Reviews are a thing of the past due to manipulation, and now ai as well. Google reviews have been trash for a long time. It really is a pity, there was a time when you could do an internet search for 'best' and get decent results, long time ago now though, before all of the amazon links.
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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DeGoogle Yourself
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I gave a delivery service a bad review once because they didn't deliver my food, said they would reimburse me and that didn't happen either.
The owner had the review removed as "false accusations" so I provided google with the chat in which the owner apologised for the missing delivery and offer me a voucher. Still got deleted because of "false accusations".
There are even more reviews popping up from other people that didn't get their food. They also get deleted.
Google reviews are worth shit.
wait so the owner can delete the review?? What's the point of having a review system then?
Apparently, they can just claim your review is fake and you weren't at the venue. Then Google will take your (negative) review down.
I just don't get what Google gains from allowing owners to delete reviews they don't like so easily. I mean by doing this thy just strip away the worth of the review service since many shops etc. will have a 4-5 star rating even if they are in fact really bad.
Getting reviews integrated into OpenStreetMaps should be one of the most important projects in open source today. Last time I checked, its fairly stalled.
If I knew more about how OpenStreetMap worked I would help with making this happen.
No, it's a monopoly
CoMaps is good alternative for Google Maps overall (simple to use, emphasis on POI, routing). They are actively working on including reviews from mangrove.reviews, and may release the feature very soon (source from last week).
Mangrove.reviews contains only a few reviews for now, but having recently been integrated in MapComplete, the number don't stop increasing.
Mangrove.reviews looks a bit like lib.reviews, I'll try it out.
cartes.app just added reviews so there isnt much there.
Seems like there is a major bootstrapping problem with reviews... like any social media
Mapy.com has reviews
I'm doing my part adding reviews to Mapy but it's pretty empty in my part of the world.
Also, I have mixed feelings about putting reviews in another closed system. Ideally there would be a FOSS review system based on open street maps that all map apps connected and contributed to. I'm not a developer or a multi-millionaire invester though, so ¯\(ツ)/¯
With Cartes.app the reviews are stored on AT (Blusky).
Mapcomplete uses mangrove.reviews
Same un my country, ans agreed. Also I feels stupid to write reviews no one is gonna see, cause no local uses the app..
Trustpilot ig.
I was going to mention Trustpilot as well. I had a terrible experience with Backmarket (used electronics site) and was getting the runaround from their customer service. I posted a one-star review for them on Trustpilot and all of a sudden got a resolution from Backmarket in like a day. I left my one-star review up as a warning to others.
- Thefork (French but now in 20 European countries) - for restaurants
- Trustpilot - for business
Yelp still exists but they’re evil too.