652
Google Maps renames “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” even faster than US government
(arstechnica.com)
Boot licking fascist cowards.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
652 points (98.7% liked)
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Gross
I'd guess the calculus was something like:
Our users don't want this thing
Fuck em, we're a monopoly
the famously petty would-be dictator wants this thing
Do what he says, he could really hit our bottom line if he wants to
"Fuck em, we're a Monopoly."
- https://www.openstreetmap.org/: Google Maps replacement, more detailed
- https://www.comaps.app/: Replacement for the mobile app, lets you pre-download them so you don't need to have mobile connections. Perfect for when you're out in the Stix.
And while we're at it.
- https://duckduckgo.com/: Google replacement, respects your privacy, AI features turn-off-able and completely optional.
- https://proton.me/: gSuite replacement, Email, Cloud Storage, Docs, Calendar, Video Calls, Authenicator. Actually worth paying for.
I'd personally suggest Tuta over Proton simply because of the sketchiness of the Proton ownership and their conservative, business-first, citizens-second views.
Instead of recommending OpenStreetMap.org, I would suggest Cartes.app as the Google maps replacement (uses OSM data). It contains most features that Google Maps users are used to and will feel familiar to them. OpenStreetMap is more of the backend for mapping apps rather than a direct replacement for Google Maps.
Cartes for most features (satellite view, reviews, shareable links that work for anyone, etc.) and CoMaps for offline/driving directions.
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Today is GrapheneOS day for me.
And if they ever try to take that away, I'll get a fucking dumb flip phone and that'll be that.
Open source is critical to our future.
I'm excited to see what they do with Motorola as it would be nice to pick up something newer and have my current Graphene device for backup/travel in case prices ever go wild like they seemingly have for every other piece of tech. Honestly, there's not much reason not to run Graphene because, privacy aside, the user experience is significantly deslopified and much better than stock.
Mine arrived today. Ironic.
Also ironic that I had to buy a pixel, but i needed a new phone so I wanted something that gos and other distros could run on
Oh don't apologize for buying their subsidized data collection devices and then completely disabling the reason they subsidize the devices 😂
It's a kick in the nuts to Google every time GrapheneOS is installed.
Single source hardware is a security liability. If Google does something to the hardware or firmware, the GrapheneOS project would be screwed. Google has already hobbled AOSP.
We cannot overly depend on Google's or any one company's good will.
I think GrapheneOS should think about gradually steering the project toward a basket of hardware companies. Shifting to Motorola is necessary in the near term, but the whole situation with Google's behavior needs to be a wake up call.
Already, the pixel 11 line is out for graphene
They might be stuck with single source hardware from Motorola now, they announced recently there's a good chance they can't support the Pixel 11.
i just got a pixel 10 pro..... kinda wish i had got a samsung instead now
Trump's dick cheese must be tasting pretty good considering how many people are going for it
Nah, it will be just as awful as you imagine but those people love to keep punishing themselves by forcing it down their throat
What is utter horse shit is that they care about compatibility except for this.
The fact that it broke tons of Canadian websites and Google neither cares nor bothered to investigate shows their priority of sucking up to the Trump admin over everything else.
Change your default search engine, delete Google apps that you can (I need fucking the Google app for authentication…), create a non-gmail account and start migrating to it (yes this sucks, yes it takes a long time to finish, there’s lots of degoogling info on this out there now).
Aegis authenticator work just as good as Google authenticator and you can transfer all your keys.
Aegis is tits and it makes it easy to transfer TOTP codes back and forth between Aegis and KeePassXC.
I have to authenticate in the Google app sometimes though, not Google Authenticator, TOTP, or a passkey
I'm fucking done with Google Maps and their brown-nosing bullshit. Disabled it (can't uninstall easily, otherwise I would). MapQuest from now on (or one of the other alternatives that has a spine).
Now to find a good alternative to Gmail (and go through that migration hassle). I've tried Proton Mail in the past. It was okay, but didn't blow me away.
Shizuku, activated with USB debugging (if you can't/won't root), and Canta will let you fully remove Gmaps (and any other google shitware) pretty easily.
I even used it to remove that Android System SafetyCore app that apparently keeps reinstalling itself if you uninstall via normal methods and it hasn't come back after roughly a year since removal so I'd say it's a pretty effective and simple method to set up, just make sure to read the notes the Canta dev added for certain apps to make sure you aren't going to break something you may still want.
Shizuku is on the chopping block. One of the change requests being made to AOSP is blocking adb connections on the loopback interface, "for security".
Good info, thanks.
I like the Yelp integration with MapQuest. FlockHopper is good for finding routes that avoid flock cameras.
I use Organic Maps and CoMaps mainly. Sometime Kagi Maps and FlockHopper (not sure what I under the hood of that one though). I prefer OSM generally.
Weird. The local (german) version still shows as it should. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: For now
They're only changing it in the US.
Well...
Not quite. For the Gulf of mexico it shows "Gulf of America" as a subtitle.
I believe that only applies to the Gulf of Mexico, though.
EDIT: I was wrong, it turns out the US is supposed to see Lake America, Canada is supposed to see Lake Ontario, and the rest both.