Well, what maps do you recommend over Apple or Google?
I have just recently de-googled my phone with GrapheneOS.
I want something that is going to be real-time and respect privacy.
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CoMaps
Co maps
I use comaps, I feel like OSM isnt as good at cars as google maps, but it beats google maps easily in bikes and pedestrian traffic, like one time i plotted out a route where i could sit on a bench (which are shown on map) every 5 minutes or so on comaps. on trains its kind of a wash in comparison to google maps. the biggest issue is when you want to do a spur of the moment thing like ‘eat at a nondescript restaurant closest to me’, openstreetmap data here isnt great and the built in search engine for a nondescript restaurant isnt great, you cant write ‘closest vietnamese restaurant’ into the searchbar.
also one time i fell off a cliff and had no signal while hiking and comaps got me reoriented and on the right path in a no cell service area. if i used google maps it wouldnt have had the hikers trail i found on comaps either.
I usually go with CoMaps. If it doesn’t work, then I go to GMaps WV (I have my VPN on, so Google doesn’t know my IP), get the coordinates of the destination, and open it in CoMaps.
Links:
CoMaps: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps
GMaps WV: https://github.com/woheller69/maps
I do exactly the same. Basically GMaps WV for checking traffic and places not registered on OSM. Plus I love contributing with adding places to CoMaps through OSM.
Then OsmAnd is the right map app for you.
Other say that Organic Maps is better, but after testing it while travelling, I don’t understand how. The road instructions was barely seen while you could clearly see it in OsmAnd.
FWIW CoMaps what Organic is now called (the talented developers left Organic after internal issues)
Organic (as well as the original project) has Russian founders, so I’m not surprised. After the war they waged in Ukraine, I prefer staying away from anything Russians do, even if it’s open source.
Telegram is in the same bucket. All developers are Russians. They claim they actually have Ukrainian developers, so they’re like above the war. Which is weird given all the beneficiary are Russians, plus their CEO is visiting Sucker Carlson, and spilling very questionable political opinions (so to say).
I haven’t been following maps with me project that closely, but I remember me reading the relatively recent drama with Organic → CoMaps, and reacted with not being surprised.
Do you recommend side-loading it or use Obtainium?
Anything you can get through F-Droid is better. It’s more well put together, easier to set up than Obtanium, and auto updates work on GrapheneOS.
Its bad practice to use fdroid. No bueno
This is not correct, the only thing you can say against it is that the main repo builds from source & uses its own signing key instead of just hosting an apk and using the dev’s key. This means you have to trust F-Droid more than usual, but given their hard stance for all apps being FOSS and notating non free services, I trust them more than Google who has hosted straight up malware, or certainly more than downloading from a random Github with Obtanium with no automatic signing confirmation. It also gives somewhat of a guarantee that what is in the code is actually the only thing in the app. Also if the signing is an issue for you, there is always IzzyOnDroid or dev specific repositories that will still let you manage app updates through F-Droid or third party clients like Droid-ify.
Why?
See my reply and the one by bladefederation.
Not according to graphene documentation. From what I remember it’s because Obtaniuam can’t check the signature of the APK. There is app verifier (recommended by obtanium) but it dosnt work with many apps as they don’t publish the signature. So you can’t verify the APK is what its supposed to be.
FDroid builds the app and signs it. While this may intorduce risk of Fdrpid are doing something dodgey the many eyes and build logs should pick it up.
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You are correct, Obtanium has no automated signing process and App Verifier verified like one time for me.
Aurora Store used to not have it either but now it does so it’s a pretty easy recommend for me if you’re trying to ditch Play Store completely.
Graphene devs tend to recommend Play Store over F-Droid because Google does typically have A-1 security and that is their top priority. But not very good vetting apps as I mentioned, and tleven non malware has tons of trackers so I avoid Google’s repository if possible. Also many people on GrapheneOS obviously prefer to not have Play Services…
I only use F-Droid for installing it. Have tried Obtainium for all my FOSS apps, but Microsoft only rate limiting me all the time.
CoMaps is probably the best of these, uses open maps as the back end but has a much better up
I use OSMAnd. But, offline I don’t really care for real time traffic updates. I know the city I live in and can guess fairly accurately how long any journey will take.
OSMAnd supports custom backends for routing like BRouter and Graphhopper/Valhalla that you might want to use depending on what you’re doing. CoMaps uses strictly its own algorithm that AFAIK is less developed, but they’re trying to add support for things like live traffic.
