that list whoever pays for advertising first
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Les Frigos Solidaires is a French association that sets up self-service fridges outside shops, associations, universities, schools and companies, where anyone can leave food or take some, free and…
Alternative to throwing away food that is still good
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Medito is a free meditation app for iPhone and Android with no ads, trial period or premium tier, published by Stichting Medito, a non-profit foundation registered in Amsterdam in 2020. It is an…
Alternative to paid meditation apps such as Headspace or Calm
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Mobicoop is a carpooling website and app that takes no commission and shows no advertising: passengers share the driver’s costs, paid online, and nothing is added on top.
Alternative to BlaBlaCar and other carpooling platforms that take a fee on every booking
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Onleihe is the digital lending service of public libraries in German-speaking countries: with a library card, readers borrow e-books, audiobooks, newspapers, magazines and videos from home, and the…
Alternative to buying e-books and audiobooks from Amazon Kindle and Audible
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Pour bien vieillir is a free website of the French public pension funds that helps retired people stay healthy and independent: advice on physical activity, food, sleep, memory, falls, social life…
Alternative to private retirement-home brokers and the advice of companies selling senior services
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Rezo Pouce is a free, organised hitchhiking network in rural and suburban France: members wait at signposted “arrêts sur le pouce” stops, show where they are going, and a driver from the network…
Alternative to needing a car, or a second car, in the countryside
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SignalConso is the free public service of the DGCCRF, the French consumer protection authority, for reporting a problem with a company, in a shop or online, or asking a question about consumer rights…
Alternative to giving up when a shop or company doesn’t respect your rights
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Simply Good Food is a recipe site of classic, simple dishes, mostly vegetarian, in English, French and German: soups, salads, pasta, curries, bakes and desserts. It is an alternative to recipe sites…
Alternative to recipe sites full of advertising, pop-ups and life stories before the recipe
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The Nutri-Score is a front-of-pack label from A (dark green) to E (red) that sums up a food's nutritional quality per 100 g or 100 ml, so that two breakfast cereals or two pizzas can be compared at a…
Alternative to nutrition tables in small print and to health claims on packaging
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The calendrier de l’Avent inversé, or reverse Advent calendar, turns the December countdown around: instead of opening a window each day, the family puts one useful item a day into a box, then gives…
Alternative to bought Advent calendars filled with chocolate, cosmetics or toys
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Compassion in Dying is a British charity that helps people plan their care at the end of life, with free living will (advance decision) forms, guidance on lasting power of attorney and a free…
Alternative to paying a solicitor for a living will
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Love Food Hate Waste is the UK campaign against household food waste run by the charity WRAP, with a portion planner, an A–Z of how to store each food and a fridge temperature tool, free on its…
Alternative to throwing away food that could have been eaten
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Manger Bouger is the French public health website on food and physical activity, run by Santé publique France, with the official recommendations and La Fabrique à menus, a free weekly menu planner…
Alternative to diet apps, paid meal plans and food advice from the food industry
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Mojeek is a British search engine with its own crawler and its own index of more than 9 billion pages, so its results don’t come from Google or Bing, and it follows a strict no-tracking policy.
Alternative to Google and Bing, and to search engines that resell their results
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The Natural Death Centre is a British charity that gives free, impartial advice on natural burial, do-it-yourself and environmentally friendly funerals, and on consumer rights when arranging a…
Alternative to conventional funeral packages
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Olio is a free British app for giving away food and household items to neighbours, and for collecting surplus food from shops such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s through volunteer “Food Waste Heroes”, who…
Alternative to throwing away leftover food and unwanted household items
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Refill is a free British app and scheme that shows on a map where to fill a water bottle for free: public fountains, cafés, shops and offices that display a Refill sticker in the window.
Alternative to buying bottled water and drinks in single-use cups when out
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Seconde Chance is a French website that lists animals waiting for adoption in shelters and animal welfare associations all over France, so that people looking for a dog, cat or rabbit can find one…
Alternative to buying a dog or cat online, from a breeder or at a fair
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smarticular is a German website and publisher with free recipes for making cleaning and laundry products from a few basic ingredients, such as baking soda, washing soda, vinegar, citric acid and curd…
Alternative to buying a separate cleaning product for every job
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TASSO is a German non-profit pet registry where owners record their dog’s or cat’s microchip number for free, so that a vet, shelter or finder can trace the owner when the animal is found.
