Everyone should just report the error to Google over and over and over again. Remind them that the federal government doesn't actually have unilateral authority to rename major international geographic features on the whim of a single deranged despot.
A lot of people sent edits through to google over the Gulf of Mexico 'change'. I believe they eventually removed the ability to edit it? (I no longer use google and it was a while ago now)
Apple Maps still lets you report the Gulf of Mexico, I did the other night when this first happened. They haven’t changed Lake Ontario yet at least though.
Also, and this is weird, mine shows Lake America at one level of zoom, then changes back to Lake Ontario, and then changes to Lake America all over again at an even closer level of zoom. Everything is ridiculous and awful.
My screenshots are taken while not logged into google, opening google maps n a browser, and typing in 'lake ontario'. not being logged in might make a difference for some reason?
the nz one is via a vpn (which is definitely working)
How about for the other one? (shows the same for aus and nz for me)
Presumably the sentence finishes if you aren’t on mobile
That is both funny and correct, the full sentence is:
Per Secretarial Order 3453, Lake Ontario has been renamed to Lake America. The basemaps for this application are in the process of being updated to reflect this name change.
If you're bored, report missing information and say the lake is wrong and that this will cause conflicts with street signs and directions for actual locations. May as well give them a bunch of support tickets that waste some amount of resources
They even seem to have some automations for it. The route to my old apartment was shown wrong and delivery drivers almost always popped up on the wrong side of my building behind my backyard. I tried to fix this but my edits were automatically rejected as being malicious. That’s one reason I don’t use Google Maps for navigation anymore.
Edit: Just checked again. It’s still wrong on Google Maps, still correct on Apple Maps.
It seems like the majority of Google products and features are built to support someone's promotion effort. Once they are promoted or if they quit the company, no one else is around to support it and the product is eventually canceled. Thats why the list here is so long: https://killedbygoogle.com/. And good luck even getting through to a real person for support. Its bots all the way down.
Is your language en-us or en-ca would be my first question. There's multiple potential ways they could be determining what the correct name is for you?
Guaranteed is. This is not new to Google, they have disputed territories, disputed names, they have gone through this before. This is just Americans seeing it for the first time. Google probably has an admin page that let's them set it up without ever needing an engineer anymore. If you're within this polygon you see this line, else you see the line over there. The alternative is they get sued/shut down in that country/ etc. While I have no love for Google, this is simply them picking their battles.
No, that's not what I said, I said they're picking their battles, and I didn't offer any reason or justification for why. You can do that if you choose, but I'm not going to go off and do errands to prove a point I wasn't making.
I said they’re picking their battles, and I didn’t offer any reason or justification for why
OK, and I'm saying they are not picking anything, and just rolling over. There is no fucking battle that they are fighting, so they aren't picking any battles.
They're actively siding with fascists, that's not "doing jack shit." Doing jack shit changes nothing, they choose to change things for the worse all the time.
To directly answer the question: within the last 3 or 6 months (I'm not sure precisely), they banned multiple youtubers that were placing ads to work for Russian Alabuga and it's drone production. It's an example of using their weight, in this case even something good.
On the other hand, I mostly actually agree with you. While I do think that they are picking their battles, I also think which battles they go into is usually not in your or mine interests. Instead, the battles are frequently in the interests of the richest google investors (think 10M+) and the US government, as of late. The Alabuga case above is a good and noteworthy exception.
I'm from the US but moved to Sweden a year ago. It's changed for me when I look at it. So maybe it's not specifically geolocjed but has to do with where my account was set up, or some localization setting somewhere?
Just because a boot liker calls something by a name, does not make it so, if anything, when you hear someone say "THe guLf of aMericA" you know on the spot, you don't loose anything by stopping the conversation right there and then.
It is labeling them properly though? In the US it's called Lake America which is now the official American name for it. In the rest of the world it's named Lake Ontario.
Thing is, it's not unusual for bodies of water to have different names depending on where you're from. What we call Läänemeri (Western Sea), the Germans call Ostsee (Eastern Sea). You likely know it as the Baltic Sea.
