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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

#51

Post by karussell »

I'll do a shameless advertisement of our open source routing engine GraphHopper as one of our main advantage over the big companies is that we do not track users. We rent our servers (not on AWS or GC :) ) and remove logs after max. 5 weeks https://graphhopper.com/maps/ (see our privacy policy for more details)

We only keep them for debugging purposes and attack prevention. The maps layer (visualization) is done from an external company though: you can change this in the upper right corner to e.g. the original OpenStreetMap or Thunderforest.

Additionally you get nice biking and hiking routes all with elevation, multiple other vehicle types like scooter or truck. And the possibility to export to GPX or using multiple via points. Additionally we try to update the road network as fast as possible (currently max. 1-3 days) from OpenStreetMap data, which is not always the case from other providers. Currently we try to revamp our UI to integrate new features like our alternative routes (you can trigger this via algorithm=alternative_route URL parameter).

Now it is always important to ask the question "how do they make money?" and to understand why we can offer this all for free and even have the routing engine as open source: the simple reason is that we do not have to earn money with the end user. We created the company to push our open source projects (we also have jsprit - a toolkit for solving rich vehicle routing problems) and we try to support OpenStreetMap where we can (e.g. we are the only European corporate gold member of the OSM foundation) and do this via our growing SaaS where we sell subscriptions to many small and medium sized businesses. We do not have VC and so there is no pressure into things we don't want.

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

#52

Post by kqr »

karussell wrote: post #51

I'll do a shameless advertisement of our open source routing engine GraphHopper as one of our main advantage over the big companies is that we do not track users. We rent our servers (not on AWS or GC :) ) and remove logs after max. 5 weeks https://graphhopper.com/maps/ (see our privacy policy for more details) We only keep them for debugging purposes and attack prevention. The maps layer (visualization) is done from…

I have only two things to say in response to this:

a) I use GraphHopper with OpenStreetMap.org sometimes. It is good. Sometimes too good. Can I ask it to stick to bigger roads at the cost of other things like travel time?

b) Thank you so much for bringing up the profit model and being transparent about it. Way too few people do that.

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

#53

Post by karussell »

kqr wrote: post #52
karussell wrote: post #51

I'll do a shameless advertisement of our open source routing engine GraphHopper as one of our main advantage over the big companies is that we do not track users. We rent our servers (not on AWS or GC :) ) and remove logs after max. 5 weeks https://graphhopper.com/maps/ (see our privacy policy for more details) We only keep them for debugging purposes and attack prevention. The maps layer (visualization) is done from…

I have only two things to say in response to this: a) I use GraphHopper with OpenStreetMap.org sometimes. It is good. Sometimes too good. Can I ask it to stick to bigger roads at the cost of other things like travel time? b) Thank you so much for bringing up the profit model and being transparent about it. Way too few people do that.

Thanks :)

Do you mean preferring bigger roads for car? This is tricky as optimizing for time sometimes introduces big detours and so we consider also distance (that can take you off big roads) and so yes, we have to improve this further. At least for (small) truck we have to improve there :)

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

#54

Post by WilTimSon »

karussell wrote: post #51

I'll do a shameless advertisement of our open source routing engine GraphHopper as one of our main advantage over the big companies is that we do not track users. We rent our servers (not on AWS or GC :) ) and remove logs after max. 5 weeks https://graphhopper.com/maps/ (see our privacy policy for more details) We only keep them for debugging purposes and attack prevention. The maps layer (visualization) is done from…

Is there any plan to add stuff like business addresses and all the other fluff of Google Maps? I'll happily use this for getting around but having to input the street address instead of just the name of a business can be a hassle. Either way, thank you for offering an alternative, this seems great.

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

#55

Post by aasasd »

lumberjack wrote: post #30

FYI, there are also offline and free locally running apps that you can use: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Routing#Mobile_device_so... I used OSMAnd and it works better than Google Maps for my area.

Indeed, OsmAnd works wonders offline on phones: there's a ton of detail compared to some proprietary services, at least in some cities, and routing works fine without internet connection (with the exception of public transport when the data is not in OSM).

It's not entirely free, namely map updates are limited without a subscription—though I haven't checked if it's the same with the F-Droid version.

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

#56

Post by keiferski »

Something I'd really like to see in all map apps is a "scenic" route option. Routes organized by level of traffic, nearness to parks, etc.

I'm usually willing to walk/bike an extra kilometer or so if it means I'll walk through a park instead of next to a highway. Unfortunately the default/only option is always the quickest one.

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

#58

Post by ficklepickle »

HashingtheCode wrote: post #36
Igelau wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I pity the fools I got no time for this jibba jabba!

Mr.T does not use the words jibba jabba

This video of Mr. T saying those exact words begs to differ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHXhGEIAXpE

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

#59

Post by kqr »

karussell wrote: post #53
kqr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only two things to say in response to this: a) I use GraphHopper with OpenStreetMap.org sometimes. It is good. Sometimes too good. Can I ask it to stick to bigger roads at the cost of other things like travel time? b) Thank you so much for bringing up the profit model and being transparent about it. Way too few people do that.

Thanks :) Do you mean preferring bigger roads for car? This is tricky as optimizing for time sometimes introduces big detours and so we consider also distance (that can take you off big roads) and so yes, we have to improve this further. At least for (small) truck we have to improve there :)

For bicycle, in my case. Sorry, should have specified. Bicycle infrastructure is awful where I live so I need to spend a lot of cognitive effort just not being killed by the road. In that mental state I can't follow very complicated directions, so I prefer bigger roads!

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

#60

Post by karussell »

kqr wrote: post #59
karussell wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks :) Do you mean preferring bigger roads for car? This is tricky as optimizing for time sometimes introduces big detours and so we consider also distance (that can take you off big roads) and so yes, we have to improve this further. At least for (small) truck we have to improve there :)

For bicycle, in my case. Sorry, should have specified. Bicycle infrastructure is awful where I live so I need to spend a lot of cognitive effort just not being killed by the road. In that mental state I can't follow very complicated directions, so I prefer bigger roads!

Bike routes are currently heavily optimized already and sometimes I'm also a bit surprised about the good route quality ;) but actually this is only possible with the fantastic OpenStreetmap data. Still the most improvements are probably possible via data improvements in many areas. Still we will try to improve routes via "less turns" and more precise elevation data etc. For bike routing we only need to keep the balance between time, distance, simple route and beautiful route ;)
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