How do I use waze privately while getting live traffic information? Since my city is building more tram tracks so we can be more ‘environment friendly’, I can’t drive the normal route I would since the road is under construction. Is using the web version of waze good enough or are there alternaties?
Try Magic Earth, it’s based on OpenStreetMap and works really well, I haven’t found anything better.
Magic Earth is proprietary fwiw.
Also depending on region, you can get realtime traffic over the air:
1 Like
Waze was bought by google some time ago. Its not really good privacy-wise.
You can use an offline map tool like Organic Maps and then cross referrence your route via an in-web browser (instead of app) with Google Map.
Dont set your real destination and real starting point though, instead, use a popularly used landmark near you and another popular landmark near your destination, taking care that you will pass by the same traffic chokepoints and all other relevant and useful traffic information. Screenshot it then avoid roads as needed in your Organic Maps.
Its a complicated and bothersome way to do live traffic info and you wont get updates with detours but I like to think I am doing it privately despite using Google Maps info.
You forget to mention, to Start half an hour earlier to get all these recommended steps done
And whats about a longer journey?
How often will you repeate this to stay up to date?
1 Like
Waze is basically Google Maps with a different GUI now and you can pretty much assume that Google will mine all the data it can get from those apps.
My understanding is that Waze is owned by Google and the data from Waze is shared with Google maps for their traffic layer and vice versa.
It is possible to use Osmand ~ (from FDroid) or Osmand+ (from GPlay) with an overlay that shows Google Traffic data. You can customize how often you want it to update to conserve data.
While Osmand is a great (if complicated) opensource map app, it would require using FDroid or GPlay to download and for some people that is a concern. Also, the app, and your phone, would be pinging Google for the data so that likely means Google knows where your device is located, though whether they are able to link it to you specifically probably depends on if you use any other Google services tied to you on that device. So I can’t really say if it is a good privacy option for you, I don’t mind it because it fits my needs.
This link gives an overview of how to set it up.