Their analytics need to see how little time it takes me to uninstall.
I'll fucking pull over and uninstall mid trip. I am a psycho against ads. I'll call the AG and say it caused me to get in an accident.
Fuck ads. Fuck any company that forces them down your throat.
Nice.
And then soon it'll be "watch this add to take the fastest route".
Then "subscribe for an add free experience" without subscription you get the add, as well as navigation that requires you to drive to a detoured location and take a picture of said location before continuing on to your destination (or yet another detour add, if the trip is long enough).
You want hotel? Yes. I take you. My brother hotel, very good. Very clean. No worry booking, you cancel. Brother hotel best. Good area. Lots of shops. Good for tourist.
First you need food, no? I take you restaurant. My cousin work. Very good, very cheap. No one know, can't find unless you with me, I know. Very popular. Very good, very close to hotel. Less than one hour. Few minutes only.
...
"Is this the way to your cousin's restaurant?"
Before eat must visit orphanage. Poor, starving, hungry orphans. Very sad if you not come. You come and see. Very happy children, you happy. Very poor. Think car like this rich! Haha! Think phone like you have very rich ha! But no worry, they not steal. Very good orphan. My uncle teach very good. Best behave. Very nice children, but very poor. No food every week. No parents.
"Please, just take me to the hotel on my booking."
Yes yes, I take you to hotel. Nice hotel. After eat.
"So we go to eat now?"
Yes yes. After see orphans. You want not make orphans sad? They sleep early. Cant visit later.
"No- Yes- I mean, we can't visit the orphans now. Maybe another day. Please take me to this hotel."
Oh, that hotel very bad. No give tips to driver. Road very bumpy. Bad for car. Must pay extra for car damage. You no worry! I take you good place! Orphan manager know very good place, very close. I ask him.
"No! Can't you take me directly where I asked you?"
Oh, you want premium subscription? Premium subscription come with less advert, and 24h access to AI powered customer help line. Monthly subscription.
Monthly subscription not available in car. Only annual subscription.
"Fine. Here. Now, will you take me to this hotel. Now. Not after food. Not after orphans."
Thank you. I give you little discount. One month free.
Now we go orphanage. Direct service only available after minimum three month of subscription.
"Enough! Stop! Let me out, I'll find another taxi."
You want stop here? Now? This field? No hotel, no shop? What, you walk ten mile back to taxi rank?
While not FOSS, the closest thing we have to a drop-in replacement would be Magic Earth. It uses openstreetmap data, supports fully offline usage, has satellite images (only online though) and best of all, no tracking or telemetry.
It has a better car navigation interface and some nice features like traffic amd live events data, but it really looks like it's update much, if any at all. Organic Maps is a little more barebone, but it constatly gets new features
People arent actually thaat tolerant to this cancer. If they arent careful people will switch.
OrganicMaps (or Osmand) is all i need usually. Search is kind of bad sometimes and obviously no live traffic data, but if you dont drive a car, the latter one at least is irrelevant.
I've tried Osmand and my only complaint is that you need to tap and access too many menus to set up and/or exit navigation mode. Last time I tried it was last year, not sure if that's changed
i have noticed too, apple maps is absolutely superior to google. when we are navigating somewhere with gf, she uses apple maps with no issues while i can't find shit with google maps...can't remember this being a problem in the past.
I'd really hate if they fuck up Maps since there are no alternatives on the same level but since it's the last of their services I depend on, I could degoogle for good.
There should be an nonprofit organization that specifically posts ads for a service that helps eradicate ads and connects with legal services to sue over billboards it whatever you can do to purge them. IDK pass ordinances or something. Just an organized crusade against ads and its own ads purely telling people how to find the resources to help purge ads.
It's not meant to be a sustainable business, but since it's basically whack-a-mole, it paradoxically would be.
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