GrapheneOS

Fair enough. I should have worded it differently and differentiated between fact and speculation. Next time :).

5 months later

Does google maps PWA allow for navigation?

I installed the pwa and can find my destination but then when I press navigate, it doesn’t do anything. I allowed vanadium location access, but not sure if there may be more steps I need to complete for actual navigation

4 days later

Matth In order to enable searching for streets in OSMAnd+~ from F-Droid, use OpenSuperMaps. https://opensupermaps.com/

I've found OpenSuperMaps to be the best thing to use along with OSMAnd+~ from F-Droid and RHVoice as a TTS provider to simply search an address and enter it in for directions.

6 months later
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  • Edited

Matth And what if you use Google Maps without a profile? I do delete my Google account, so I'm not logged in Google Maps. Is this mitigating some of the data tracking this way?

What about this? Is "privacy friendly" to use GMaps in a profile with no GPlay Services?

NewUser I love open source apps, and try to use them when they cover my needs. I tried many map applications but can't replace waze yet. Will gladly do so, but in my country no other app (except maybe Google Maps) are close to waze. And between both, I prefer waze.

    I use the petal map (made by huawei).

    Mainly because OSM is bad in my place, and so I need to find an alternative. Instead of going google everything. I rather let different party hold various parts of my personal information. Under the assumption that huawei won't give the data to google, I could acheive relative privacy by separation of data between parties.

    I don't use other huawei services so what huawei knows is my map search history and only that. It seems like Americans are afraid of anything developed by huawei though.... Or is it mis-information I obtained from my local media? Feel free to tell me the truth.

    pdagenius Sygic... hmm. The very first two IPs connected after installing were: edge...facebook.com and graph.facebook.com, and when those were blocked, next was 2a03:2880:f001:6:face:b00c:0:2.

    Interesting that no one has mentioned "Here WeGo", an oldie-but-goodie that's grown out of "Nokia Maps". Use it offline or on, limited data collection, POIs, turn-by-turn navigation (even off-line), real-time traffic, public transport/pedestrian/bicycle navigation, etc., etc.

      MarSOnEarth I also have it as an backup (mostly for public transport), but normally don't use it as it isn't FOSS. As far as I know it's now owned by BMW, Mercedes and VW.

      I mostly use Magic Earth (public transport, car) and Organic Maps (bike, walking). If I have to search an POI, I use GMaps Webview and send the address to Magic Earth as an Backup.

      • mmmm replied to this.

        User2288 Here WeGo is an EU based company, so that's one, and then their business model is (mostly) not the end user (it's the car companies). The app offers many settings to deny/limit the extent of data collection, and they seem to operate entirely within their own API ecosystem (no third parties*).
        Whatever all that means, what I see when I enable the on-line mode (but, after downloading maps the app can also be used entirely off-line) is that the app only accesses IPs from either their *.hereapi.com, and ec2...compute...amazonaws.com and all connections are through HTTPS. The only "foreign" IP accessed is that of amplitude.com(*), an analytics company. For myself, I'm comfortable with the trade-offs.

          • [deleted]

          MarSOnEarth offtopic: can you let me know how you know what domains is the app connecting for? Thanks

            Most of the alternative options people talked about here are nowhere near Google Maps. Yes they all work fine in USA and a handful of other first world countries but if you are from let say a third world country, good luck with these apps!!

            User2288

            I guess if somebody really wanted to use offline maps in Google Maps and stop Google Maps from tracking, and uploading, where you have been, you could...

            • create a new user/profile, let call it 'GMaps', then install Google Maps (without giving network access) into this profile.

            • If you use Google Play Store/Services, or Aurora Store to install Google Maps directly into this profile, remove them completely afterwards). In fact, best to have no apps at all but Google Maps (and the default apps) in this 'GMaps' profile to be sure, since we are being extra careful in this scenario. Though, of course if you want, you could have a VPN app that you trust running in this profile too, to hide your IP address in the next step.

            • Then go into Google Maps app permissions, enable network and then download the offline maps you want and once that's done, go back and remove internet permission from the app.

            • Then only use this 'GMaps' profile when you need it, probably best to disable running in the background for this profile as well, in the user management settings.

            • Also to be sure your efforts aren't pointless, never use any other profiles that are running any google services, or apps with google analytics, etc. etc. that also have access to your location. Or best not to have any apps at all with location access running whilst that profile is open (except system apps of course, don't mess with them.)

            • Then when your Google Maps app tells you that your downloaded maps won't work and you need to connect to the internet, go into the Google Map app settings and completely reset the app by clearing cache and data. Then I am pretty sure it would be fine to give it internet access and download the offline maps again, without it uploading more than the immediate info it collected since it was reset.

            • after downloading the offline maps, remove internet access for the app, and the process starts again.

            • One more thing to also bear in mind is keeping the Google Maps app updated (as in the app itself, not the offline maps) without letting any of your 'travel data' leak. I guess you could do this in a few ways but one is installing Google Maps, and keeping it updated, in another profile/user (let's call this profile 'G-Updates') with the Play Store, or Aurora store, if you want. You can leave your 'GMaps' profile off while doing this, as it will update the app in all profiles Google Maps is installed in, when updated in the 'G-Updates' profile, but it will be unable to access user data from your 'GMaps' profile. You can even keep the Google Maps app disabled in this 'G-Updates' profile and the Play Store still updates it, no problem. I think in aurora store there is a toggle for updating disabled apps, haven't used it in a long time.

            • there may well be far easier / less complicated ways to do that and I might have some things wrong, I am kind of tired and not sure why I started writing this long message as it's a fairly convoluted way to do things, but I suppose some people might want to do it...