I still must use Google for some queries. Google is best for me at these kinds of queries:
• Finding products in online stores that ship to Sverige. I try to avoid buying from Amazon.
• Location-specific queries, like plant-based restaurants near me.
• English queries that only have answers […]
Concluding my experiment with Qwant as my default search engine after a little over a week.
I returned to DuckDuckGo as my default search engine.
In general, Qwant’s results seemed almost as relevant as DDG.
Qwant does not provide quick answers. Queries like “convert 1 USD to EUR”, “convert […]
I am experimenting with Qwant as my default search engine for a month after learning more about it at the EU NGI Forum last week.
Like DuckDuckGo, my default it replaces, Qwant uses a mix of Bing infrastructure and its own. Qwant is building its own EU-based web index and search engine in […]
#NGIFORUM25
The EU Commission's Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative hosted on 19 and 20, discussed how to create an open, inclusive, trustworthy internet and to ensure EU Tech sovereignty.
Full article by IA Analyst Alina Clasen: thinkinitiative.co/news-insight
Miembros del Parlamento Europeo, investigadores y ciudadanos coincidieron en la necesidad de que Europa mantenga sus planes para lograr la soberanía digital y la autonomía en las infraestructuras digitales.
#NGIForum25
Discussions on sovereignty at #ngiforum25 make me wonder which year we are in?
I'd like to thank @renchap for his concise and coherent statements:
We need to focus our efforts on funding and supporting public value network infrastructure ...
... THAT CANNOT BE BOUGHT 💪
Audience question: How should we handle the situation of US company acquiring an EU company, like Slido from Slovensko being acquired by Cisco in US?
Answer: Open source licensing permits continued operation of the software with an EU provider. The EU should fund FOSS development instead of […]
Excellent audience question: How much of the EU funding for AI is just going to purchase hardware made by US companies?
Per Öster admitted that much of it is, as there is an AI hardware market monopoly situation and only 1 French company.
Follow up question asked why not just buy from the […]
Screenshot of ecosia.org in Firefox private browsing mode. Consent screen is display with list of many Google-specific cookies and permissions.
Wolfgang Oels dodged an audience question about how much of a European search engine Ecosia is it at this point.
Ecosia mostly seems to be a different UI on top of Google search given the Google cookies it asks to set.
He made a claim that Ecosia does something […]
[Original post on alpaca.gold]
Stefan Voigt asked forum participants to raise hands of who uses Windows/macOS vs a FOSS OS and then iPhone vs Google Android vs non-Google Android/Sailfish/et al.
Enormous portions of macOS, iOS, and Android are FOSS. Let’s not discount that.
Let’s also not shame people for not using more […]
~“Don’t say ‘federated’. It’s good, but people are already lost when you say that word.” —@alexandrageese
Me: “social web” > “fediverse”
#NGIForum25
Audience question: How would an EU-infrastructure search engine answer a question like "how safe is nuclear energy" when within the EU, DE opposes it and FR supports it?
@alexandrageese: The job of a search engine is not to answer the question. The job is to surface information—scientifically […]
Surprised that the Catalan Independence issue was brought up during the Q&A #ngiforum25
Great speech by @alexandrageese which started with "This is about power. This is pure power" So true. I hope it is uploaded soon #ngiforum25
European Parliamentarian @alexandrageese:
We don’t want a "European Google". We want a independent, federation of viable alternatives to Google.
#NGIForum25
European Parliamentarian @alexandrageese examined the US far right’s “attack on knowledge”. She warned about the "industrial censorship complex" false narrative being used to attack freedom of speech.
Article 34 of DSA can help counter, but better option would be for more EU-based tech […]
Empty European Commission conference room with large screen showing the agenda of today's meeting.
♻️ ilumium: Good morning Fediverse's EU tech policy nerds!
Up today: the @EUCommission's #DMA workshop with #gatekeeper #Microsoft.
(Sorry #NGIForum25 two floors below, no time for you today 😌)
We haven't started yet and the room is still empty, but I'm hoping we'll… https://eupolicy.social/@i…
Michael Granitzer: Distributing a web index is a legal challenge. Over 80 laws across the EU related to content legality, copyright, AI, and others. Currently, data is only distributed under a research license, so no commercial use of the data is possible at the moment.
#NGIForum25
@openwebsearcheu’s first step in creating a search engine has been indexing the web: crawling the web, reducing the HTML from exabytes to petabytes, then to terabyte slices that are distributed.
The equivalent to Google/Bing webmaster tools for info on its crawl of your site […]
Day 2 kicked off with focus on EU’s ambition to have its own search engine.
Search is critical Internet infrastructure. ~“What if Europe only had 2 newspapers?” —@grani
Technically, search engines require a large amount storage and compute. They also require ongoing human infrastructure for ML […]
Empty European Commission conference room with large screen showing the agenda of today's meeting.
Good morning Fediverse's EU tech policy nerds!
Up today: the @EUCommission's #DMA workshop with #gatekeeper #Microsoft.
(Sorry #NGIForum25 two floors below, no time for you today 😌)
We haven't started yet and the room is still empty, but I'm hoping we'll […]
[Original post on eupolicy.social]
Patiently waiting to see if / when the #ngiforum25 will bring the #digitaleuro into the discussion.
Technically this is a central piece of any #digitalcommons that will influence large parts of Europe's future both directly and indirectly.
But also metaphorically the Euro is a testament that […]
Bravo to DG Connect Director Thibaut Kleiner for staying the whole day to listen to the panels, meet with people during breaks, and recap what he heard.
He reassured the room that there will be more opportunities for public funding, even as the NGI program ends.
#NGIForum25
Niko Bonnieure (@nextgraph):
• Interoperability is a component of usability. It’s not only a problem for proprietary software. Open source solutions lose when they require complex configuration.
• We need symmetric Internet connections (equal upload and download connectivity). To increase […]
@utopiah just went full stack in his intro describing the commercially viable free and open source products he used today. Nice anecdata counter to the perception that FOSS is only good for infrastructure or components.
#NGIForum25
Listening to a session about Web 4.0 at the #ngiforum2025
From what I understand
Web 1 - Web pages
Web 2 - Data & Social (this is a mess)
Web 3 - Decentralised & distributed (Did we get this?)
Web 4 - Ubiquitous web (Convergence of Virtual | Physical spaces)
Not quite sure this is right or […]
#NGISearch & #OpenWebSearchEU with #NGISargasso at the #NGIForum2025! ✨
Collaboration with the #NextGenerationInternet community is key to shape an #OpenInternet together 🚀
Discover more about NGI Sargasso: ngisargasso.eu 🌊
#NGIForum25 #DigitalSovereignty #NGI #OpenSource
@ngi4eu.bsky.social
Brand awareness of non-US-based cloud service providers is low, so let’s make finding local vendors easier.
I started the https://www.eucloud.tech/ wiki years ago when I was CTO of a Svenska e-bike manufacturer and needed to find EU-based cloud service providers.
#NGIForum25
Ok, I’m done with the Clever Cloud guy on this panel after his declaration that free and open source is free as in speech, but not beer.
#NGIForum25
