Link: https://9to5google.com/2026/02/18/google-maps-limited-view-signed-out/

Awful change, basically killed GMaps WV overnight.

https://www.comaps.app/

CoMaps (or any other FOSS navigation app, for that matter) is not a replacement in this context.

Fuck google.

Are they trying to fight scrapers?

great! hopefully there is room for others to start to grow

Wow it's so much cleaner. And we can just turn this on all the time?

You don’t love random selfies of strangers that come up in photos of pinned locations?

Unfortunately so.

As much as I don't want to use any Google services, Maps is unfortunately not easily replaced, because it all comes down to user-submitted content.

If you want to look up a restaurant and see photos of the venue and the food, Maps is where that content is.

Google absolutely know how valuable this is and how much leverage they can get with it by the manner they've implemented the change.

I use FOSS wherever I can, but we don't get to choose where other members of the public put their content. Most of the time I can choose to opt out. I consciously don't have Facebook or Insta for example, which leaves me at a disadvantage at times because an increasing number of businesses think it's fine for their only web presence to be a Facebook page - with no actual website of their own.

And it's in those times especially I find myself being pushed to Google maps just to find a user-submitted picture of the menu so I can even see what they've got.

You also can't view users' 3D photos either :c

WV still working for me?

Yet another locked down platform trying to fight the infinite network of bots that is AI scrapers.

That's be nice, but let's be realistic, everyone is signed in, and no one will even notice. This is probably to fight scraping.

Maybe. Could also be trying to promote their AI because you can get the information through Gemini still.

Fight scrapers, provide more targeted advertising, use this as a beginning to get people to make an account.

Google doesn't have an incentive to keep this information open without an account but several incentives to put it behind an account wall.

https://www.comaps.app/

It depends

Comaps works pretty well for me. I still use Google maps from time to time but compass works fine the majority of the time.

So they really just removed the only features that made their propietary service better than the foss ones? I can check public transit with the official app, and do everything else thats navigation related with OSM. Insane move

They didn't remove it, just require that the user be signed into a Google account to see reviews & images.

My favorite is random pics of someone's kitchen because they live nearby.

I agree that CoMaps and similar apps don't have the feature set that signed-out Google Maps users are losing in this move by Google, so it's not totally relevant.

I don't agree with just calling CoMaps a navigation app in the sense of "how do I get to Point B", though. In well-mapped areas it has business information including specifics about the shop/restaurant, opening hours, accessibility, payment methods, etc. It has points of interest that give information about a location's history and culture, as well as ancillary information from Wikipedia/WikiData. It has information about green spaces, vehicles and bicycle parking, waterways, sports clubs and tracks/pistes, toilets and other public services, benches, water points, and a bunch more.

So its effectively removed unless you are in Google's spyware ecosystem.

Everyone else*

ActivityPub review system? I don't want to figure out how to make that right now. Somebody else?

And let’s be realistic: if they’re not signed in - or if they even don’t have a Google account (because they live on the moon), then they’re just gonna follow the instructions and do what they’re told.

What’s odd is that for a very small portion of the users, this is incentive to actually logout! Less clutter? Yes please.