 Yes, you can ditch #GoogleMaps now.. #OrganicMaps is here. Use it while offline and feel good about a #privacy-respecting app that doesn't suck you dry of your personal information. Based on #OpenStreetMap this app is gonna blow #Google #Maps out of the water (hopefully ;) 234 comments
@smallcircles been using it for a bit. it's not bad. i bet it's better in English speaking countries though.  @smallcircles @etua_en Why worldwide? You can download separate maps and layers for the countries you are visiting. There are OSM communities in a lot of countries providing them. Why carrying the data of the whole word with you? For live public transport, there are some good apps which often use OSM. Why should OSM do that? You ever used OSM?
@smallcircles  @smallcircles I downloaded a GPX route last weekend and went on a short hike using #OrganicMaps . Great app, exactly what using software should be like. I've also used the offline maps in a country where I didn't have Internet and it got me to where I was going safely.  @markhburton Which APK, Fdroid or OrganicMaps? I installed both last week on a tablet. Alas, despite the advertisement the tab had no GPS so I returned it. Will install the same on a Lenovo tab on Monday.
@smallcircles@social.coop What is this goggleMaps you are talking about? The relevant question is, is it better than OsmAnd (and why/how)? These applications are executed by electronic components. Do electronic components from Intel, ARM and Nvidia provide complete telemetry of our activities? Yes, these corporations are legally obliged to spy on us. What else can I say?  @HistoPol @smallcircles @session je dirais @briar mais y a pas grand monde qui l'application. Sinon il y a un site de libriste qui est pas mal https://wikilibriste.fr/debutant/logiciel-alternative-libre @eddynamite1969 @HistoPol @smallcircles @session @briar pour Briar, l'application a vraiment un usage spécifique (journalisme, manif, hors-ligne) pour une communication de tous les jours, il faut mieux chercher une alternative, car Briar consomme beaucoup de batterie malheureusement :-( @pikselkraft @HistoPol @smallcircles @session @briar le problème c'est que la plupart des gens non pas envie de s'embêter. Ils achètent des téléphones tout près installés. L'alternative comme @murena est une bonne solution. Pas de bidouillage a faire. @eddynamite1969 @HistoPol @smallcircles @session @briar @murena je suis d'accord, les solutions techniques existent et sont de plus en plus accessible. C'est plus un travail d'éducation populaire qui est nécessaire. @HistoPol@mastodon.social @smallcircles@social.coop I've heard, that Wire is supposed to be a better alternative, than Signal. Unfortunately, it seems not well known enough, to pop up in most comparisons... @HistoPol @smallcircles Thanks for sharing your experiences. I did not finish. See screenshot. @HistoPol @smallcircles @HistoPol @smallcircles There's the French equivalent of Threema called Olvid that could be a good suggestion.
But I'm looking into Databag that seem a step further because Threema and Olvid still rely and third party servers while Databag, I can host it myself.  Yes.  @smallcircles@social.coop That looks interesting. Do you know how it compares to OsmAnd~? I have been using that for longer than I can remember as alternative to Google Maps.  This looks great! When I opened it for the first time (on an Android device) it presented me with two options: no GPS data, or use GPS via Google, with small print that says that it allows Google to harvest my location data and do what they like with it. Is there a way to deal with this? It feels like the main purpose of a privacy-respecting app is lost if they can still mug me for that data via the GPS.  @smallcircles Yes, #OrganicMaps @organicmaps is really great as a map app. And by the way, it's also an easy way to add data to #OpenStreetMap yourself: anonsys.net/display/bf69967c-3…
 @frozencat As Google has grown more entrenched and bureaucratic, its products are getting demonstrably worse. With Google being a powerhouse, there are entire industries built around gaming their systems, and those industries finally seem to be winning. The data in search and maps is growing less useful by the day. And on top of that, Google isn't afraid to monetize every drop of data it can extract from you, and some people find that distasteful. @smallcircles I use it, along with OsmAnd, and OruxMaps, sometimes Locus Map. Four map apps! (the last two not open source either, but still OSM data). I don't have Google Maps installed at all any more. Sometimes though I do need to open something in the Google Maps web app, the address geolocating is often very patchy in the OSM-based apps sadly. Also, I often find very out of date business information (opening hours, etc) in OSM (partly my fault in my local area 🫣). @nick nice! I should be using OSM navigation. Now not using any navigation at all.. the old-fashioned way. And that is sometimes getting me really lost 😅 But that only matters if you need to be at an appointment at specific time, and some prep and leaving early enough will do the trick.  @nick @smallcircles Among some other apps, EveryDoor is quite convenient for POI updates - have you tried it? @richlv @smallcircles I'll try it it! I have Vespucci which is a bit overwhelming although powerful. Most motivating thing for me would be a local community of open street map do-gooders.... No time/energy to try and do that right now though.. @richlv @smallcircles really liking every door app, thanks for the tip! Available on fdroid too, which is big bonus points to me. Simple yet powerful interface. Let's see if I actually use it now.... I did have an issue with the map tiles when zooming in, it was blank. But switching to another option resolved that. Didn't investigate further. Oh the dream to get whole teams of civic minded people to make the data amazing. So much potential, all the tools are here already! @richlv @smallcircles local stickers would be cool too, like "find us on open street map" ... when I did my local shops a while back I went in to speak to them about open street map and what it was all about, but would be better to do it as part of a wider thing in the city... So get more trust or something than a random person. @smallcircles Wow, just installed, and on first impressions I love it! I was put off at first by immediately searching my home address and nothing coming up, so it would be useful to tell people that they need to zoom into the region to download the relevant map first. @DarkOptimism @smallcircles Can you search by street number? The best I can manage is to find entire streets. Or is this an OSM thing? Searching by street number works fine for me. In fact the street numbers are much clearer than I'm used to in Google Maps. Someone else may be able to advise as to why if it's not working for you - I'm a complete newbie! @krimsonbun @smallcircles Organic Maps is great, the only map I use, too. (I have OsmAnd installed for rare niche interests such as nautical maps.) deGoogled phone. GPS accuracy is fine. Love it.
