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Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

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Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#41

Post by johnchristopher »

Good, I decided to finally ditch Google Maps as my usual go-to app when I need bus directions, itineraries or things like that. The app is now cluttered with too much suggestions about restaurants, places and suggestions I have no interest about on the moment.

I recently re-installed Here maps (which I loved on windows mobile) and my country railway app has built-in bus data so it can help plan travels as well.

I didn't saw any hints about it in the article but are they going to build an app around it ?

Edit: ah, they don't have public transport schedules yet.

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#42

Post by politelemon »

lucb1e wrote: post #3

The article doesn't say, but if it used an OpenStreetMap-based routing engine (which you can self-host because, y'know, open data) then the directions might misalign to the display layer which is Apple Maps. Therefore it must send your directions request to Apple. Which I guess is fine, they'll just see "some DDG user" requesting certain directions and it's definitely not the worst company they could be working with,…

It's the one thing that's kept me off DDG - the superior choice of OSM exists. And as you've pointed out, their choice of maps now forces the user into Apple's hands as the choice of navigation, a company which I do not trust, and I certainly don't see it as the least evil.

Even placing my mistrust aside, it's once again a US-centric move; as garbage as Apple Maps is, it's even worse outside the US.

The only reason for this choice that makes any sense, is that they've received a monetary incentive for this, and neither company has been open about it.

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#43

Post by toomuchtodo »

lucb1e wrote: post #3

The article doesn't say, but if it used an OpenStreetMap-based routing engine (which you can self-host because, y'know, open data) then the directions might misalign to the display layer which is Apple Maps. Therefore it must send your directions request to Apple. Which I guess is fine, they'll just see "some DDG user" requesting certain directions and it's definitely not the worst company they could be working with,…

They could use Valhalla. It is the open source routing engine Tesla uses in vehicle.

https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#44

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

nemoniac wrote: post #10

Driving and walking but no cycling?

There is less consensus on routing for cycling, no one-size-fits-all solution, because everything depends on stamina, level of comfort cycling with traffic, tire width and wheel durability. On Android, for instance, see how different the routes can be when generated by OSMAnd's in-built cycling router and when generated by the Brouter plugin (which in turn has two profiles users must choose from). No surprise that DDG doesn't want to roll out cycle routing before they can think up a UI that offers the required customizability without daunting the user.

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#45

Post by petre »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #44
nemoniac wrote: post #10

Driving and walking but no cycling?

There is less consensus on routing for cycling, no one-size-fits-all solution, because everything depends on stamina, level of comfort cycling with traffic, tire width and wheel durability. On Android, for instance, see how different the routes can be when generated by OSMAnd's in-built cycling router and when generated by the Brouter plugin (which in turn has two profiles users must choose from). No surprise that DD…

Graphopper can give you a bike route which avoids hills, a mountain bike route which doesn't and also uses unpaved roads and a road bike route which also dorsn't but sticks to the road. It's quite good too. I used it to plan bike trips, because it also exports GPX tracks.

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#46

Post by 1over137 »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #44
nemoniac wrote: post #10

Driving and walking but no cycling?

There is less consensus on routing for cycling, no one-size-fits-all solution, because everything depends on stamina, level of comfort cycling with traffic, tire width and wheel durability. On Android, for instance, see how different the routes can be when generated by OSMAnd's in-built cycling router and when generated by the Brouter plugin (which in turn has two profiles users must choose from). No surprise that DD…

>no one-size-fits-all solution, because everything depends on stamina, tire width and wheel durability

Those aren't the most important metrics. In cities at least, the most important things are: car traffic and hills.

Many cyclists would rather take a slower route if there's less cars about, and to avoid biking uphill.

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#47

Post by [deleted] »

politelemon wrote: post #42
lucb1e wrote: post #3

The article doesn't say, but if it used an OpenStreetMap-based routing engine (which you can self-host because, y'know, open data) then the directions might misalign to the display layer which is Apple Maps. Therefore it must send your directions request to Apple. Which I guess is fine, they'll just see "some DDG user" requesting certain directions and it's definitely not the worst company they could be working with,…

It's the one thing that's kept me off DDG - the superior choice of OSM exists. And as you've pointed out, their choice of maps now forces the user into Apple's hands as the choice of navigation, a company which I do not trust, and I certainly don't see it as the least evil. Even placing my mistrust aside, it's once again a US-centric move; as garbage as Apple Maps is, it's even worse outside the US. The only reason f…

[deleted]

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#48

Post by snthd »

politelemon wrote: post #42
lucb1e wrote: post #3

The article doesn't say, but if it used an OpenStreetMap-based routing engine (which you can self-host because, y'know, open data) then the directions might misalign to the display layer which is Apple Maps. Therefore it must send your directions request to Apple. Which I guess is fine, they'll just see "some DDG user" requesting certain directions and it's definitely not the worst company they could be working with,…

It's the one thing that's kept me off DDG - the superior choice of OSM exists. And as you've pointed out, their choice of maps now forces the user into Apple's hands as the choice of navigation, a company which I do not trust, and I certainly don't see it as the least evil. Even placing my mistrust aside, it's once again a US-centric move; as garbage as Apple Maps is, it's even worse outside the US. The only reason f…

What about factoring real time traffic data into route planning?

OSM Data/Routing engines alone don't address that side of the problem.

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#49

Post by spiffytech »

fooqux wrote: post #14
rietta wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much can be gleaned from the way points. Google guesses home and work with great accuracy without the need for crazy fancy data analysis.

But only because they can tie it to a user account . If DDG is the middleduck acting as an anonymizing layer, Apple won't be able to perform such analysis on the data. This is all conjecture obviously, it's hard to know exactly how much data Apple is getting, and if they could use something else to fingerprint users, but I'll give DDG the benefit of doubt for now.

Navigation requests are very frequently home"place I went". Household-level driving/shopping patterns are incredibly valuable in their own right, but it's also easy for a dedicated company to tie your address to the personal identities of the residents (Apple's internal customer records, public records, private vendors whose whole business is selling this info), and then it's just profit all the way down.

Hypothetically, DDG could guard against Apple having useful navigational histories for your home by seeding requests with misinformation -- artificial navigation requests Apple can't tell apart from your real requests -- but I'd be surprised if this hypothetical is actually happening.

Re: Plan Your Route Privately: DuckDuckGo Now Has Driving and Walking Directions

#50

Post by hippo77 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #41

Good, I decided to finally ditch Google Maps as my usual go-to app when I need bus directions, itineraries or things like that. The app is now cluttered with too much suggestions about restaurants, places and suggestions I have no interest about on the moment. I recently re-installed Here maps (which I loved on windows mobile) and my country railway app has built-in bus data so it can help plan travels as well. I did…

Agreed. Google Maps has just gotten worse and worse over the past 10 years, slower to load, harder to navigate.
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