I regret the last time I let it auto-update: that update had brought lots of junk UI and the annoying and equally useless "covid" reminder at the bottom. Since then I've disabled the auto-updates. If one day it refuses to work, I guess I'll just find some OSM-based alternative.
Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
71–80 of 447 posts
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#72What are some reliable alternatives for both iOS and Android? I'm unsure how are Apple Maps, but they were hideous a while back for Eastern Europe at least.
I use Apple Maps in Northern New England (Maine, NH, Vermont, Eastern Canada) and it's actually a little better than Google here in my experience. Apple Maps also fully supports no tracking and a better offline mode IMO. If you are on iOS and in a location that Apple supports I'd highly recommend it.
Apple Maps has an offline mode?
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#73So how about OsmAnd[0] ? Supports fully offline mobile navigation. [0] https://osmand.net/
I want to switch to osmand and I've installed it and Google Maps, but I've yet to be able to use osmand full time. mostly because it never seems to find a full and navigate to it properly.
The best way I've been able to use it is typing the address's postcode and then finally look for the number or building like a barbarian, but even that doesn't always bring up the result.
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#74I don't like this being forced on you, but who the hell cares about wifi/bt SSID sniffing? What's so bad about collecting it? You are literally broadcasting it yourself and on most devices you can't even turn broadcasting off anymore.
On a localised basis, it is perhaps not so bad, however at a higher level, it allows you to piece together a huge amount of info, including grouping members of households etc.
Honestly, it's not a great piece of info to be leaking, if you value your privacy.
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#75So how about OsmAnd[0] ? Supports fully offline mobile navigation. [0] https://osmand.net/
Organic Maps is also cool. Forked from the then-OSS Maps.Me client, which, to be honest, I liked better than OsmAnd.
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#76What is the value of sniffing the local ssids? As far as I know it is just to get a better and faster lock on location (sometimes GPS signals are weak) and therefore give better navigation. Does anyone know of some other purpose?
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#77> Of course, device location is on, but it's only for GPS, and google so badly wants that (apparently) vital, and sweet wifi + bluetooth + cell tracking data.
I'd believe this has been made to reduce the number of "Maps takes soooo long to acquire my position on the map / can't find me when I'm in a building" complaints. A WiFi scan will be very quick (to the tune of 1-5s) to establish rough coordinates, a GPS TTFF can take minutes or be outright impossible.
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#78Are you sure they're not doing this to get approximate location for use with A-GPS? Sure, GPS will work without it, but your time to first fix is going to be much longer, and your phone will have no idea where you are while you're waiting for that fix. There's a good overview of A-GPS in module 5 here [1]. This is just how people expect GPS to work on modern mobile phones, to the point where they'd probably consider…
that most definitely is the reason to ask for wifi scanning, but the point was reiterated many times in the post. This is about privacy AND the fact that GPS-only navigation works globally just fine. If the user wishes to have that improved cold start approximate location then sure, turn on wifi scanning. If they do not wish to give that up, they should still be able to navigate
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#79Maybe someone should build a portable (FCC compliant?) device to put in your car that spoofs and rotates a bunch of 2.4/5Ghz SSIDs periodically to "trick" apps that mine wifi data with GPS location. Bonus points for bogus names like "Starbucks Wifi" or "McDonalds Free Wifi" in the middle of the highway. Even easier, just reverse engineer the API and send the SSIDs yourself.
A rapsberry pi, a drop dead simple shell script[1], and airbase[0] will get you this in 15 minutes: [0] https://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=airbase-ng [1] quickliest and dirtiest: #!/bin/bash while read line; do echo "creating basestation ${line}" airbase-ng -c 9 -e "${line}" -W 1 wlan0 & done
You should also randomize the BSSID.
Re: Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
#80So how about OsmAnd[0] ? Supports fully offline mobile navigation. [0] https://osmand.net/
I wish OsmAnd all the best, but ever since the app was created, its map rendering performance has been stuck in the 2010s, no matter how much faster our devices have gotten since then. There is justification for it for sure (see https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/issues?q=is%3Aissue+slow... for a few), and I love OSM out of principle, but as a product, it will remain my last resort until the user experience is toler…
If you have an older device, there is a is night and day difference between OsmAnd~ (the F-Droid rebuild) and Organic Maps (the latest maps.me fork). OsmAnd visibly stutters to load in new tiles whereas Organic Maps is perfectly smooth even when zooming quickly.
OsmAnd is still much more feature-rich, though, so it's worth using if you have a more powerful device. Although i do worry about the battery impact.