Meta Discussion about List of Free Cell & WiFi Databases for Location Services

There is a contact form right here.

Does anyone know what is happening with openwlanmap and openwifi.su? The android client switched to uploading to openwifi.su. Is a new name part of the server move? Are they separate projects? Do they share data?

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I’m confused too. After the latest update the standard setting was to upload to openwifi.su but the leaderboard on openwifi.su was outdated by months.
I’ve sent a mail to openwifi’s contact address but the response was very hard to understand (I think the guy was russian).
I changed the setting to upload to openwlanmap, but I don’t know if that’s really better.
But since the data is freely licensed I’d hope they share.

I just updated the wiki for the first time in months and see that nobody of us in the leaderboard seems active anymore. Except for @sim6, but he isn’t active in the forum anymore.

So let’s start stumbling, mapping and beaconing again! :smile:

Also does anybody already know why OpenWlanMap split into two websites with mismatched data sets?

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There seems to be something odd about OWM. I lost rank and points and my update last week isn’t showing.

You’re uploading to the new webiste you’re rank 27 there.

At that website the list is showing me at 23, with 28123 points. Whilst my phone is showing rank 24 with 22204 points. So I get confused.

Would someone please tell me what this topic is about? Surely I can read ā€œFree Cell & Wlan Databasesā€ but I don’t have a clue what that could be good for… Anyone up for an explanation?

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It’s about free alternatives for Google’s, Apple’s and other Wifi/Cell Databases used for their location services.
If you have Google Services on your phone, then you can use their location service to get a rough Location via wifi and cell networks without GPS. If you start GPS Google will - without your explicit permission - track your phone and save your data on their servers. This data will then belong to Google. They don’t just do it with location data.

These free Databases are different: You can upload your data on a voluntary basis and the data will be free (means: doesn’t belong to anybody // everybody can use it without having to pay anything for it). Also most of these databases (or is it all of them? don’t know right now) have an opt-out function, meaning: If you want your Wifi-Router not to be in the database you can remove it permanently.

Now, if you don’t have Google (anti)services installed on your Fairphone you can use µg UnifiedNlp as a Location Service without GPS.

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Thank you. Once I have my FP2 you will probably see me ask lots of questions on how to get rid of data collection machine google. I saw the other topic with the alternative apps already. Gonna read into all that more closely!

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I stopped with OpenWlanMap. I can’t upload anymore. There is no reply on message to OpenWlanMap.
So I ended up removing the app from my phone.

Yeah I have the same problems. It would be sad if this was the end… :frowning:

I still dont completely understand the OpenWlanMap OpenWifi.su split, but i think uploads to either of them make it onto http://owm.vreeken.net/map/ . I had the trouble uploading, and the developer suggested switching on the ā€œUpload data via insecure HTTPā€ in the options, which works for me.

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Uploading via insecure HTTP is definitely a no go for me, never.
Sorry to say, but a developer how suggest to use an insecure HTTP???
I am flabbergasted by such a suggestion.:rage:

Uploading works again for me, with secure https.

And I think openwifi.su is the project that should be supported.

I tried to install OpenWLANMap on my FP2. When I go to preferences several lines are unreadable because they show numbers instead of letters.
Re-enable the Privacy Impact makes no difference.

If I install OpenWLANMini I see less options (it’s the mini version) in the preferences, but they are all readable.

Hi,
I have been contributing to this interesting project- it’s similar to OpenStreetMaps.org which I’m also a big fan of. It’s basically an open source WiFi map of the world, collected using an app on android mobiles. There are commercial versions of this in existence, for example, it’s one of the things google streetview cars do when they drive around.

I was hoping posting here would find one of the members of the team ā€œFairphoneā€ which I’d join if they’d like- although I’m out of their geographical area… I’d need the team ID code from them.

If anyone’s interested in this themselves or just wants to see or read more the projects page is here: http://www.openwlanmap.org/owlmapatandroid.php?lang=en

A map of their current coverage is here: http://owm.vreeken.net/map/

Hey @matthew
I moved your post here.
The first post is a Wiki, you can add yourself to the top list(s).

New contributors are always welcome :smiley:

A post was split to a new topic: :pencil: List of Free Cell & WiFi Databases for Location Services