bestia.dev This is a copy of the Codeberg readme, only because of SEO. Find the original on https://codeberg.org/bestia-dev-work-in-progress/migration_to_europe_2026

migration_to_europe_2026

I am migrating my digital life from US tech to Europe in 2026.
version: 1 date: 2026-02-07 author: bestia.dev repository: Codeberg

maintained ready-for-use tutorial

License migration_to_europe_2026

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My projects on Codeberg and GitHub are more like a tutorial than a finished product: bestia-dev tutorials.

Geopolitical landscape in 2026

The USA has become a fascist state in 2025.

My parents have directly experienced when Italy and Germany became fascists. The Nazis killed one of my grandfathers and tortured the other. My father lost a leg and health fighting the Nazis. I cannot support it. I will migrate most of my digital life away from the USA and into Europe. It sounds crazy that the biggest european ally is slowly becoming the enemy.

First they came for the Iranians, and I did not speak out—because I was not an Iranian.
Then they came for the Russians, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Russian.
Then they came for the Chinese, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Chinese.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

Github has abruptly disabled the Iranian developers to access their own repos. Linux have prohibited russian developers to contribute. Chinese professors are labeled as spies and must leave the US for their freedom.

It can happen to anyone of us in any sudden moment. No recourse.

USA tech giants

I am absolutely dependent on usa tech giants: microsoft, google, dropbox, github,.... just like most of the planet.
In case things go really bad, all this services will be cut off from Europe.
This means I could loose all my digital life. That is pretty bad.
I must find alternatives in Europe, because I live here.

Regrettably Europe has done nothing in the last 50 years to be digitally independent. Every single digital service is from the USA. Europe is just a vassal continent. All microprocessors, computers, operating systems and everything else is based in the USA. All European smart people that worked in the field, moved to USA and worked for USA companies. Now USA have the magnificent seven digital companies because the smartest people from the entire world worked for them.

Microsoft Windows OS migrate to Linux OS

All my life I developed for MS Windows. Even before that, it was MS-DOS.

But today the Windows OS is getting worse every day. I am slowly migrating to Linux. I still have Win11 on my laptop, but I try to use Linux on WSL for all my needs. And it works! I just have to learn new things and forget the old.

All of my server are already Debian Linux just like 95% of servers in the world.

All my applications are OS agnostic, Linux-first or web-first.

Android OS

I have Android on my Samsung phone and there is no good alternative. Maybe one day we will have some good Linux phones, I hope.

MS Office migrate to LibreOffice

I used MS Office for years just like most of the planet. It was good times.

Libre Office is a great alternative 100% enough for home users.

Gmail migrate to Proton mail

Your digital identity starts with an email. Every other internet service use this email to communicate with you.

Gmail was a great free email provider with 15GB storage. Incredible! But it is a privacy nightmare and american. They will sell you and your data for profit.

I opened 2 free accounts on proton.me. That's the limit of free accounts for the android app. Then I opened the third paid account so I can use the proton VPN. It is around 4€ per month. Not cheap, but affordable.

I have different email accounts for my private life, my official life and my professional life. Then I have some more email accounts for my dev projects. They are barely in use, I will leave them on Google. There is not a lot of problems if I loose them.

Chrome profiles

I like to have different chrome profiles and they are basically different google accounts. So I will not entirely delete my google accounts. I will just migrate the most important part, the emails.

Other google services

I will still use google keep, google maps and other services that are not super important. I will use google docs for not important stuff that must be shared.

Youtube

Youtube is the most popular video platform. I have some videos there and I don't plan to migrate. It is not important to me.

Google Cloud migrate to Hetzner VPS

Google give me a very small "developer" VM for free. I have to pay something little for additional functionality. That is cheap for my use-case, less than 1€/month. The servers are in Oregon USA.

Hetzner costs a little more around 3€/month, but the VPS is 4 times bigger. And it is in Germany in Europe.

I will migrate all my stuff, but I will leave the project "web.crev.dev" on that server. I am not the owner of the domain and I don't want to bother, it is an obsolete project. Nobody uses it.

GitHub migrate to Codeberg

GitHub is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft is under the law of USA. They can sanction anybody anytime for no apparent reason. No recourse.

Codeberg.org is a German nonprofit organization specialized in open-source software development services.

The visibility of GitHub repos is undeniably greater than repos on Codeberg, but frankly who watches my repos anyway.

The migration is not easy. I made a bunch of tools that are specifically made for GitHub and they don't work anywhere else. All my links lead to GitHub. That is hard to change. But the basic transfer of all the files is easy. Codeberg has a migration tool.

Replacing all words "github" to "codeberg" does not work. I have to manually review every replacement because some mention of github will still exist. It is exhausting, but fortunately nobody depends on it. Most of the replacements are in this order:

I need to update and test every single repo to work on Codeberg. Especially the automation tools. repos_migration.md

Dropbox

I was very satisfied with DropBox. It is expensive, but it works. There were just a few things I have to criticize. One day they changed the plans and increased the price without asking anybody. Their software on PC does not work with external disks. Their software on Android does not sync or something. I remember I had problems with that.

I regularly make backups of my web storage to 2 external drives. So in case that Dropbox dies, I still have all my data in these backups.

I have now 2 Hetzner storage boxes of 1TB for 3,90€ each. I need to transfer all my Dropbox data there, but my internet connection is terrible. I will use my Hetzner VPS to copy the files.

dropbox_to_hetzner.md

Open-source and free as a beer

My open-source projects are free as a beer (MIT license).
I just love programming.
But I need also to drink. If you find my projects and tutorials helpful, please buy me a beer by donating to my PayPal.
You know the price of a beer in your local bar ;-)
So I can drink a free beer for your health :-)
Na zdravje! Alla salute! Prost! Nazdravlje! 🍻

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