But it's not called that, and it's not the official name.
Naming shit isn't a presidential power. His declaration has no more weight than if he announced that from now on your legal name was Vicky.
It's silly and stupid, but also genuinely dangerous when groups with as much power as Google has declare that they're willing to let a madman dictate how they describe reality.
Some of us are dealing with it, but since it was another country who's people democratically elected evil all we can do is boycott. Unfortunately, the people in that country can't be bothered to even do that; all they can manage is to wave some signs around on the occasional weekend.
At least in my experience, OpenStreetMap has far, far superior depictions of hiking trails. Edge case I know, but still, it demonstrates that Google maps does not actually reign fully supreme and can be bested.
Haven't used google maps in years. OpenStreetMap rules. It may not have all the POIs but it does just fine for navigation and stuff, and I can find addresses of businesses the old fashioned way, using their website.
Just about every map works fine these days. Google tends to route the inefficient routes once you learn your city. Ignoring it tends to be faster, then at that point, you don't "need" map apps at all.
It doesn't depends on a update but as the official name of it in the country you are located. Gulf of Mexico is still Gulf of Mexico everywhere but the US. Lake Ontario is going to keep being Lake Ontario everywhere but the US.
Google has always shown the local official name for everything. Borders and names can vary a lot depending on where you are from. I still see lake Ontario since I'm not from the US.
Strong 8th grade vibes. "I asked Becky if she would be my girlfriend and she said no, so I crossed her name off my textbook cover and wrote BITCH over it. That'll show her! Why isn't she noticing what I wrote? Fuckin' Becky is such a bitch, she hasn't even looked at what I wrote over her name!"
There was also the Gulf of Mexico situation. Oh and also when they removed Holocaust Remembrance, Pride, and various Heritage events from Google Calendar like, the week Trump took office. Oh and don't forget the time they donated millions to Trump's 2024 campaign, you know, the one after he'd already attempted a coup on the US government and where he was promising mass deportations, attacks on the "enemy from within", and loads of other lovely stuff like that. Oh and let's not leave out their participation in the creation of an Orwellian mass surveillance state.
Apple Maps hasn’t fallen to the Mad King’s whims yet but I assume they will, as they did with the Gulf of Mexico. I’m hoping Apple’s new CEO has more of a spine than Tim Cuck. I mean Cook. (Aka “Tim Apple”)
What's interesting is I'm in Canada and it shows both the America waterways. It's only a trump idiot decree and not the rest of the worlds. Fail googly
We all remember the usa and google doing this to The Gulf of Mexico don't we?
That is why we no longer accept US people referring to themselves as Americans, they don't own the continent(s), even though that is their obvious aim.
Ugh, they finally did it. I was checking both of them daily. Apple Maps still calls it Lake Ontario, but it's only a matter of time until Tim Cook bends the knee. He's the one who gave 47 a participation trophy made of gold.
Honestly, this isn't that terrible of Google. VPN outside the US and see what it says. I had to VPN in to get it to show up. Turn off the VPN, and it's back to Lake Ontario after force quitting the app and reloading it. There are a ton of instances where a country changes a name, or another country does not respect a change and map makers have to support those differences there. Yes the change was political, but changes like that are just part of running a map service.
I mean, if you wanna dump on Google, we can talk about how they're charging iPhone 17 Pro prices for iPhone 11 (or Galaxy S10) power and selling your personal information on the side. It's not hard to make Google look bad. Hell, just stand aside and wave at all the shit they do and your case is made.
The Maps team is in Switzerland. Gonna take its time. You first need to specify the change, get it approved by 7 engineers, implement the change, test it by 1000 underpaid Kenyans and thenn will be deployed with the next release cycle.
Google was a little quick on this one. Not even a day and they changed it for Americans.
They're also absolutely cowardly - the rest of the world hate Trump and they know it because
they're even too spineless to commit to putting it on everyone's Map.
I really don't like the user experience of OsmAnd to the point where I find it unusable. I use Comaps all the time and love it. Each to their own I guess.
