Firefox 34 released [LWN.net]

Firefox 34 released

Posted Dec 2, 2014 5:54 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
In reply to: Firefox 34 released by b7j0c
Parent article: Firefox 34 released

Agreed. It feel much more responsive now. I even went through and disabled Chrome just so the Play Store would stop bugging me to update it and give it a bundle of new permissions… Now if only I could do the same with the keyboard and Maps[1] :/ .

[1]I have OSM, but it is still not the greatest for the area; search brings up nothing for places where I know they exist (including roads I can see on the map) and I'd rather not find this out in the boonies without a backup.

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OSM (was: Firefox 34 released)

Posted Dec 2, 2014 8:54 UTC (Tue) by giggls (subscriber, #48434) [Link] (6 responses)

Ähm we are on lwn here! Did you forget, that OSM is a community project which uses FLOSS (and thus need help) all over the place?

So stop whining about things that you can probably fix yourself :)

Adding missing roads got very easy in the meantime. The latter gets a little bit more complicated. Our search engine is called nominatim and is arguably far from perfect but has gotten way better recently. Source code is at https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim

Sven

OSM (was: Firefox 34 released)

Posted Dec 2, 2014 11:34 UTC (Tue) by TomH (subscriber, #56149) [Link]

It sounds like he is talking about an Android device though, so when he says he "has OSM" he probably means some app, not the web site. In turn that means the quality of the search is largely down to the author of that app - there is no "official" app.

OSM (was: Firefox 34 released)

Posted Dec 2, 2014 14:29 UTC (Tue) by mstone_ (subscriber, #66309) [Link] (3 responses)

I don't understand how he can fix the problem that he doesn't trust that he won't end up in an unfamiliar place not well mapped in OSM?

OSM (was: Firefox 34 released)

Posted Dec 2, 2014 15:07 UTC (Tue) by giggls (subscriber, #48434) [Link] (2 responses)

I would rather not _trust_ Google as well, as far as maps are concerned :)

I have been cycling 800km this summer solely navigated by OSM based maps only.

Shure, quality depends on where you live (mathstuf did not tell mention the area he has been talking about). But at least here in Europe OSM is already a better replacement for Google in many places.

OSM (was: Firefox 34 released)

Posted Dec 2, 2014 15:14 UTC (Tue) by mstone_ (subscriber, #66309) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, here in my part of the US my experience is that google is more likely to have roads than OSM. Paths, also. In some places where there's more of a concentration of OSM users it's likely that OSM will have better maps, but in the OPs situation of being out in the boonies in middle america you've got better odds that google sucked up the output of people paid to do mapping than that you've lucked into a place where a volunteer decided to do something.

OSM (was: Firefox 34 released)

Posted Dec 3, 2014 6:35 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

The US database for google maps is indeed notably superior to the European comparitor -- at least spottily sampled in the UK, southern Germanany, and Finland.

OSM (was: Firefox 34 released)

Posted Dec 15, 2014 16:42 UTC (Mon) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

The issue with OSM (and I'm a paid OSMF member, so I strongly support the project) is that while it's a tremendously good geo database, it's not a good one-stop-servie for all map-related things like what GMaps can provide.

Having routing, really good search for any item, and clickable items on the map that give you more info and links, as well as a satellite/orthophoto view and potentially "StreetView", all that makes GMaps a killer app compared to anything OSM right now. I'd cheer anyone up for the challenge up trying to create a service that does all that with completely FLOSS tools.