Alternatives "Independent"

EWS Schönau is a German energy cooperative from a small town in the Black Forest that supplies green electricity, and gas with a share of biogas, across Germany. It grew out of a parents’ group…

La Nef is a French cooperative bank that lends only to projects with a social, ecological or cultural purpose, such as organic farms, renewable energy, shared housing and local shops, and publishes…

Mediapart is a French online newspaper known for its investigations, funded only by its subscribers, with no advertising. It is an alternative to free news sites that live on ads, and to media owned…

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…

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…

The Verbraucherzentralen are the consumer advice centres of the 16 German federal states: non-profit associations, mostly publicly funded, that advise on contracts, energy, insurance, banking, food…

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…

The Slow Food Genussführer is a German restaurant guide of about 450 places chosen by Slow Food volunteers for regional, seasonal cooking without convenience products, published as a book and an app…

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…

The Que Choisir mutuelle comparator is the health insurance comparison tool of Que Choisir Ensemble, the French consumer association formerly called UFC-Que Choisir. It ranks complementary health…

The Krankenkassenvergleich of Stiftung Warentest is a database of the contribution rates and extra benefits of 67 German statutory health insurance funds, which together insure about 97 % of…

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…

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…

Que Choisir Ensemble, called UFC-Que Choisir until its renaming in 2025–2026, is the largest French consumer association: it tests more than 2,000 products a year, publishes the results in its…

einhorn is a Berlin company that sells vegan condoms made from traceable natural rubber, and period products such as tampons and a menstrual cup, with no outside investors and in steward ownership.

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.

Speick is a family-owned natural cosmetics maker near Stuttgart, best known for its soaps and shaving products, whose whole range contains an extract of the Speick plant hand-picked in the Austrian…

Which?, the UK consumer association, rates private medical insurers by what their customers say after making a claim. Price comparison sites rank policies by price and are paid by the insurers they…

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…