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maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

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Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#72
This made me think how much would I lose if I'll just block all *.google.com domains in the browser? I was using DDG for search and Firefox for browsing for many years without problems, but I also still use Gmail and Google docs (or whatever they are called these days, Google for Work?). Maybe, a blanket ban plus a few exceptions like mail.google.com, docs.google.com, tables.google.com and drive.google.com would not cripple my workflow too much.

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#75

> Congratulations, you now have permission to geo-track me across all of your services. I don't think Google needed to do this move to track you across their services. Pretty sure they were able to do that before.

This makes it problematical to block. Previously you could give location permission to map.google.com and not elsewhere. Now you can't be more selective: remove permission from search/other and maps stops working (or doesn't work as well).

As others have pointed out, there are technical benefits too – but most (all?) of these technical benefits are essentially because it works around features designed to limit the scope of permissions.

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#76
post #59
post #7

https://www.openstreetmap.org

If you need OSM on Android, I can recommend: - "Organic Maps" (a fork of the old MapsMe codebase) if you want a clean, simple user experience - "OSMAnd" if you want a very powerful, highly customizable map application, which comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve Both apps are open source and support navigation, offline maps and POI search. The things I miss most compared to Google Maps is live traffic informa…

I use OSMand for walking and biking and it's great, much better than Google Maps in my region. Just remember to choose the right kind of traffic in the settings when starting navigation.

It's not as good for driving.

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#78

I am having a hard time figuring out how this would be affected by GDPR.

Does the GDPR care about the concept of apps and URLs? If not, all it matters is the person/company relationship.

the GDPR cares about the rights the company asks for, how long it keeps it, does it need the rights for the purpose, does it give you an easy way to opt out of the rights collection and so forth.

If in order to not let all of Google have your location information you need to opt out of letting maps have your location information it might be a GDPR problem. Considering also that this was not a problem that people had before if indeed it is a problem now it might be taken as a wilful circumvention of GDPR.

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#79
post #59
post #7

https://www.openstreetmap.org

If you need OSM on Android, I can recommend: - "Organic Maps" (a fork of the old MapsMe codebase) if you want a clean, simple user experience - "OSMAnd" if you want a very powerful, highly customizable map application, which comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve Both apps are open source and support navigation, offline maps and POI search. The things I miss most compared to Google Maps is live traffic informa…

I have Organic Maps, because I thought it would be nice to have in case of an emergency where I don't have internet, but sadly just a few weeks ago, I had such a case and Organic Maps couldn't find the address and the map itself didn't have all the roads on it (nor satelite or topology map), so I couldn't even use it as a normal map... In the end I had to resort to one archaic ways and ask local humans for directions...

Google maps does offer being able to download for offline use, but if you don't have internet it quite often doesn't want to do navigation, unless you trick it with saved directions.

How does Garmin do it (I'm guessing map licencing issue)?

And how come this isn't already a solved issue?

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#80
post #59
post #7

https://www.openstreetmap.org

If you need OSM on Android, I can recommend: - "Organic Maps" (a fork of the old MapsMe codebase) if you want a clean, simple user experience - "OSMAnd" if you want a very powerful, highly customizable map application, which comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve Both apps are open source and support navigation, offline maps and POI search. The things I miss most compared to Google Maps is live traffic informa…

I also had some success with HERE maps: https://wego.here.com

Their Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.m...

Their Apple app: https://apps.apple.com/app/id955837609

The performance is good (especially on a budget Android device, better than the recent versions of Google Maps, even), they're reasonably accurate (I'm in Eastern Europe) and include navigation, traffic information, public transportation, as well as the ability to save regions for offline browsing.

I can't comment on the company behind it, though, but it's a nice alternative nonetheless (and there are simple prompts for choosing whether you want to send them any data, e.g. to enrich traffic information).

Edit: as a criticism, some Android reviews suggest that recent updates have made the app less performant than previous versions, though I didn't notice anything in particular on my current device (2020 budget phone). Some also suggest that navigation needs more work.

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