OsmAnd doesn't crash for me but for some reason it gives most directions as notifications instead of saying them out loud, which is completely useless. I use HERE WeGo instead.
So.. Any good FOSS alternatives for navigation while biking?
I tried changing to Organic Maps but had to change back because it was really inaccurate outside of cities and the voice guide kept telling me to turn too early or too late 😮💨
I've been using osmand with great success. It's completely free and no membership required. You even get the plus features if you download it from f-droid instead of Google play
OsmAnd~ with Brouter works very well on Android. You can even choose various routing modes that change how much it avoids large roads. Unfortunately its a bit fiddly to setup and the OsmAnd UX is extremely yanky.
Organic Maps is shady anyway. I hear good things about comaps, but haven't actually used it for navigation because like every other FOSS app, it doesn't have live traffic data
Construction data is entered by the users on both Google Maps and OSM. I agree about the tragic. I mostly use Google maps for the traffic data, not the map. Unfortunately, there are no alternative.
Yes. Thats how all these platforms work. Many things have several names that are region specific. If you are in France, you might even see "United States of America" renamed! (Spoiler, it is often translated).
Still shows their colours yet again that they make the change within America, even before the usgs maps.
There has never been a square meter of dirt that deserved a bomb dropped on it more than that square meter of dirt in that photo. The world would instantly be a better place.
Private companies are not compelled to follow executive orders. They are instructions for the executive branch of the us government, per article 2 of the us constitution situation. Not the entire country. Not even the entire US government. Trump acts as if he is a king with limitless power, and then proceeds as if it were true. It works because the current US government is happy to play along, as are giant corpos, such as Google, et al. This is a massive psyop brothers and sisters. Use Google when you have to. Use Amazon if you have to. Fill up your gas tank and wash your lettuce. But for god’s sake do not be fooled, and do not play along.
They could do the right thing and resist the fascism. You know, like how anybody with a platform and a moral compass would do. But I suppose expecting shitty companies to not be shitty is too much to ask.
He only has the power to do that for the executive branch. He can’t compel citizens or corporations to follow along - not with the law anyway. He is getting away with it because the people whose pockets he’s lining are happy to play along as long as number goes up. That’s all they care about.
He only has the power to do that for the executive branch. He can’t compel citizens or corporations to follow along - not with the law anyway.
Exactly. And when companies and citizens are rushing to comply out of either fear of retribution or the hope that sycophancy will keep them in the protected "in-group"?...
He's also threatening companies with legal action if they don't follow his every whim. Trump is a 10 year old bully daydreaming about being a mob boss in an 80 year old corpse.
If this were about pulling data from GNIS, it would have taken at least a month to show up on their platform. Its governent data and legacy data pipelines.
Some Google developer had to write an entry for this to happen so fast. 100%.
Do you have a source for Google pulling for GNIS? I can't imagine it would be an easy thing to collate with Google's own data about geographical features.
It is their practice but it's not a law of nature, or even a law of any kind. As an American company they could have shown balls and ignored Trump shenanigan. Expectedly, they didn't.
Then why does Google show "Gulf of America" in brackets to Europeans? Why did Google update "Lake America" to Americans faster than the actual usgs maps?
Complying with Trump's insane bullshit is supporting him. They should draw a fucking line and not update the map. Or use a source that hasn't changed the name. It still shows lake Ontario in Canada. He should have to force every single fucking thing he does through court to make anything happen.
This act itself really isn't that bad on Google's part. The problem is that they made themselves government contractors, killers for profit. The reason this matters is because if they said they weren't changing the name you'd praise them.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the room at Google where the discussions are being had as to what to label the lake. If I'm to be charitable, I'd assume they've renamed it because they're consistently following an internal rule which says they use geographic names from the GNIS, which was updated by the executive order, and they haven't yet decided whether they should make an exception in this case. Every nonsensical rename in the GNIS weakens its credibility as an accurate database. I'm sure the debates are interesting. We don't actually know if this is Google "bending the knee" or sticking with the rename for some other more technical reason.