(Although also having both accurate real-time traffic information and privacy is basically not possible.)
I use a combo of osmand and gps-coordinates.net. osmand generally does not do good with addresses, so I put the address into gps-coordinates.net and have osmand navigate me to the coords. I find if you’re looking for a business, you might be able to do it. But if you’re looking for residential addresses, you can generally forget about it with osmand.
Users of StreetComplete are doing their best to fix the address issues but we don’t have enough willing users to do it all in a day
Considering how OSM has a lot of buildings with missing address information, I just realized that when StreetComplete asks for an address it’s probably because it’s one of those buildings
I use Comaps, but all the open source map apps are using OpenStreetMaps on the backend. OpenStreetMaps varies from way better to way worse than google maps depending on where you are, but can be manually improved by anyone willing to take the time!
Agree that maps is one of the harder ones to replace and I’ve settled into a few different apps by use case.
Here WeGo has been a nice compromise of having a solid search function, good routing, offline maps, some reviews via trip advisor, supports my local transit system, and has a sane privacy policy even if its not FOSS. Can also save locations accountless.
CoMaps I use as my main offline walking/biking and would love to see the team make more improvements over time.
I use GMaps WV for the random times I still need to use GoogleMaps usually for looking up reviews or as a backup when other maps fail me.
So really Here WeGo is the closest one to one replacement but I still use the other two as the need arises.
I’ve had a positive experience with Here WeGo as well.
- Comaps for driving / street navigation
- Caltopo for backcountry navigation (has offline maps)
- Trailforks for public recreation trails (hiking, mountain travel, mountain bike)
- Relief Maps for 3D landscape visualization / viewing
I havent found a fully FOSS one that is usable for me. Wanted to use Comaps but couldn’t get into the UI.
I’ve been using Here Wego and it’s really easy to use
I personally find all the open source Open Street Maps based apps to be extremely lacking. 90% of the places I’d try to find aren’t there and for some. of them navigation was off too. I use Here We Go.
Good: No missing locations. Uses Trip Advisor for reviews. Database & navigation is good. Less features than Google but low bs. Privacy policy states that no personal user data is collected without consent, and is pretty short & sweet. Telemetry is opt in, though you can’t get traffic data without it. There is a toggle to run it entirely offline. There are buttons to delete history or delete all data collection taken. Based in the Netherlands. Owned mostly by German car manufacturers.
Bad: No search along route or Voice Assistant in Android Auto. Closed source. 2 trackers (Facebook login, Google Crashlytics, both optional though). Rarely any pictures. Requires you to download from the Play Store to use in Android Auto (no Aurora).
Open Street Maps based apps to be extremely lacking
This should be more of a shared responsibility, it’s not an app’s fault but the simple fact that OSM lacks a lot of information in many areas. That’s why it’s so important to contribute to OSM even a little bit, just mapping your own street block and nothing else is already a huge improvement.
whenever i have an issue with navigating to something, i contribute to it to make sure that navigation error would never happen again. fully recommend the process, its very satisfying to do, makes you feel like a conquistador mapping the hidden cenote in which resides mcdonalds
yeah I do the same lol
That’s the easiest and most rewarding way to contribute without making it a full hobby by going to places specifically to map them, it feels great when I lookup the same thing after some time and it just works now
Did you contribute to OSM to make the maps better for you and everyone else?
My area had nothing a couple of years ago. But I started contributing every week or so and it’s filled out nicely, and some other people started doing the same. It’s more accurate than Google Maps in my area now.
I thought MS owned that or bought it. 🤔
Nope
Open street maps is closed source?
I think they’re talking about “Here We Go”
Cartes.app has been developing very rapidly. Its great for public transit, biking, car, and milti-modal.
Its only a web app so its weak for turn-by-turn navigation but it easily lets you move your itinerary to comaps.
Mapy.com (its an app) and Magic Earth have traffic. Neither are open source but they arent google.
+1 for cartes.app
Probably the closest to Google Maps. The interface will be familiar, it’s easy to switch between OSM, hybrid, satellite, etc layers.You get multiple options for public transit routes and you can set what time you would like to leave.
Clicking anywhere on the map displays images uploaded to panoramax, the logo from any linked website, wikimedia images associated to that location, reviews for the business, opening hours, etc.
And they now show mutiple options for the bike routes; safest, least hills, most direct
