GoKawiilJoe Maring / Android Authority
Google Maps is a great app overall, but since I’m trying to de-Google my life this year, it’s time to say goodbye to it. Well, at least for the most part.
After partly moving away from Gmail, Drive, and Photos and switching to Proton’s suite of apps earlier this year for privacy reasons, I’ve been on the search for the best Google Maps alternative out there. It’s not an easy task since Google Maps gets a lot of things right, but I eventually landed on HERE WeGo, which I’ve been using for the last few weeks.
There are four reasons why it’s a better app than Google Maps for me, despite it falling short in several areas.
Would you ever consider switching to a Google Maps alternative? 28 votes I'm considering it. 36 % I already switched. 43 % Google Maps for life! 18 % I didn't even know there are viable alternatives. 4 %
1. It’s focused on what really counts
Mitja Rutnik / Android Authority
HERE WeGo is all about simplicity, and I’m all for it. I take a lot of day trips over the weekend, and whenever I plan on visiting a new location, I always check it on the map first to get a feel for it. I zoom in a bit and look at the layout of the city, find the best parking lots, and so on. I also check how long the drive is, whether it’s on regional roads or the highway — which comes with extra fees in my part of the world — and the rest of the essentials.
That’s all I need, and HERE WeGo delivers. Granted, Google Maps also tells me all these things, but it also adds a bunch of extra info on top that I don’t care about at that moment. Facts about the city, the weather, hotels, neighborhoods, and photos. These things aren’t necessarily bad per se, it’s just that they show up when I don’t need them, whereas on HERE WeGo, I can just focus on what matters to me at a given time due to the simpler nature of the app.
There’s even a big difference when I open both apps without selecting a specific location on the map. Maps has a search bar on top with various options below it (restaurants, gas…) as well as a pull-up tab below. It just takes up space and creates too much visual clutter for me, especially when I’m trying to just see the layout of a city. HERE WeGo is much simpler with just a search bar at the bottom and a small weather widget up top, resulting in more screen real estate for the things that matter to me.
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