Comment by madman_dev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by madman_dev | Hacker News Reader

Hi HN, I built only-eu.eu, a curated bilingual (DE/EN) directory of European alternatives to common US software and services. Motivation: The CLOUD Act creates a structural difference between US and European cloud providers that's separate from GDPR. European companies can't be compelled by US federal courts to hand over data regardless of server location. For companies and individuals who care about this, finding verified European alternatives is surprisingly hard. Most "alternatives" sites are US-focused. Technical implementation: Static Astro site, hosted on Cloudflare Pages. 326 pages, fully bilingual. Search via Fuse.js. Product suggestion form via Cloudflare Worker into n8n webhook. No cookies. Currently covers: cloud storage, email, VPN, password managers, office suites, browsers, search engines, video conferencing, messaging, social media, photo backup, project management, notes and knowledge tools, analytics, hosting, AI tools, smartphones, sport and fashion, cosmetics, audio hardware, e-commerce, freelance platforms, website builders. Monetized via affiliate links (clearly labeled). Most products have no affiliate relationship and are listed purely on merit. Happy to hear what I got wrong or am missing.

Also: You can suggest a product on the page, if you got something, feel free to use that button.

1. Why not use https://european-alternatives.eu/? 2. Why use Cloudflare, a US company?

For 1) from a recent HN thread it seems that the developer is unreachable, and new entries cannot be made to that website.

First Show HN, first time launching something publicly. I wasn't prepared for this volume of feedback, and I mean that in a good way. Thank you, genuinely. Ente Photos is gone. Incorporated in Delaware, I got that wrong.

On Cloudflare, I want to be precise because a few people raised this with different arguments. There are two separate problems. Cloudflare is a US company subject to the CLOUD Act. And sdoering is right that the __cf_bm cookie fires before any user interaction, which puts the "strictly technically necessary" exemption under the ePrivacy Directive in genuinely debatable territory. Both are real criticisms for a site that claims to care about European alternatives. I'm migrating to Bunny.net in the coming days. Slovenian company, no CLOUD Act exposure, no third-party bot management cookies. I should have started there. Thanks for that suggestion.

On AI assistance: yes, I used a LLM to help build this. I made every product decision, every category judgment, and every fact check. Ente Photos being Delaware-incorporated is my mistake, not the tooling. Whether you call that vibe coding is fair. Slop means no effort. I fixed 19 wrong prices today and pulled a product within the hour when someone caught a real error. outsidein: Posteo is listed with no affiliate relationship. If something else is missing, the suggest button works. The suggestion form has 67 submissions since this went up. I'll work through them over the next few days. If you submitted something, thank you.

The "Europe does it better" banner is staying. For the memes.

One data point on the affiliate question:

11 of 125 listed products have an affiliate relationship. The other 114 link directly to the product website with no commercial connection.

Setting cookies without asking permission while claiming GDPR compliance – chef's kiss.

To be precise: cookie consent isn't actually regulated by the GDPR itself. It falls under the ePrivacy Directive, which requires explicit consent before storing anything on a visitor's device, unless it's strictly technically necessary.

Cloudflare cookies are, at best, highly debatable as "technically necessary." So the GDPR claim is technically correct – but the site is likely non-compliant with EU law anyway.

I'd recommend dropping CF.

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