Google has no decision to make here. They have a policy and system that aligns geographical names based on country records. The rest of the world will continue to see Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario. Those are not the only two conflicted names across the world, there are far more.
I do want to stop using google maps in its entirety, but there are problems with all the other map and navigation apps that haven't been solved that google has working just fine.
Say I want directions to a store or restaurant 20-30 minutes away. I know what its called, not its exact location, so I type its name in and google can give me a list of all places with that name no issue.
I try that in magic earth, organic maps, co maps, its a toss up if it knows the place I am trying to find. So I try typing in the exact address if I have time and can find it online. 90% of the time that just doesn't find the place, and givss me an entire street to look down.
Lastly, often I want to call these places ahead of time, or look at a menu, get a vague idea how much it costs. Google maps just... has that information right there. Hours, images of food, menus, everything. No one else has that, and complications arise, especially when Duck Duck Go give me the wrong number and I place a pick up order from a place on the wrong side of town.
I want to replace google, but damn it if right now its just the best option and doesn't screw anything up. There are times when I cannot afford being late or lost and I can't risk using the other ones.
At a certain point you may have to make a sacrifice. You may have to reject convenience, and call the store, or park your car and walk down the block. And while you're at it you can update the OSM address.
I know it's not the easiest way and I'm not judging you one bit—I also take the less principled option sometimes. But I can't even render Google maps on my phone now, and it's amazing how things just turn out fine when I muddle through.
I come from the 90s for fuck's sake, before all this. I'm not going to let some power tripping ad platform make me feel helpless.
If all the services suck, you could just not use any of them, like everyone did for literally millions of years. I don't understand why supporting corporate neofascism is OK if their services are convenient.
the person described their issue and your response amounts to 'before these services existed people were fine too'. forgetting that as times have changed the different ways to live and access resources have changed. just a few decades ago newpaper information, telephone directories, etc were the way to find this exact information that barely exist if at all in most places now. before that there were travel guides and handbooks. before that travelling posts where u could go and ask. do u think today u can find anyone who's job is to guide and give out information? no. lets not pretend we have the same world we did before.
im not gonna go into millions of years ago for hopefully obvious reasons
neofascist corporations are controlling basic infrastructure. stop calling it a convenience to use them. one can argue alternatives are better, or quitting these infrastructure is possible. but that is a long, hard, difficult chore for many.
Kagi has maps in browser, but not an app. I haven't used it much. Data seems to be from OSM, mapbox, apple and maybe google. Plus Wikipedia of course. Map layers are mapbox. I use OSMand usually so haven't given Kagi maps much of a go despite using Kagi daily. I’m not a heavy maps user so it would probably be good enough for me but “Legit” would depend on your requirements .
The name Ontario is likely derived from the Iroquoian word Kaniatarí:io or Oniatarí:io meaning "lake of shining waters" or "beautiful lake".[10] It has been in use since at least 1639.[11] During French colonial Canada, various other names for the lake were also used, including Frontenac and St. Louis, though Ontario ultimately became the common term.[11]
So a rare use of the given name by the local people. The french had a go of a rebrand but it didn't stick.
I'm just going to play devil's advocate because it was essentially mandated that they change it. What does google say outside of the US though? If they changed it for Canadians or non-US, then absolutely they deserve all the pitchforks. If it's just in US, well, we shouldn't be mad at them for this one.
They're picking their battles. They could go against this, but what would they win? Mild PR from users? They have a lot more to lose. I have no love for google but this was never going to be a fight they were going to make.
It would be a solid PR move to ignore the orange pedophile's tantrums, but all of silicon valley is just another head of the same grotesque chimera that is the US ruling class.
Eh I don't think it would. The vast majority of American's don't care, or eyeroll. The blame right now isn't on google, it's on the one who signed the order. Those who do care are a very small minority. So maybe Google gets a bit of PR? But they also piss off the white house, and valiant or not we've seen how petty they can be there.
Maps are political. Their accuracy is only defined by politics. According to the us gov, that is now accurate. If you von into canada it also shows as accurate.
