Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
Barely 40 trackers blocked on Bloomberg trying to load that article (thanks uBlock Origin, running on my Firefox-based browser), to finally being told I can't read the article without subscribing. Ads and marketing money have destroyed that Web we once owned.
Why would Apple be different than Bloomberg, they too like money.
And none will get my money, or time and attention.
I love this comment lmfao. It’s so true, the article debunks itself with its glass ceiling opinions.
Ahhhhhhhhhh. Here we goooooooooo! Apple is becoming a trash advert company like google with no openness, and google is becoming a walled garden like Apple, but no privacy.
Kill me
They'll try if it means more profit
So glad I moved from iOS to /e/OS (last year) then to GrapheneOS (last month).
What are you even using to replace Apple Maps though? Google Maps is in an even more advanced level of enshittification and has had ads for years now, and Here Wego, while good, doesn’t have enough content to effectively replace Apple or Gmaps.
Perspective from someone in Europe.
I use gmaps wv. It's the wrapped version
There's comaps. Which is good, but doesn't have the same amount of content. It's not exactly barren either.
It also doesn't have all the whistle and bells as gmaps. ( like RTT, estimating traffic if you would leave on a certain day at a certain time, ... )
CoMaps / OpenStreetMap / local public service for public transport
I have never seen an ad on google maps.
When you search for a restaurant for example the top results are ads. Also, sometimes while riding your car you get a sound notification that “there is this restaurant just around the corner”.
Wild that you’ve never seen any, they are definitely there.
And I move more to using OpenStreets, Organic Maps and Sidekick Pro.
Shame that Apple’s going the same way as Google.
Comaps instead of organic maps
In what ways is Comaps better than Organic Maps?
CoMaps is a fork by some contributors after the Organic Maps started going a bit closed source, a weird company dynamic, also introduced "links not adverts" with Kayak . Organic Maps is a fork of Maps.me when it started going a bit closed source and displaying hotels as adverts. ∞
https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/ https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/pull/6523
How does the CoMaps project differ from Organic Maps and Maps.Me? Unlike Organic Maps
CoMaps is "owned" by a not-for-profit co-op, and fully volunteer-driven by the community. The project operates by these principles:
Transparency
Community decision-making
Not-for-profit
Open source
Privacy-focused
Community Funding
Assets for Public Interest
You can learn more about our governance approaches on Codeberg.
The structure is intended so the app and assets cannot be sold for profit. The community actively participate in decisionmaking and governance.
https://www.comaps.app/support/how-does-the-comaps-project-differ-from-organic-maps-and-maps-me/
We just need a reliable way to actually get traffic data that doesn't involve either! Believe it or not Comaps or Organic maps works really well! It takes an extra min or two to route your drive if you need to funnel your desired route in a certain direction, but it's 100% functional
I love organic maps! I just wish searching for businesses was easier :( still need to keep Apple Maps installed on the side because of this.
Traffic data is an intractable problem for a privacy preserving open source app, would have to be done at the government level
Is there any technical reason it cannot be done in a privacy respecting manner? It should be possible to collect a location and speed from a phone with absolutely no other data attached from the device and store this in a database. This would provide a database of anonymous traffic density in a state of flux. You cannot see which phone is which data point, where it is coming from or where it is going to.
The only real reason I can see this is not done is surveillance capitalism.