this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
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Privacy

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54
Alternative to Google Maps for sharing (self.privacy)
submitted 4 months ago by root to c/[email protected]
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Some friends of mine have a Google map going where they pin locations of interest (restaurants, etc).

I was wondering if anyone knew of a non-Google project that might allow for something similar? The goal would be to have a shareable map that a group of invited/ allowed users could add locations and possibly notes to.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The best option is probably using a geo: URL. This should open in all devices in their favourite mapping application. Example. If you want to link to a specific store or similar beyond just a location you can add a "query" which some apps will use to highlight that. Example.

Another decent option is Plus Codes. These are a bit shorter and easier to manage but lack a URL format as far as I can tell. MJ75+P3 Toronto, Ontario.

You can also just link to an alternative service such as Open Street Maps. This avoids Google but still imposes a particular service on others.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Clicking your example links does nothing for me :(

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You can just share links to maps, OpenStreetMaps has a bunch of different mobile apps, for example, Organic Maps is a good one. Links to OSM look like this: https://osm.org/go/zrfyVQn8--?node=164979149

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

+1 for Organic Maps. Just back from a road trip, used OSM via a browser, this is much better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Offline capabilities is the killer feature for me. I don't have much bandwidth on my mobile data plan, being able to access maps without internet connection is incredibly good.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Organic Maps (the app) lets you download maps of various areas ahead of time

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yea, I know. Fucked up my wording a bit while trying to explain why I'm using the app.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

https://framacarte.org

english ☞ https://framacarte.org/abc/en/

The economy of your attention The Framacarte is free, without ads or click traps. Our goal is to host a tool that serves you and does not use you. Contrary to the adage, here, you are not the product.

Controlling your data Framasoft collects as little data as possible. You have complete autonomy over it. We have no interest in tracking your behaviour, nor in exploiting it.

Respecting your freedoms Framacarte is based a Free-libre software¹. Its code is transparent, publicly auditable and there are no hidden features. It is built by the community, and everyone is free to fork it and lead the project in new directions.

[–] root 4 points 4 months ago

This looks very interesting; Will look into it! Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Looks good but I didn't see an app. Is there one?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

umap on french servers, and umap is between other things an API on top of open streetmap...

Is that correct?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

seems like it

Framacarte repose sur un logiciel libre¹.

¹ uMap – Licence GNU AGPL v3

framasoft is an organization that's proposing alternatives to google "services" ☞ https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

ok, thanks !

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

https://umap.openstreetmap.de/en/

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I believe NextCloud has this ability

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I'm not sure how good they are for privacy, but I've used Felt before for a couple custom maps

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The what3words app is awesome and lets you share any 10-foot square on the planet and save them into lists.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

what3words is proprietary and the owner is profit-hungry and litigious, I would recommend avoiding it.

Some basic info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words#Proprietary

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

This has been my worry that some big tech company buys it out. There is latitude and longitude. But its not as easy to remember.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Huh, I had no idea that was the case. How does what3words make money exactly? I assume ads but I block those everywhere I use a screen.

Are there any services that do roughly the same thing but are open source?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Basically they license out the system to companies. You can get a rough idea here: https://what3words.com/business

The idea is that by making it free to individuals they build up market familiarity and expectation. Free personal use is just marketing for the paid product. Then they can turn to businesses and convince them that they should offer their system as a service and charge them for it.

The closest alternative is probably Plus Codes. They are driven by Google but are free to use for everything with a pretty plain and simple Terms of Use.

Instead of words they use an alphanumeric encoding. The main downside is that this can be less memorable but the upside is that it works for users of all languages and you can shorten the codes by using a Country or City reference as well as control the precision.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You could share a location

[–] root 4 points 4 months ago

The goal would be to have a collection of many locations