Okay, this keeps coming up in my head and I don’t know the answer.
If we turn around and put questionable apps, not necessarily bad, but questionable apps that we don’t know about,.. Will iode protect us from those things? They show waze on the front page. Do I dare use that?? I have been struggling with the OpenStreetMap options which suck where I live, and it would be a heck of a time investment to fix it myself. Could I use waze?!
So far, none of the cameras will take night sky pictures. that I have found. Librecamera it’s the best choice, but it likes to turn the previews into a plain black window. Could I use a camera app from somewhere else?? Will Iode protect me?
ZombiesRun is back, dramatizes a zombie story while you run or walk and get exercise. Do I trust the app? Will Iode protect me if I’m wrong?
Obviously, nobody can make a blanket generalization, but I just don’t know how far to take it beyond the official apps or things actually appearing in the f-droid store.
How about using your manufacturer’s stock OEM camera (you can extract it as an APK from the stock OS and hopefully run it on iodéOS – this often works)?
“I have been struggling with the OpenStreetMap options which suck where I live, and it would be a heck of a time investment to fix it myself. Could I use waze?!”
I run IodeOS on my Fairphone 5 and have had great success with CoMaps (available in the FDroid store).
It’s private, open-source, very comprehensive, and offline (so losing data signal whilst navigating isn’t a problem).
I use it for both hiking (it includes a massive amount of trails, paths, and other non-vehicle routes) and as my sat-nav when driving and so far have yet to encounter any problems.
I use the full Google Maps app in the “Private Space feature of android/IodéOS, so that it doesn’t have the ability to run or do anything unless I open the Private Space first.
I keep the Google apps to a minimum, sequester them into the Private Space, turn off their ability to use background data and battery in settings, and never log in to any Google services, except inside Thunderbird.
Works for me.
But 90% of the time, I use the “Gmaps WV" app from f-droid to look up places (its just a web view container for Google maps), and use CoMaps for actual navigation.
I only use the real Google Maps app (again, never logged in, that’s important) if I’m dealing with navigating confusing routes with lots of exits, or insane traffic.
Unfortunately, co-maps also uses OpenStreetmaps. And the whole “open” in there is because people do it. It’s a crowdsourced kind of thing. And there aren’t very many crowds up here in the Great Northwoods! A lot of stuff isn’t filled in or it’s got a road with no street numbers. Trust me, I tried all of them and the only ones that work for me are the ones that integrate other information. MagicEarth and herewego are okay. but not great.
I hadn’t heard of that GMaps thing so I just went and tried it. First, it didn’t want to give me the route. Then I finally got it going, but it froze as I was trying to get into the menus to see if I could figure out if I could make it talk. And then it crashed entirely! I can use HereWe go, or MagicEarth. They’re not awesome, but at least they don’t crash on me.
My next trip is fairly chill, but the next one after that, I will absolutely be driving into big, unfamiliar highways, and I cannot have it freeze or crash on me in the middle of that.
To this question, I think the best you can expect is that the iodé blocker app will restrict trackers and ads via DNS filtering. But as suggested, you can also put questionable apps in Private Space or Shelter and have them auto-freeze after a certain time (these options work differently in this regard), and only launch them when you want them. Then they can’t drill down to your contacts, etc., if you by accident don’t have their permissions restricted, etc., won’t be running constantly in the background, etc.
I’ll use Gmaps WV to get info when CoMaps is incomplete. Sorry you weren’t able to get Gmaps WV working; it seems it hasn’t been updated in a while.
A lot of time, I’ll use Gmaps WV (you might be able to use something like Native Alpha to use google maps as a webapp) to check on the address or route to a place, and then navigate in CoMaps. Sometimes CoMaps has the street but not the actual address, and I’ll use Gmaps to verify where in the street I’m going to, and then just visually pick out that spot in CoMaps.
I have CoMaps signed in to OpenStreetMaps, so I’ll add data when I’m able to.
Magic Earth also uses OpenStreetMaps data, but they have a guessing algorithm that will take to to the approximate location of an address if it has general address information, but not that exact house/building number.
Edit: slight wording change to indicate that I haven’t actually tested Google Maps with Native Alpha. Sometimes gmaps doesn’t like to run in the mobile web, that’s why Gmaps WV is such a great app… when it works