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Everyone should just report the error to Google over and over and over again. Remind them that the federal government doesn't actually have unilateral authority to rename major international geographic features on the whim of a single deranged despot.
Just did it.
A lot of people sent edits through to google over the Gulf of Mexico 'change'. I believe they eventually removed the ability to edit it? (I no longer use google and it was a while ago now)
Apple Maps still lets you report the Gulf of Mexico, I did the other night when this first happened. They haven’t changed Lake Ontario yet at least though.
They almost instantly removed the ability to report inaccuracies right when Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico. They are all cowards.
OSM looks great. Why would anybody use anything else?
Fucking boo.
Also, and this is weird, mine shows Lake America at one level of zoom, then changes back to Lake Ontario, and then changes to Lake America all over again at an even closer level of zoom. Everything is ridiculous and awful.
google maps New Zealand
Smallest of the 5 great lakes 😂
Also, it's very definitely not Superior.
Lac inférieure
Better than Lake Erie, grossest if the 5 Great Lakes.
Why would it be changed for New Zealand?
Edit - Ah wait, that's a point of interest and not the map label.
that is the result from typing 'lake ontario' into google maps (not signed in) on a browser
this is what shows on a mouseover
I still have Ontario on desktop and the wifes android down here
My screenshots are taken while not logged into google, opening google maps n a browser, and typing in 'lake ontario'. not being logged in might make a difference for some reason? the nz one is via a vpn (which is definitely working)
How about for the other one? (shows the same for aus and nz for me)
I have Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of Authoritarian)
Google couldn't wait to roll it out.... Fuck those fascist ego strokers.
Not even a bit of pushback. Dead silence from a them, just straight up compliance.
It’s almost as if Alphabet/Google and the tyrant oligarchs are one and the same. That would be preposterous, though, right?
Why would they push back? there is nothing in it for them, and their shareholders
They are an arm of the government lol they for sure had this one queued up before this was even announced
Probably. Didn’t a Google engineer recently get arrested for insider trading, but got off on a technicality? Something like that.
If you go to the USGS map, you see a banner that says
Presumably the sentence finishes if you aren't on mobile. Secretarial Order 3453 points you to Executive Order 14420, which is Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans. I'm starting to think we don't have the best and brightest leading the country, you guys.
That is both funny and correct, the full sentence is:
:P
If you're bored, report missing information and say the lake is wrong and that this will cause conflicts with street signs and directions for actual locations. May as well give them a bunch of support tickets that waste some amount of resources
I’m sure after making this kind of change, they also have an automated system that redirects all related support tickets directly to the trash.
Google has been sending support requests directly to the trash for at least 20 years, nothing new here
They even seem to have some automations for it. The route to my old apartment was shown wrong and delivery drivers almost always popped up on the wrong side of my building behind my backyard. I tried to fix this but my edits were automatically rejected as being malicious. That’s one reason I don’t use Google Maps for navigation anymore.
Edit: Just checked again. It’s still wrong on Google Maps, still correct on Apple Maps.
It seems like the majority of Google products and features are built to support someone's promotion effort. Once they are promoted or if they quit the company, no one else is around to support it and the product is eventually canceled. Thats why the list here is so long: https://killedbygoogle.com/. And good luck even getting through to a real person for support. Its bots all the way down.
Google would have learned from when they did this with The Gulf of Mexico and people submitted corrections/edits
What a bunch of MAGA losers.
Still Ontario from Canada
Not for me. Using a Canadian VPN.
I'm in Canada and it's Lac Ontario for me. (In French)
Is your language en-us or en-ca would be my first question. There's multiple potential ways they could be determining what the correct name is for you?
German Google Maps:
Lake Ontario is still Lake Ontario.
Google has shown local variations to borders etc. for... decades? They do not define them, after all.
In Japan, still Ontario from here too.
Apple still lists the lake as Ontario on their maps, so for now it’s just Google being particularly sycophantic towards the Trump administration.
Apple well change it though, they did for the Gulf of Mexico.
