Alternative to Google's Enhanced Location?

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?

12 points · 8 comments · view on lemmy.world

8 Comments

WhoRoger@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3y (3 replies)

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?

thedarkfly@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 3y

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

d3vnu1l@programming.dev · 3 pts · 3y (1 reply)

Mozilla Location Services?

You can use MozillaNlpBackend as a UnifiedNlp location provider for Microg

https://github.com/microg/UnifiedNlp

WhoRoger@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3y

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).

h3ndrik@feddit.de · 4 pts · 3y

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.