Alternative to Google's Enhanced Location? (feddit.nl)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/549047

Assisted GNSS is pretty handy. My phones gets my approximate location very fast. If I want to plan a route from where I am, I don't have to wait a couple minutes for the GNSS signal to be received (if I'm in a location where I can receive it).

But obviously, waiting a couple minutes before starting a journey is acceptable to avoid being tracked by Google, so I disabled the Enhanced Location mode on my Android phone.

Is there a private alternative for A-GNSS?

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[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

on android there is microG with the unified location modules. this is the part that can locate you by surrounding cell towers or wifi networks. you can use a third party database and save that to your device.

For the 'assisted' part: i think there are alternate download servers for the satellite data that is required for the A-... part. I don't know much about that, though. I believe they are incorporated into privacy oriented android versions like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There's some Mozilla service that can work as a drop-in replacement. Dang I wanted to look into it too but I can't remember how it works. Anyone?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah I thought I heard Mozilla having something but I can't find it.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Mozilla Location Services?

You can use MozillaNlpBackend as a UnifiedNlp location provider for Microg

https://github.com/microg/UnifiedNlp

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I guess so. I didn't think it's only for MicroG (although I guess it makes sense or I'd have looked it up sooner).

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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023

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