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I actually think OpenStreetMaps have much more content. In my town Google shows roads and houses. OSM shows me everything down to fences, entrances, beach boardwalks, positions of every single trailer in our nearby tourist housing and more. This is critical when you're a delivery guy and you need to know where the entrance to the gated facility is. I used Waze to drive, and then OSM Viewer to walk. Even when you zoom in on an empty spot in Google, OSM shows type of land, elevation, where the trees are if there are any, who is the owner of the land if it's owned by a company. I also like that it shows what factories are called and their land border, instead of just unnamed boxes. Worked for me both in Ukraine and in Ireland.
I prefer to use OSM personally because of the significantly higher level of detail.
I use Gmaps in a private tab to plan my routes though if I need to use public transport to get somewhere
Is Open Street Maps app called OsmAnd?
OsmAnd is a viewer app, OSM themselves only have the API and a website
But I think it's a good one
Yes that's one of the apps. There are others that I can't think of off the top of my head at the moment.
Organic Maps is another OSM GPS app, maybe it's the one you're thinking of?
Organic Maps is OSM-based? I switched to it for a few months for the reasons stated above, but it really did not work out for me. Mainly because it was lacking a lot of major locations and facilities in my city, and I could never reliably ask for indications. Plus it had no info on public transportation other than the subway, which was unfortunate. I guess it was because I'm in Europe? Either way I eventually had to switch back to GMaps 😔
Yeah, it is (website). OSM relies on the community and it's very common stuff is missing. I've started editing there exactly 2 weeks and added a lot of POIs on my city.
If you wanna have a headstart in contributing to OSM, you can check out their wiki or you could use a app like StreetComplete that brings some gamifying aspects by sending out quests.
That's a client for it, i personally use Organic Maps
They have some good apps, but at the same time you can't guarantee any sort of longevity with them. I think they're going to pull the plug on Assistant soon, because it's been in maintenance mode for a couple of years and the service is getting really bad.
That's my issue. Privacy aside, for a time Google was making really good free services. Then they started abandoning everything. Why did we need Allo and Duo when hangouts existed, why did they basically abandon voice for years, etc.
I can't trust that any of their apps will exist in a year besides the main ones like Maps so why would I use them.
Right, it makes no sense. I think the goal with Allo and Duo was to provide competition to Facetime and iMessages, but they could've just revamped the Hangouts app. Allo shut down, and Duo has been rebranded to Google Meet. Hangouts is still around, now called Google Chat, and sits in Gmail apparently.
Yes, I too covered Google's craziness on my blog. But indeed, people respect their privacy when they are in eye to eye, while when we are in online-they don't see the backstage bounty process, so they sign up without caring about their privacy.
Check out my detailed post on why privacy matters: https://technomagnus.vercel.app/posts/why-privacy-matters
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but you can use Google Maps without GPS and in Incognito mode, and you can watch YouTube without being logged in and/or not saving your watch history. You're in complete control over the info you give Google. You can fully enjoy their services without the ickyness you described.
Good thing for Google that they can still track you in a number of other ways.
Oh, definitely. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but there's room for a middle ground between selling your soul to Google and avoiding their services like the plague.
They can fingerprint your browser and (very) probably your hardware, along with ip, location, and other leaked data, allowing them to reliably identify you whether you're logged in or not.
At this point, it's more of a symbolic protest.
this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
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