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Comment by commoner | Hacker News Reader

HERE WeGo is a great alternative to Google Maps. It works on Android, iOS, and web. Business data is pulled from TripAdvisor.

(The app store ratings for HERE WeGo are a bit low because they recently rewrote the app and the first few versions were unstable. The rewrite added lane guidance, which is a useful feature to have for driving directions.)

- HERE WeGo (web): https://wego.here.com

- HERE WeGo (Android): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.m...

- HERE WeGo (iOS): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/here-wego-maps-navigation/id95...

If the quality of the OSM data in your area is good, the best OSM-based apps are:

- Organic Maps (FOSS, simple interface): https://organicmaps.app

- OsmAnd (FOSS, loaded with features): https://osmand.net

- Magic Earth (proprietary, uses a non-OSM data source for address locations): https://www.magicearth.com

All 3 of these apps support both Android and iOS.

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Watch out - it has Facebook malware in it. The app constantly pings Facebook in the background and includes device data (and potentially location data?).

Are you referring to HERE WeGo? I just did a network monitoring test run and I do see that it connects to 157.240.19.19 (Facebook) when the app is opened, but it doesn't seem to make any more connections after that. That is interesting and something I haven't noticed before. Thanks for mentioning it.

Exodus says that HERE WeGo has 1 tracker (Facebook Login):

- Exodus report for HERE WeGo: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.here.ap...

Organic Maps, OsmAnd, and Magic Earth have no trackers:

- Exodus report for Organic Maps: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/app.omaps/l...

- Exodus report for OsmAnd: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/net.osmand/...

- Exodus report for Magic Earth: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.general...

I have captured traffic from the iOS app a couple years ago or so and saw frequent contacts to Facebook domains; this is indeed due to the Facebook SDK which contacts FB regardless of whether you use Facebook features or not (I definitely did not).

It may have changed since then and if so that's great!

I had missed some information on my network monitoring app (RethinkDNS[1]) and updated my last comment before seeing your reply! You're right about the connections to a Facebook server, though I'm only seeing the connections when the app is cold-started on Android. I haven't had the chance to test on iOS.

The Facebook Android[2] and iOS[3] SDKs are source-available.

From a privacy perspective, when someone compares Google Maps to HERE WeGo, the question is whether using Google or HERE (plus the Facebook SDK) would be more of a privacy violation. I don't have a good answer to this question.

But from a market share perspective, HERE WeGo is a minor player compared to Google and using it instead of Google Maps would help curb Google's market dominance in mapping.

Of course, if a free and open source OSM-based app is viable for your area, I would go for that instead.

[1] https://f-droid.org/it/packages/com.celzero.bravedns/

[2] https://github.com/facebook/facebook-android-sdk

[3] https://github.com/facebook/facebook-ios-sdk

> the question is whether using Google or HERE (plus the Facebook SDK) would be more of a privacy violation

Well unless you absolutely never use Google (which is hard), you're better off using Maps (as they track you anyway from occasional usage), where as it's easier to never use Facebook (in fact all Facebook IPs are outright blocked on my networks) so it's better to not provide any data to them at all.

So for me if I had to choose I'd prefer Google (who probably track me anyways during occasional usage of their services) over Facebook which aren't supposed to track me at all since I never use their services (and since I avoid all apps with FB malware in them, I don't think they can track me).

In my case I use Apple Maps which works well enough for me. I wish OSM-based alternatives were as good when it comes to POI searching but in London I found that OSM is even worse than Apple.

Apple uses (and contributes back to) OSM in many places.

Apple incorporates OSM data into its maps for some regions, and Apple is also the most prolific corporate data contributor to OSM,* so I agree that Apple Maps is a great alternative to Google Maps. Unfortunately, it's not available on Android or as a web app.

* https://joemorrison.medium.com/openstreetmap-is-having-a-mom...

DuckDuckGo implements Apple Maps on the web; e.g. see https://duckduckgo.com/?q=london&ia=web&iaxm=maps

Organic Maps has been my go to maps since it came out. Fantastic navigation features, and felt no different than using Google Maps. The best part? It doesn't any internet connection to work!

Thanks for the additional links, it's nice to have that many options!

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