this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Boycott US

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I’m looking to avoid American-made goods and American companies as much as possible and this relatively challenging when it comes to computers.

From my research so far it seems very difficult to find computer hardware that isn’t using American company microprocessors. CPUs available to non-industrial uses tend to be AMD, Intel, or recently some Qualcomm — all US companies. Even Raspberry Pi uses a Broadcom chip, and the other up-and-coming ARM chips I’ve researched seem to be American as well.

I’d appreciate any insights in this area, either companies with existing products or up and coming companies to watch. If I had a blind spot in my research and I’m missing something obvious please tell me.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Non-American CPUs are very rare. NXP and Infineon are European chip makers, but the only device with an NXP SoC that I'm aware of right now would be the Purism Librem 5. An almost 7 year old, absolutely overpriced, nearly unusable, insecure Linux phone.

We're a little more lucky when it comes to storage. Goodram is flash memory manufacturer from Poland. Intenso is based in Germany. G.Skill and ADATA are Taiwanese. Toshiba and Kioxia are Japanese, SK Hynix and Samsung are South Korean.
(TrekStor is also German, but I'm not sure if they make the chips themselves)

Most mainboard manufacturers, such as MSI, AsRock, ASUS, Gigabyte and Biostar are Taiwanese.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Then there's also the software to think about. You can certainly use Linux instead of Windows but even then, lots of people will also end up using Google, Steam or Discord.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I’ve used Linux since 1996, so that doesn’t bother me in the slightest

I should have mentioned that but I’m a bit self-conscious about being the “I use arch btw” people. Even though I do use Arch, btw.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

rockchip based SBCs are powerful enough for general-purpose use. Some of the companies behind them are american like PINE64 but most arent. There's a promising board called the orion o6 coming out of china but its still really young in its development and support lifecycle and its hard to source.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Open source Risc-V CPUs are starting to become a thing, but probably a few years before they're widespread.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

This looks very promising thanks for sharing it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

worth mentioning that “promising” is about all it is right now… you absolutely don’t want a RISC-V based machine yet: they’re incredibly slow, and incredibly expensive… they’re development machines; not for end users

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes your perspective on this matches the results of my research as well.

It’s a very interesting project to watch and hopefully upstart companies around the world will see this as an opportunity to serve their domestic markets.

But right now today it’s extraordinarily expensive for limited performance. I can live with limited performance but those price are way too high to consider for anything not directly related to development of the platform itself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

the most interesting case right now i think is specialised chips… i think i read that western digital were thinking of building drive controllers using them, because they’d be cheap and very flexible… i can see lots of things like that: little tiny things that suddenly get a whole lot more interesting

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

You're welcome

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Really wish Nortel was still around for networking. No idea for good business grade switches and access points.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I’ve been an avid Unifi fan for years, but for my “prosumer” uses I’ll probably be moving to TP-Link unless I find a better alternative for network gear.

I don’t love supporting China for a variety of serious reasons, but for me… not threatening to conquer my country gives them a big step up from America despite those reasons.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You could check out Mikrotik. Latvian company. It takes a bit of work to understand though from my experience. Their routers are very good though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Appreciate the tip thanks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

TP-link was put on a cautionary list in Canada, I think, for instance.

Please double-check that it's your best option. I just bought a home plug bridge and I'd buy another, but it's not for the tasty part of my home setup so I lie to myself about any risks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The risk of relying on devices which perform auto-update functionality or could hide backdoors are absolutely a legitimate security vulnerability.

Companies must comply with legal orders given to them by their government. So if the government of, say, China or America demands that their firms enable surveillance or sabotage either against individuals or widespread; those companies will comply.

So yes, any advice of caution is prudent. I both get that and agree with it.

However, right now I consider the US to be a more serious threat. They are intentionally causing harm to my country in order to bully us into capitulation to steal our land and resources. So while the threats of sabotage or surveillance are true from both counties, my priority is to boycott the US more stringently.

I am absolutely open to better options and if you have any suggestions I’m up for it. And regardless I would do substantial research before buying any new gear.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Is it really American computer hardware if it’s all manufactured outside of the US?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

They control the final product, so the answer is yes

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Yes and no? I would make the distinction its American Designed hardware regardless of where it was manufactured. Manufacturing these days is a cheap commodity no matter what. 100% China would outsource manufacturing to African countries if it made economic sense over domestic production in China. At the end of the day you really got to figure out what your intentions are. Boycotting USA? By stuff designed and sold by companies outside the USA. Buying non exploitative and ethically procured and manufactured electronics? Well let me know if such a thing exists.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I’m not going to demand that everyone share my preferences, but yes I’m trying to avoid supporting US companies as much as possible.

Which in the context of my question this means I’m looking for the parts which are often made in the same facilities as US companies but do not send any money to their firms.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Moore Threads is a domestic Chinese company that seems to be trying to compete with NVIDIA, AMD. Their GPUs look comparable to GTX 10xx series cards. Wish I could get ahold of one to try it out. I hear the drivers are pretty crappy but have been getting better fairly recently. Fortunately, most parts are fundamentally based in Taiwan due to TSMC so you might have to research clients of TSMC to find alternatives. CPUs are a pain point. INTEL or AMD. ARM is cool but until RISC really takes off, your going to be tied to at least one or two american companies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

ARM isnt very powerful outside Apple stuff, but it's good enough for most users now. RISC-V is the future but its performance is terrible right now and the price is high. If you are planning for like 5 years ferom now, consider RISC-V. Otherwise, it's x86 or ARM for most people.

The Orion O6 is coming out soon and promises some decent flexibility with ARM. Its not as great as Ampere's offerings but its good enough for now and much cheaper.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nvidia/AMD/Intel/Apple/Qualcomm/Broadcom < Matrox/Imagination/SiPearl/Arm/Nordic Semiconductor

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thank you this has given me some very useful leads.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's good to check out the options, also consider writing to your representatives to buy non-american hardware brands.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is a challenge when there seems to be a dearth of products fit the criteria!

However it seems like sipearl is working on exactly what I’m looking for — an arm processor made in Europe — and I’m eagerly looking forward to it.

For what it’s worth I’m active in my local riding and don’t plan to stop pestering them about these sorts of things.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

For what it’s worth I’m active in my local riding and don’t plan to stop pestering them about these sorts of things.

I appreciate your activism as you're educating your representative on how to properly support our regional businesses.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Plenty of Taiwanese based companies for PC parts (ASRock, ASUS, BenQ); though I don't know if any of them have CPUs, specifically, and the GPUs are still based on specs from nVidia or AMD so IDK how much better that is. There's also Chinese based parts, though I have to imagine that's not much better than US ones, for the same reasons you want to avoid American parts.