@smallcircles cool, looks great, I'm curious can't really test right now but does it work on android auto? @smallcircles quick review is that you need to know the vernacular in order for it to replace Google Maps. @smallcircles I want to use it, but it doesn’t have mass transportation options like local bus, train, and light rail. @smallcircles I’m admittedly less concerned about privacy, but for me knowing the current traffic situation is a big part of why I use Google maps so often. I just downloaded this app and it doesn’t seem to show this, my interpretation is it maybe can’t do this due to not tracking people? If I’m missing something, please LMK. Also, would be great to see alternate routes.  @julaun @smallcircles  @TheBreadmonkey @smallcircles But does it try to get you to get a compass out every time you try to join the highlighted route?   @smallcircles If only it wasn't for their ridiculous donations page full of pyramid schemes. @stardust yeah, never seen such long list before. Supposedly the money gets to them. There's also Liberapay in that list, for instance. @smallcircles Yeah, but since I've been corrupted by these crypto pyramid schemes in the past myself, I know full well how it can hijack the brain into greed, which makes me distrust the money's destination. That ridiculously long list is a telltale sign.  When I searched for my son's school — nothing. My address — nothing. I had to search for my town and download the map before it could search for anything. It still can't locate an actual house, although it can find a street. This wouldn't be at all useful for navigating. Am I missing something? @bodhipaksa not sure how that works.. new as well for me. I heard that zooming in on an area downloads the maps and then you have them locally. @smallcircles I assume I must be missing something since a navigation app that can't take you to a specific address isn't much use. @bodhipaksa I advise asking some of the experienced folks in other forks of this huge thread. @smallcircles Maybe one day… but it is not this day. This app has a number of problems that it needs to overcome. Search is a big one. Navigating to the nearest IKEA, for instance. Type “IKEA” into the search and get a bunch of results for airports in the Middle East. Until it has practical navigation use (among other flashy features) it won’t supplant the heavy hitters. @pkprotoplasm heard something of first getting the maps for you area on your device. But for me this was a new find too, so not sure. @LouisIngenthron good point. But OpenStreetMaps has a big range of apps. Here you'll probably best select another app. @smallcircles Right, but people don't want to switch programs when they switch devices. If I have a choice between a great app with no web interface and a decent app with one, I'll choose the latter every time. And that's before you get to the interoperability. I love being able to set a destination on my PC and then navigate with my phone seamlessly. @smallcircles while I love OSM and what they're doing, it's not ready for professional use yet (I'm a courier). @smallcircles OsmAnd has much better routing at the moment, but that's because Organic Maps routing is incomplete. It currently doesn't penalize turns or account for traffic signals (https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/5847). Until that changes OsmAnd will continue to be my go-to Google Maps alternative. @smallcircles Already in love with Organic Maps. It gives you hydrants, park benches and #stolpersteine  @smallcircles Organic map goes very well with StreetComplete, an easy to use map editor. It asks simple questions about your neighbourhood, and your answer will help make the best map on earth. It's like contributing to Wikipedia. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.westnordost.streetcomplete @muzzle @smallcircles oooh love this! Tried some other ones but this one is way more friendly @smallcircles Last time I drove through LA, Google maps repeatedly threw up ads that obscured my freeway route (dangerous!) and at one point the app itself became so confused that it routed me through Riverside on my way from Santa Monica to Laguna Niguel. The acid test is the agricultural grid roads of my rural community. Get me from A to B here, and it's the death knell for Google maps.  @Originallyrose @smallcircles I'm definitely not a google apologist, and I too am looking for an ideal replacement for google maps. But I have never seen ads in google maps. I have used the application on Android, as well as Android Auto. Speaking of Android auto, does any of these alternative map applications work with it?  @smallcircles after the headaches that I've been through in the past couple of days with Magic Earth, this looks great  @smallcircles Doesn't seem to have street address data in the US. (edit: badly stated. It doesn't seem to be able to search for street addresses) @mhkohne look on other forks of the thread.. apparently zooming in causes maps to download locally on your phone. @smallcircles Oh yea, I did that, but it doesn't return any results when trying to search by street address.  @smallcircles I would love to leave Google Maps behind, but it's not quite there. Organic Maps is great for exploring and hiking, as it shows things people are likely to care about that Google Maps doesn't, like locked gates and bathrooms. For any kind of public infrastructure, it's great, but Google Maps still wins when it comes to looking up a business and finding info about the business. @smallcircles I love Organic Maps. I started biking more recently and Organic has been the only app I've used for directions, it's great !   @smallcircles I've been unsing #OsmAnd.for iver a decade now since it's by far superior...  @smallcircles @smallcircles it is great but somehow my GPS isnt working properly with it, while its fine with osmand. Does anyone know the issue? @smallcircles but can I zoom down to street level and see what my neighbor was doing when the panopticon-mobile drove thru last Tuesday? @smallcircles I really like the app for #hiking and #trailrunning. The only problem I have is that when I zoom out the hiking trails disappear, which makes it hard to scope out a long route. But I really like that I don't need to remember (mostly) to download the map before leaving for a hike - except sometimes, when I discover that I have crossed a map boundary.  I need to try more OSM-based apps, but so far *nothing* i've tried has been able to replace Google Maps for me for the use case of a pedestrian using exclusively public transit. The closest has been OSMAnd, which once recommended me a route that included buses that only run from midnight onward, in the middle of the afternoon, not to mention how damn long it can take to suggest a route, not very useful. Might have improved since then though, should check. @smallcircles Wrong! I actually ditched google maps over 5 years ago. Unfortunately, I am running waze alongside organic maps from time to time, because waze keeps me safe from council scams here and there. @smallcircles Doesn't really change anything, since I can't deinstall Google apps on Android, but bike lanes! :owi: @smallcircles Are you able to upload your own base map layers? #OpenStreetMaps is fine for urban navigation but not particularly useful in the wilderness.  so, @smallcircles told us straight up in the post "...feel good about a #privacy-respecting app that doesn't suck you dry of your personal information." "feel good about" is lawyereze for "we didn't say 'you are' ;-)" and "a" pairs well in court with "not this particular app." So, listen to what they are saying and move along. Reading comprehension has been successfully degraded, yeah?   @smallcircles I've been using it for about 6 months for my running routes. I've found so many interesting routes and destinations, plus it doesn't drain my battery whilst running. @smallcircles this is really cool! I can unfortunately not use it for public transport in Stockholm, however, since some parts of the public transport system doesn’t seem to be available despite it already being mapped by OSM. Hopefully that’ll get there eventually. :) @smallcircles @ColesStreetPothole hmm. not fit for use yet (no transit maps for my area) and the inability to do anything whatsoever without downloading maps for offline use is confusing. keeping an eye on this for the future tho! @smallcircles @Peternimmo Simple question, if I am to ditch Google Maps: how do I search for a UK location in OrganicMaps using a UK postcode? Thanks. @smallcircles IT HAS ELEVATION CHANGES? In my backwater town? Google maps doesn't offer this in my country's capital....... OSM data is amazing, now I just wish this app had a GPS logger to replace Google's location history testing it in the mountains in croatia, will test it in bosnia (mountains) and serbia too. Till now it works out great!   @smallcircles @organicmaps Three notes: @smallcircles The problem is websites linking all their location to Google maps. I have been Google free for my whole life, but avoiding these map links is impossible sadly.  @smallcircles I’ve been using maps.me for ages. On first glance this fork looks the same. Is the main difference the privacy thing or can I expect other benefits over maps.me? @smallcircles I really wanted to like organic maps but their lack of transit info for my city is the deal breaker for me. Until then, I'll stick to magic earth 🤷🏽♂️ @smallcircles Organic Maps is great and I use it A LOT - but right now it cannot replace my TOMTOM - or I occasionally have to "cheat" and look at google maps on someone elses phone - because it does not have street numbers in Australia (or Thailand?). I understand the street number thing is a limitation of the underlying OSM data set apparently.  @smallcircles had a looksee. I like the low power usage, but will stick with Komoot for it's cycling navigation (the route navigation can be set to bike touring, mountain biking, road cycling, gravel riding or enduro) @smallcircles tried this. Rendering is pleasant and the lack of settings and menus in comparison to Osmand. Navigation was absolutely unusable though and the search aswell if I remember correctly so I threw it out again and stay with mapy.cz and Osmand for now. I also agree about the waste of screenspace with their logo for feedback   @smallcircles No one wants off Google's predatory ecosystem more than me but let's not kid ourselves. Nothing is going to displace google maps unless it has similar features: live traffic and public transport info, retail listings, etc. @smallcircles @smallcircles Not until UK post codes are supported: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/issues/717 |
Gregory's Server
@smallcircles I love Organic Maps.
it is a curious name, but the tool is so great