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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

#291

Post by startupsfail »

nolok wrote: post #211
dpryden wrote: post #195

I recall from my time in Google Geo years ago that the idea of integrating Search and Maps was a big part of the "New Maps" release that happened around 2014. The rumor I heard was that someone (possibly even Larry himself) wanted to be able to have interactive maps directly on the search results page, so that the navigation from a search query to a map wouldn't involve even a page reload. So the big Maps frontend re…

This makes perfect sense product wise, if I'm searching "bakery" on my mobile phone I probably want the ones around me and not the generic location-agnostic google search of it, just like I would if I was searching on map. Matter of fact, this is actually something I do a couple times a month, search then clic the maps tab to see localized results then from them click the website result to find their webpage. As a te…

What we see is likely the attempt to squeeze even more juice from advertising over which Google virtually have a monopoly. Google is trying to continue its exponential growth while relying on selling advertisements. The market had already been saturated and optimised to crazy levels. Smart thing would be to expand to other sources of revenue, but other projects inside Google fail. As they are failing to compete internally for resources against that crazily optimised source of revenue.

It is doubtful that Google can overcome that internally. Perhaps regulators should break up the monopoly in advertisement and search.

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

#292

Post by CSSer »

dpryden wrote: post #195

I recall from my time in Google Geo years ago that the idea of integrating Search and Maps was a big part of the "New Maps" release that happened around 2014. The rumor I heard was that someone (possibly even Larry himself) wanted to be able to have interactive maps directly on the search results page, so that the navigation from a search query to a map wouldn't involve even a page reload. So the big Maps frontend re…

> It's also possible that someone is trying to increase the percentage of searches that have location information, that doesn't seem terribly far-fetched either, and I can imagine lots of ways people could try to rationalize it as actually benefiting users.

Could you speak more to how this kind of thing figuratively plays out? With privacy on most of our (tech-focused) minds, I’m mostly curious how openly an initiative like this is/would be carried out. Would you imagine it as a buried lede or as a very transparent, explicit OKR?

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

#293

Post by __michaelg »

garritfra wrote: post #247
__michaelg wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta: my answer here is probably also a good example of motivated reasoning because I likely read a bit more into what the author wrote than is factually in the blog post. Oh boy.

> Oh boy. Do you mind pointing out where you think this applies?

I think my critique is somewhat correct in that you seem to suggest that this change was made to allow for expanding the permissions from one product to all products, which I don't think one can derive from the things we know.

I think I was somewhat wrong in that I may have suggested that you said this was the only reason (which you didn't explicitly) and also in that I dismissed that they factually can use these permissions from other products now, i.e., no matter whether it was intended or not, the permissions set for other products is broader now.

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

#294

Post by asadotzler »

vetinari wrote: post #225
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point about Chrome is not that it can’t do DoH but by default it doesn’t so relies on the system settings which for the vast majority of users (not us geeks who explicitly opt in) never change and use ISP supplied values so DNS snooping is still a thing for the majority. Should a browser override system settings? That’s another question, because doing so can impact other things for the avg Joe. For example my mobi…

I understand your point, but anyway, no app, no browser should ever think that "it knows better" and attempt to fix what it considers incorrect. It may think that it protects the user, but in reality, it will break what the user configured. Private DNS zones are common, and if the browser ignores user configured DNS, they will break. And as I wrote elsewhere, just because the machine is configured to use 53/udp for a…

If a general purpose browser can empower hundreds of millions or even billions of regular users with better privacy (and ultimately, security) by making a change that might disrupt a small handful of power users who manually configure this stuff, I say the browser should go for it. The power users are the very people who can, without much effort at all, reconfigure their stuff, or easily find a special purposed browser, so they'll be just fine.

Spock was right, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

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

#295

Post by ruph123 »

bboygravity wrote: post #102
ruph123 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is panning and zooming in OSMAnd not a huge pain for anyone else? The map rendering (of downloaded maps) is extremely sluggish and absolutely useless for me to use. (Even worse than the tile-based rendering of early Maps on iPhone.) Organic and MagicEarth work fine for me. I really wonder if it is just my setup or if everyone else suffers from this. I am on a Pixel 5 with CalyxOS using the OSMAnd+ from Fdroid (but sa…

I have the exact opposite experience with OSMAnd on Android. The map rendering of OSMAnd is faster than Google Maps (using a 3+ year old smart phone with a low-end Realtek SoC). Like really way way faster/snappier. My setup is a Chinese brand Android 10 with default OS (rooted)and OSMAnd+ from Fdroid. The only possible cause I could think of is that CalyxOS is somehow missing proper video drivers for your Pixel?

Hmm interesting, thanks for letting me know. I always wondered why people recommend OSMAnd when it performs so poorly. Will look into this.

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

#296

Post by iggldiggl »

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #214
vetinari wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome uses DoT, if you have configured one of the well-known resolvers that do support DoT. Otherwise, it respects your local settings.

My point about Chrome is not that it can’t do DoH but by default it doesn’t so relies on the system settings which for the vast majority of users (not us geeks who explicitly opt in) never change and use ISP supplied values so DNS snooping is still a thing for the majority. Should a browser override system settings? That’s another question, because doing so can impact other things for the avg Joe. For example my mobi…

…, I get the "wrong" IP for anything hosted by Akamai (i.e. an IP address that corresponds to a part of their CDN which has abysmal peering with my ISP and is completely unusable in the evening)

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

#297

Post by asadotzler »

coffeeblack wrote: post #233

This is actually something that browsers can mitigate. Allow users to give tracking permissions not only for subdomains, but also for paths. Deny: google.com/* Allow: google.com/flights Something like that.

I don't think DOM permissions are going to stop Google if they want to share the data between services.

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

#298

Post by ruph123 »

ce4 wrote: post #255
ruph123 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is panning and zooming in OSMAnd not a huge pain for anyone else? The map rendering (of downloaded maps) is extremely sluggish and absolutely useless for me to use. (Even worse than the tile-based rendering of early Maps on iPhone.) Organic and MagicEarth work fine for me. I really wonder if it is just my setup or if everyone else suffers from this. I am on a Pixel 5 with CalyxOS using the OSMAnd+ from Fdroid (but sa…

It may be a bug of Android: Newer Android versions have further locker down sd card access. The implementation is apparently super slow for stuff like what Osmand uses. Dont put the map data onto the sd card or use one of the predefined locations https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/issues/12046 https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/issues/13254 Edit: If that is not the culprit then check if OpenGL rendering is activate…

Thanks for letting me know. I don't have a sd card, activated the dev plugin and enabled opengl but did not see any real improvement. I will open an issue with a screen recording on their repo now that I know it is not supposed to be this bad.
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