Alternative to paid pet registries and to searching for a lost animal on social media alone
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The Eatwell Guide is the UK government’s picture of a healthy, balanced diet, a plate divided into food groups, explained for free on the NHS website and published by the Office for Health…
Alternative to diet plans, supplements and nutrition advice sold by brands
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The ZQP advice database is a free, ad-free search for care advice services across Germany, including the Pflegestützpunkte, run by the Zentrum für Qualität in der Pflege, a non-profit foundation in…
Alternative to care advice from providers who sell the care
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“Is private health insurance worth it?” is a free guide from MoneyHelper, the money guidance service of the UK government’s Money and Pensions Service. It helps people decide whether they need…
Alternative to advice from brokers and comparison sites paid on commission by health insurers
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NosParlementaires is a free website that tracks the work of the 577 French MPs and 348 senators: their votes, amendments, written and oral questions, bills, reports and declared interests. It is…
Alternative to what MPs, senators and parties say about their own work in parliament
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MesAidesVélo is a free French website that lists the public subsidies for buying a bike: after entering where one lives, it shows which aids from the town, the intercommunality, the department and…
Alternative to searching every town hall and regional website for bike purchase subsidies
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nebenan.de is a German neighbourhood network where only verified residents of the same area see each other’s posts: they lend tools, give things away, ask for help, recommend tradespeople and…
Alternative to Facebook groups and classified ad sites for local exchanges
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Spareka is a French website that helps people repair their own household appliances: free fault diagnosis, more than 900 free tutorials, video help from a professional technician and spare parts for…
Alternative to throwing away a broken appliance or paying for a call-out
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Visorando is a French hiking website and app listing tens of thousands of walking routes in France, its overseas territories and abroad, each with a map, duration, elevation and step-by-step…
Alternative to paid hiking guidebooks and American apps such as AllTrails
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Yuka is a free French app that scans the barcode of a food or cosmetic product and gives it a score out of 100, with healthier products suggested in its place. It takes no advertising and no money…
Alternative to trusting the marketing on food and cosmetics packaging
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Olvid is a French end-to-end encrypted messenger that needs no personal data at all, no phone number, e-mail or name, and never asks for the address book; contacts are added directly, person to…
Alternative to WhatsApp and messengers that upload your address book
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Qwant is a French search engine that says it keeps no search history and shows ads without profiling users, and that is building a European search index with Ecosia; Qwant Junior is a version for…
Alternative to Google Search and its tracking of what you search
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Tierheimhelden is a German website that brings together animals from shelters looking for a home, so that people who want a dog, cat or small animal can search many shelters at once instead of…
Alternative to buying a pet from classified ads or a breeder
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Waterwise is a British not-for-profit organisation that gives free advice on using less water at home, with figures for each use, a water calculator and guides, and campaigns for water efficiency…
Alternative to water-saving gadgets sold with marketing claims
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Geev is an app and website for giving things away between neighbours: furniture, clothes, toys, appliances and food that would otherwise be thrown away. Givers post an ad with a photo, and the…
Alternative to throwing away furniture, clothes and toys, or buying them new
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INCI Beauty is a French app and website that reads the ingredient list (INCI) of a cosmetic from its barcode, colours each ingredient by its level of concern and gives the product a score out of 20.
Alternative to choosing cosmetics on the brand’s own claims, without reading the ingredient list
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Startpage is a Dutch search engine that sends your query to Google and shows Google’s results without passing on your IP address or other identifying data, with an “Anonymous View” proxy to open…
Alternative to searching Google directly and being tracked by it
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Donnons.org is a website and app for giving objects away between private people in France: you post an ad for something you no longer want, or pick up for free what someone nearby is giving. Its…
Alternative to taking usable things to the tip
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CodeCheck is a German-language app and website that scans the barcode of a cosmetic, food or household product and rates its ingredients, with special ratings from BUND for microplastics and parabens…
Alternative to trusting the front of the pack for cosmetics and food
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Waste, recycling and zero waste
Repair and do it yourself
Second-hand, swapping, lending and sharing
Water and sanitation
Energy and heating
Household and personal care
News, media and knowledge
Culture: books, music, films and streaming
Office, paper and printing
Electronics and home appliances
Education and training
Leisure, sport and outdoor gear
Health, care and wellbeing
Neighbourhood, community spaces and local networks
Search engines, social networks and messengers
Telecoms: mobile, internet and email
Travel and tourism
Digital services, software and devices
Nutrition advice and recipes
Food and community farming
Restaurants and food delivery
Garden, seeds and biodiversity
Banking, insurance and pensions
Law, consumer protection and advice
Housing, building and renovation
Children, family and toys
Shopping: online, marketplaces and local shops
Ageing, end of life and funerals
Donations, volunteering and non-profits
Renting and tenants’ rights
Political participation and citizens’ initiatives
Clothing and mending
Mobility, cars and transport
Work and cooperative economy
Celebrations, gifts and holidays
Pets and pet food
Cosmetics and hygiene
