If you need a specific language that's only on Google Translate you could try Lingva, it's an alternative frontend for Google Translate that supposedly should have less tracking and gives the same results.
You could also try translating trough an AI like Mistral to see what it will come up with. In my experience the translations in Google Translate are quite bad, especially for the smaller regional languages so AI might actually be better in that regard.
Well that's a bummer, but at least the company who owns Startpage will remain in the Netherlands for now it seems.
Paid unfortunately also means that it's way harder to convince anyone to use it, even though the price seems very low for what you get. The other problem that brings is that I don't know what I'm buying exactly until I bought it.
Startpage gives very good results, I recall reading somewhere that they use search results from Google, but I honestly don't know. I use it over Ecosia because it has slightly better results and is more privacy focused. Plus I never click any adverts, so Ecosia wouldn't generate an awful lot of trees from my usage haha.
I also used Qwant, but the search results weren't great for more complex search queries.
It's true that the monetisation of everything is pretty awful, but it's one of the most important reasons to join a platform for content creators whether we like it or not.
The main reason to join a platform for a creator is the amount of the potential viewers, which of course don't increase much without new content creators. Therefore Peertube needs a secondary reason for creators to join, which it doesn't seem to have.
If anything, joining Peertube will in theory decrease their income, which actually gives them a reason to not join :(
Conserning the Netherlands: the Efteling is great, it's themed on European fairy tales! It's a very nice park for all ages.
Another nice, yet smaller park for the Netherlands is Toverland.
Ik doe het soms thuis omdat mensen dan net iets beter zijn te verstaan. Soms heb je mensen aan de lijn waarvan het lijkt alsof ze in een orkaan staan te bellen, of bij een straalmotor, of ergens waar anno 2024 nog steeds geen mobiele verbinding is. Als ik ze dan iets harder kan horen, dan kan dat net het verschil maken.
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I fell in love with Mapy.cz (Google Maps alternative) It's a wonderful replacement for Google Maps when you're out walking or hiking.
I've had so many times that I trusted Mapy by walking down a path or alley that looked abandoned and/or prohibited, only to arrive at wonderful hidden places on the trail or in the city, free of any other traveller/tourist. Never got shivved either!
Every walkable path is on Mapy, hardened or not. And if it's worth the trouble you'll see the trail colours/codes next to the path so you don't have to do any planning before walking. The app also let's you track your route so you can see where you've been walking, how fast, how long, etc. And you can also download offline maps. The only thing I feel is flawed, is their navigation, which I prefer not to use.
I also love DeepL for translation, but there was a recent post about it, so I won't mention it further.