Really Bud?
If it's true, it's probably geolocked to only the US seeing it.
Guaranteed is. This is not new to Google, they have disputed territories, disputed names, they have gone through this before. This is just Americans seeing it for the first time. Google probably has an admin page that let's them set it up without ever needing an engineer anymore. If you're within this polygon you see this line, else you see the line over there. The alternative is they get sued/shut down in that country/ etc. While I have no love for Google, this is simply them picking their battles.
I remember Google doing it with the Gulf of Mexico, so they shouldn’t be too surprised it wasn’t that long ago.
name a battle they picked to fight for the benefit of the common man in the last :
If they're picking battles, they must have done something worthwhile, right?
No, that's not what I said, I said they're picking their battles, and I didn't offer any reason or justification for why. You can do that if you choose, but I'm not going to go off and do errands to prove a point I wasn't making.
OK, and I'm saying they are not picking anything, and just rolling over. There is no fucking battle that they are fighting, so they aren't picking any battles.
Of course they pick battles for their interest all the time, do you think they have never sued anyone? https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/
Look, I hate Google as much as the next guy, but do you know what the phrase "picking your battles" actually means?
Yeah, reserving your resources for moments that actually matter instead of wasting them for every petty issue.
But I don't think they are reserving anything for any moment, worthwhile or not. So they aren't "picking their battles" they are "doing jack shit"
They're actively siding with fascists, that's not "doing jack shit." Doing jack shit changes nothing, they choose to change things for the worse all the time.
To directly answer the question: within the last 3 or 6 months (I'm not sure precisely), they banned multiple youtubers that were placing ads to work for Russian Alabuga and it's drone production. It's an example of using their weight, in this case even something good.
On the other hand, I mostly actually agree with you. While I do think that they are picking their battles, I also think which battles they go into is usually not in your or mine interests. Instead, the battles are frequently in the interests of the richest google investors (think 10M+) and the US government, as of late. The Alabuga case above is a good and noteworthy exception.
American here, currently traveling through the (boring) state of Nebraska.
I just checked Google Maps from my Android tablet app. It shows Lake America for me:
I'm from the US but moved to Sweden a year ago. It's changed for me when I look at it. So maybe it's not specifically geolocjed but has to do with where my account was set up, or some localization setting somewhere?
IIRC they did this with the Gulf of Mexico too
I see Gulf of America in parentheses. You know, like a participation trophy.
Possibly, but that doesn't look like a maps compass rose I've ever seen.
Could be for Android or something.
Here’s what I see on iOS in Australia
2 hours later and they’ve fully renamed it.
Well that was a fucking lie.
It's still Ontario in Germany (Android).
It is Android.
Still says Lake Ontario for me, on Android, in Google Maps. I'm in Europe
It's true. This person is wrong.
Its well known that Google Maps shows different names/borders depending on where the user accesses it from
Wrong.
Fuck Google.
Nah. In the US when you look, it does say lake America.
The gulf of Mexico also says gulf of America.
Did you seriously think Google couldn't give you different map names based on your location? Really, Bud?
Spain here… still says Lake Ontario on mine
But I remember when the “Gulf of America” was declared, it still said Gulf of Mexico for a while, after a while it changed it to both names:
Sad state of affairs, but this is google 🤷♂️
Just because a boot liker calls something by a name, does not make it so, if anything, when you hear someone say "THe guLf of aMericA" you know on the spot, you don't loose anything by stopping the conversation right there and then.
Something like this happened in the recent past and now Mexicans are starting to call it the Rio Grande instead of the Rio Bravo
Its no longer wild or grand.
the point is that the side with more money or influence always ends up winning these culture battles eventually.
Edit: It's Lake Ontario. It's always been Lake Ontario. Sorry Canada, for our moron-in-chief.
If google maps is unable to properly label the names of cities, lakes, etc, then it shouldn't be allowed to operate.
Block google maps in Canada, problem solved
block google everywhere out of the usa
It is labeling them properly though? In the US it's called Lake America which is now the official American name for it. In the rest of the world it's named Lake Ontario.
