FFS, my phone has gigs of RAM, why can’t Google Maps remember the address I searched for ten minutes ago? One minute ago? This is 2019. It has been this bad for a decade plus. Embarrassing IMO and demonstrates true UX myopia and true UX incompetence.
The only thing I miss is google's "offline" mode. I live in Michigan, and I frequently go on trips up north into heavily wooded areas. I don't always get cell service, so being able to save map data locally is a huge benefit. I can still search for nearby gas stations or stores even if I do not have cell service.
From what I tried, there's no way to save data in Apple Maps - it assumes the device is always connected to the internet.
I share your frustration.
It still sucks because they don't want to fix it. Google makes their money off of people giving up info for ad targeting, and a user who only contributes one or two manually saved locations probably costs them more than they stand to gain.
To me, this is a simpler explanation than malice.
only way to know would be to download osmAnd and find out. it's a good all rounder app. for navigation i tend to use maps.me
DDG is at least a reasonable way to ween yourself off Google search rather than needing to go full cold turkey.
Similar to DDG, Startpage provides results in a privacy respecting way, but it uses Google instead of Bing (and Oath), which DDG uses. There’s a common misconception amongst some that using !g on DDG is private, but it’s just a redirect, so Google can gather information from that search. Using !s as the fallback instead will keep your searches private.
So that means either Startpage has higher ad margins than Google or Google is selling services to Startpage below their own search margins or Startpage has some other source of funds to subsidise the search engine.
I have no idea how much revenue this may bring in but it can't be much since I don't think I've ever seen it recommended in an Ask HN thread.
I expect this is the case - it's still better for Google to capture a user at lower margins via Startpage than to lose them to Bing.
I do find the mention of DDG using Oath rather alarming, though, since Oath seems particularly obnoxious, at least with their GDPR pop-up on Tumblr. What does DDG do with Oath?
DDG was originally using Yahoo and Bing. Yahoo was thrown under the Oath umbrella along with AOL, Tumblr, Engadget, etc. when they were acquired by Verizon. I assume for transparency, DDG stated they use "Oath (formerly Yahoo) and Bing" on their Sources help page to indicate who they're actually making the deal with.[0] However, I guess Verizon has changed the Oath name to Verizon Media, so now it's "Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing".
But, to answer your question. It's just a long winded way of saying Yahoo.
[0]: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
Seriously, I already said no 100s of times, why keep asking?
I can't speak for their privacy practices, but it has the bifg advantage of letting you download maps to use them off-line.
For example, their maps app on iOS won’t save locations for me unless I sign in an enable web history tracking. I get prompted every time I try to save a pin as well as every once in a while I’m case I change my mind.
It’s a free app and it’s Google’s prerogative to try to get value out of it. But it’s annoying to me that they purposely don’t implement client tech (eg, save to app cache, device cookie not tied to individual) that would make their app better for me. And that they nag with no way to turn off forever. Their app already shows ads and makes money for them, they just want more money from the data stream.
I also worry about less savvy customers who don’t understand the prompt and unwittingly opt in to data collection that exists forever. The Facebook privacy explosion of last year is an example of users who accepted terms, but didn’t understand them, and got upset when data was used in ways that upset them.