this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Great! Ecosia works super well, and it feels good to not having to rely on google to find things. Only thing I’d wish for is that they’d have some map service or similar to find restaurants and shop. There is sadly no good replacement for google maps that I’ve found
@Extrawurst @Kualdir For Navigation alone, I find Magic Earth (which uses OSM] to be a perfectly fine replacement, that even offers some features Gmaps hasn't. Like being able to download whole countries for offline navigation, Driver Assistance etc.
For the reviews... That's more difficult. https://lib.reviews/ is one attempt, but it has nowhere near the dataset (duh) and the reviews are not directly visible on the map.
Organic Maps
Yeah but open street maps does not handle temporary road closures, construction, or temporary one-ways well...
https://nelsonslog.wordpress.com/2024/03/30/openstreetmap-temporary-road-closures/
I don't even know if organic maps respects tags. https://www.reddit.com/r/openstreetmap/comments/vuuecd/how_or_where_can_i_submit_temporary_closed_roads/
It certainly doesn't respect road conditions or road priority. It constantly tries to send me through a 2 meter wide cobblestone and broken up asphalt service road instead of the main residential roads because it "technically" is 50, even with surface marked as bad condition.
I try to contribute to OSM where I can, but i never can trust organic maps to get me somewhere I haven't been before.
that sadly depends on your region and the amount of volunteers in your area. I remember reading how OSM was more reliable after the 2023 Turkey earthquake for the first responders than Google Maps, because the changes in the terrain were added there much faster.
I don't know about the road conditions during the navigation. it definitely does support this kind of data as I input it myself every now and then, but I don't drive so I haven't had to try out different OSM navigation algorithms to see if they account for it, or anything like that.
I more mean the actual method of doing it isn't straightforward and there is still no fully agreed upon and documented method for construction changes, just a few "you can do it this way" kind of things.
And indeed navigation picking up the OSM updates and using temporary closure tags and road conditions seems to be more miss than hit with organic maps at least. But the UI is 10x more usable than OSMAnd so I use it where possible.
Ecosia works well enough for me too. The tree planting thing should never be forgotten. The scope of their work is impressive and they're very transparent about their goals and funding. No other search engine comes close to that.
The tree planting sounds so much like greenwashing and an excuse to serve ads
200 million trees. Far from greenwashing.
Folks, critical thinking is more important than ever these days. Making conclusions based on a brain fart - when we have the internet at our fingertips - is partly why the world is the way it is.
I listened to a podcast a couple years ago. The founder talked about how he made sure that Ecosia can not be sold and monetized, he himself is not making much money from it. My english is not good enough to explain it in more detail. :)
I see greenwashing everywhere, but as far as I can tell from the podcast and their YouTube, this is legit.
Here we go, is a pretty good alternative.
You could also use open street maps. For mobile I recommend using Organic Maps.l Only problem is, that the search isn't that good.
Try Here WeGo maps, it's the closest one to Google maps but European
Its already been mentioned but if you don't need reviews you can use Here WeGo maps. Its a good alternative and with more users (who make fixes if something is missing) it'll get better and better
i mean you kinda need to specify what you want from a map, there are a bunch of things that google maps is actively the worst at
For sure, one specific thing is being able to find a restaurant in the vicinity, seeing some kind of review system of its reception, and knowing if it’s open or not and having a link to a menu or its homepage. Another (albeit extremely specific) case is looking up a secondhand store in the vicinity of where I am - I tried this with here wego when I was out recently but it showed me a store that no longer existed. Of course might be a unlucky coincidence (google maps for sure has nonexisting stores too), but I’m 0 for 1 atm.
best alternative would probably be something like tripadvisor, for restaurants
obviously it's not exactly a vastly less shitty option, but at least it's not google.
Oh yea tripadvisor might be the option, thanks for the tip!