121–130 of 151 posts
Time to install a mobile browser with ad-blocking capabilities. Suggestions? I haven't used Firefox on my phone in years, but I remember it being slower than a snail
Time to install a mobile browser with ad-blocking capabilities. Suggestions? I haven't used Firefox on my phone in years, but I remember it being slower than a snail
Firefox on android works fine for me and supports all the extensions of their desktop browser.
> In Maps, ads will now appear [...] during navigation. Unless I'm missing something, distractions whilst navigating (and thus possibly driving) seems like it could be dangerous.
Waze started doing this and it’s annoying, but I’m already looking at waze so it’s typically when I’m stopped or during some other period where I think it’s safe to look at my phone while driving. I feel sorry for the advertisers as it’s dumb stuff like showing me an ad for “there’s a kfc nearby would you like to eat here” when I’m driving to a business meeting at 10am.
> In Maps, ads will now appear [...] during navigation. Unless I'm missing something, distractions whilst navigating (and thus possibly driving) seems like it could be dangerous.
I'm betting this is going to appear the same way as it does on Waze, which shows fast food logos along your route, as well as popup ads whenever you're stopped. Annoying, but not intrusive enough to be considered a driving distraction, IMO.
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Why would Google be desperate, though? They are hugely cash positive, have enormous cash reserves, and essentially no competition outside of China.
>no competition outside of China For now. Duck is growing and I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple build their own. Not to mention, the use of content blockers is rising.
I also bet Apple is not interested in running a search engine themselves. They would either have to muddy their brand by allowing questionable results, or filter everything that is not family friendly and risk being seen as the big censor.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=silicon+valley%2C+usa+map&t=h_&ia=...
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That makes it an unpaid ad.
Cynically, yes, but this is how humans follow directions anyway. Are your friends giving you an unpaid ad when they say "head down main st, past the Burger King"?
"In Maps, ads will now appear in recommended search queries, on routing pages and during navigation " Ugh, this is sad and clever at same time - during navigation screen is on all the time and one usually glances at route from time to time even if it is just "straight ahead" for couple of kilometers. Moreover ad will be potentially visible to all passengers as well.
"How much to route traffic off the interstate past my business?" on a serious note - the Telsa in-car mapping app uses google map tiles, and they are choosng what businesses show up with icons when you look at the map.
At least they haven't brought this corporatism to google earth desktop yet. I can pull up on the map every single bar and restaurant in Los Angeles in one search if I wanted to.
> In Maps, ads will now appear [...] during navigation. Unless I'm missing something, distractions whilst navigating (and thus possibly driving) seems like it could be dangerous.
Waze started doing this and it’s annoying, but I’m already looking at waze so it’s typically when I’m stopped or during some other period where I think it’s safe to look at my phone while driving. I feel sorry for the advertisers as it’s dumb stuff like showing me an ad for “there’s a kfc nearby would you like to eat here” when I’m driving to a business meeting at 10am.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aaaaand none of that matters. Not many people enjoy sitting there, mapping stuff, so openstreetmap is not going to get any better without corporations contributing to it like they do with Linux kernel. Lawsuits doesn't matter much as well - with Google's power they can either: - Afford a settlement, bunch of them - Make the litigation to take long-long-long time - Lobby for some law to protect them. Nobody ain't gonn…
OSM has better data in certain aspects. The big problem with OSM is not about the data, but that it isn't designed to be used as a map. When someone visits osm.org, it is very barebones and the search feature doesn't work very well to find places unless you know the syntax. The team working on OSM themselves say that OSM is not a map, but instead a database. Anyway, Google would never have gotten the data that it has…