I will 100% uninstall when I see this.
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.
Fuck. Ads.
Fuck. I’m mad now.
My brother in arms! lol
Was just having a conversation last week when the subject of roadside billboards came up, the other guy says to me that he reads every single one of them when he’s driving. I tell him when I look at billboards the only think I think about is how much fun it would be to cut them down and set them on fire. Dude looked at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead.
I live in the lovely state of Vermont where billboards are fucking illegal. 😍
I can’t say that I can agree with you more.
A new bright as FUCK billboard was put up on a frequent road I travel. I want it GONE and the people responsible for it to just die.
It’s seriously a hazard at night…
So, when we drive up to Georgia or South Carolina from Florida, there’s a point on I-75 where the Jesus billboards come out. Many of them are the usual “Babies have heartbeats” variety, but there’s also the following:
- “Have you decided yet … Jesus” which we always render in an exasperated voice, aka “OMG have you decided yet? Jesus!”
- “Go ahead, let go. I’ll catch you - Jesus” which we always respond to with “WTF Jesus just reach down and grab me, you’re RIGHT THERE!”
- “Jesus is in control” with mysterious Russian tanks and American soldiers.
- Zombies and Jesus for … reasons.
Brothers from another mother… I fight ads daily … Been pretty lucky I stay away from TV. They keep trying, really all it’s done lately is forced me to go foss for most of my apps.
My Brothers / Sisters from other misters, I have been successfully avoiding ads for around 2/3 years and wow, no regrets. Talk about a war worth fighting, life is better without. This new in-navigation ad felt specifically made for folk like us, who are almost unreachable for marketing. I did some FOSS car navigation today. Bye Gmaps :)
I’m not even against ads, because their little blurbs about a mcdonalds nearby on the map - eh. fine.
This shit though, that pops up and distracts me while I’m driving? Nah fuck that, I’ll get rid of google maps over it
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).
Look at us, peak civilization here.
/s
don’t forget 3 years later when the subscription isn’t profitable enough, so they start injecting ads into the paid subscribers as well.
Or when they complain that not enough people are using it so they relaunch it as “Google Roads”.
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.
(part II)
“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?
“Damn you, technical debt!”
(part III)
“Taxi!! Good morning, please take me to this school.”
Certainly. First we go to condom shop.
“What?! No! Why would I want that!”
How I know what you want? You tick, “no personalised ads.” So I not personalise.
“Take me to this school, directly. No detours. No adverts. And you will take Republic credits.”
What, you think you’re some sort of Jedi?
I’d like to use this opportunity to promote Organic Maps, yet again
:)
+1, also recommend StreetComplete alongside it. Makes it easy to add data to OSM, in many cases (parks, etc) this data can be made extremely detailed.
For instance, my first use case was adding house numbers around my neighborhood to OSM, because I couldn’t search for my address on Organic Maps
I do like that it’s available offline, but does it have live traffic if you’re online? Waze has informed me about many a traffic jam and helped me circumvent them. Plus temporary road closures in case of big accidents, etc.
Edit: Ay, it’s Estonian! Always cool to see something come out of my tiny home country.
Well, guess I need to look into more Google alternatives. OpenStreetMaps most likely.
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.
I significantly prefer it for car navigation, it seems to always pick ‘more sensible’ routes than Organic Maps. Also the live traffic is very nice to have.
I prefer Organic Maps when I’m on foot, ie. walking through the city or hiking. Imo it feels less cluttered when you just want to look at a map.
Edit: Another big plus for Magic Earth is transit support. It’s not as good as Google Maps, but it’s certainly better than nothing.
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
Havent used osmand in a while so i cant say, but with organicmaps its pretty simple. Just select from/to and press start. It also has proper support for TTS now and android auto i believe (dont actually know what that does).
One thing i love is being able to enter lots of intermediate stops for a route which makes it reroute automatically.
Yeah, I used it a couple years ago, and for walking especially it seemed really cool, since it has all sorts of extra data like slopes and benches or whatever. But there are a whole ton of settings everywhere, which is cool that you can customise everything but also a bit of a mess. Definitely more for power users it seems.
