For years, Google Maps has been a go-to tool for millions worldwide, seamlessly integrated into search results for instant access to directions, locations, and more. But if you’ve noticed something missing recently, you’re not imagining things. Due to European Union regulations, Google has been forced to remove its Maps functionality from its search results, marking a significant shift in how we interact with the tech giant’s ecosystem.
I understand the why of this but this is not an improvement. I suppose search engines should ask you which maps provider you want and then show results based on that.
Google could have done that, but they chose to go this router to inconvenience users, so that they then could blame the EU for this.
Like… and hear me out… save the preference with some sort of Cookie technology? Do you think the EU would be up for that?
I can’t tell whether you’re being intentionally ironic. Yes the EU would be up for it. The EU didn’t ban cookies. Putting it simply, you do not need a cookie banner if you aren’t tracking people.
Pretty much. Although I continue to be annoyed this ever even needed to be asked. There’s literally a browser setting to communicate this “do not track”. EU really should’ve just forced everyone to respect it :/.
I agree – and before DnT, there was P3P, which also would have done it – but it is what it is at the moment.
I’m mostly exasperated with it because I wipe all cookies each browser restart, which is a much more-reliable and less-obnoxious solution than the EU’s regulatory approach of trying to convince the remote end not to make use of its ability to set them. If you do that, you get the cookie banner every time on sites that show it, which means that the cookie banner regulation has made my experience rather worse. And unfortunately, some sites show the banner to non-EU-based users – we don’t elect EU representatives, but we still get some spillover from their policies.
There’s some Firefox plugin that will try to hide the cookie banners:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/istilldontcareaboutcookies/
EDIT: Yeah, from the description on there, the author is doing exactly what I am with the “not retaining cookies” approach, and smacking into how poorly that interacts with the cookie banner regulation:
To make it even more clear let me rephrase it:
If you want to store sth like that, it would be classified as functional and you wouldn’t even need a cookie banner for it.
Only if you want to use it to track people you need to notify them
Im a web dev and I build almost all of my sites without cookie banner unless they’re really required (YouTube embeds, invasive tracking etc) and when I don’t include a banner, people usually think I forgot it.
It’s a shame that most people think the internet just has to be crap now and every site needs some dark pattern banner to track its users.
A dark pattern would be some sort of underhanded but legal tactic to trick or coerce a user into agreeing to something they wouldn’t otherwise.
But most websites aren’t using dark patterns for this, instead they just blatantly and plainly violate the law.
There needs to be a browser that auto blocks all cookies, and all cookie banners. You can whitelist the sites you want. Beyond that, your browser tells all the web “fuck you!”
Firefox + uBlock Origin does that for me. You just need to enable the Annoyances filter.
Brave does mostly a good job with this. Though some cookie banners still slip through, and other functional popups get blocked. Still makea browsing the Web more palatable.
This is true. No cookie banners, no ads. Hardly ever a problem
I’m unclear why you’re being downvoted for sharing reccomendations. So, because I’ve experienced similiar issues when I DID understand the downvotes, I’ll assume someone downvoted you because Brave isn’t their browser of choice, and they’re sitting at their computer like “NO! NOT BRAVE! WHY DOESN’T EVERYONE USE (insert obscure browser which may actually be a better experience, but only 50 people have ever heard of) INSTEAD??? WHY MUST THEY RECCOMEND THE MAINSTREAM BROWSERS???”
And then 3pm comes, and it’s time for him to give his sheets to his mommy for the weekly laundry.
Meanwhile, me, someone who’s used Firefox exclusively since 2004, is thinking “Hmmmm, maybe I SHOULD branch out and try other browsers! I’m sure I could try Brave? I’ll be…BRAVE…enough to try a new browser!”
And then I give myself a big hearty laugh as I drink a sip of my hot chocolate, and proceed to live the rest of my life not giving a shit why you were downvoted. Oh, also, have an upvote!
Yeah, you’re not allowed to say anything positive about Brave on Lemmy. Instant downvote. Then downvotes for talking about it being down voted.
It’s like you said something neutral about AI, if you don’t shit on it, they brigade you down.
Yes it’s very good at eliminating cookies, it tracks and sells your data, but not as widely as the big guys.
It’s very good at fingerprint resistance too.
Firefox with UO, privacy badger is very close to it’s level of perf.
You can install stuff to block your telemetry in just about any browser, knock out a lot of your tracking but still get tracked by your browser maker, your OS, your ISP…
But talk about brave, they just get pissy.
Apt username.
If you want to store your map preferences, save the preferences to your account and make sure you’re logged in.
I’m not saying anything like this is preferable or whatever but there’s also little sense in removing all semblance of user experience in favour of removing power from tech giants.
You can literally store all preferences in cookies without a problem with EU legislation.
Why would they ever enable choice. That’s not very capitalism
If they allowed users to select a default, almost everyone would select Google maps and get a better experience. By not giving the user a choice everyone loses, because Google maps is still going to be the top option. I’m surprised that this functionality either doesn’t exist already or isn’t allowed, because capitalism.
Spoken like someone who’s never used a different map provider!
Can you give me an alternative that you truely think is better than google maps, not just alternative, something that is objectively better?
Objective ways Openstreetmap is better:
Some people would not select google though. And google can’t afford people knowing that there’s competitors to Google! So better fuck everyone over by just disabling the integration.
True. Google is using a monopoly and forcing users to use Google Maps on their platform.
There’s no competition, and everyone is worse of. It’s a long term good change by the EU.
Most browsers allow choice of search provider. If you choose Google, you’d get this, if you choose a different search engine, you’d get a different experience. People already had that choice.