Thing is, it's not unusual for bodies of water to have different names depending on where you're from. What we call Läänemeri (Western Sea), the Germans call Ostsee (Eastern Sea). You likely know it as the Baltic Sea.
But it's not called that, and it's not the official name.
Naming shit isn't a presidential power. His declaration has no more weight than if he announced that from now on your legal name was Vicky.
It's silly and stupid, but also genuinely dangerous when groups with as much power as Google has declare that they're willing to let a madman dictate how they describe reality.
Yes but no
This is just a case of a basket case narcissist traitor with psychopathic tendencies trying to flex his blubbery muscles
Humanity has a clear version of evil and has failed to deal with it. Humanity is pathetic.
That's just capitalism and its state.
People have been resisting forever.
Some of us are dealing with it, but since it was another country who's people democratically elected evil all we can do is boycott. Unfortunately, the people in that country can't be bothered to even do that; all they can manage is to wave some signs around on the occasional weekend.
That country always elects evil, but pretends otherwise
Just goes to show google does not play "follow the facts". It plays "follow the leader".
USA tech needs to be avoided as much as possible, people need to want change.
google maps Australia
Other search engines exist
Lets be real though, nobody comes close on the quality of Google Maps. Everyone needs to contribute to OSM.
At least in my experience, OpenStreetMap has far, far superior depictions of hiking trails. Edge case I know, but still, it demonstrates that Google maps does not actually reign fully supreme and can be bested.
Osm is superior for hiking and very local data. Google is still a requirement for navigating Toronto traffic/construction.
Haven't used google maps in years. OpenStreetMap rules. It may not have all the POIs but it does just fine for navigation and stuff, and I can find addresses of businesses the old fashioned way, using their website.
Just about every map works fine these days. Google tends to route the inefficient routes once you learn your city. Ignoring it tends to be faster, then at that point, you don't "need" map apps at all.
That was fast
It still shows Lake Ontario for me (I'm in the US), but I may not have all the latest Android updates.
It doesn't depends on a update but as the official name of it in the country you are located. Gulf of Mexico is still Gulf of Mexico everywhere but the US. Lake Ontario is going to keep being Lake Ontario everywhere but the US.
google maps, from australia
This is what I see, too. I'm in South America with my location turned off and a VPN running on my device with a US IP address.
A lot of time without checking out, but is the same in Brazil
It would be hilarious if it showed as Lake Ontario for Canadians and only Lake America for USAians.
That is how it has always worked. Most of the rest of the world sees Gulf of Mexico and will see Lake Ontario.
There are a lot more disputed and conflicting geographical names than these two. Google has a system in place that aligns naming by country.
google maps, australia
In Canada, they put
Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)Pretty sure that's what it is, no sarcasm
Alright then, hilariousness confirmed! 🤣
Tis normal in Denmark still
They chickened out for the Gulf of Mexico, taking the coward's middle road.
(As seen from Sweden)
Same for us down south
That is what they do for all contested names.
Yet but what the fuck is this shit
Looks like someone has created a location like a business or public amity in the lake.
They're always coming up with new and interesting ways to show how much they suck.
I didn't believe you so I checked and yep, they actually fucking did it.
Google has always shown the local official name for everything. Borders and names can vary a lot depending on where you are from. I still see lake Ontario since I'm not from the US.
Incredible that anyone wants to work for such Pscho corporations. They must be incredibly ignorant outside their job-function - I hope..
Well good, about time they put warnings on maps. Above is the lake, below is america. You have been warned.
Strong 8th grade vibes. "I asked Becky if she would be my girlfriend and she said no, so I crossed her name off my textbook cover and wrote BITCH over it. That'll show her! Why isn't she noticing what I wrote? Fuckin' Becky is such a bitch, she hasn't even looked at what I wrote over her name!"
Never ever forget this disgusting capitulation. Might legitimately be the worst thing they've done, for an audience of one.
There was also the Gulf of Mexico situation. Oh and also when they removed Holocaust Remembrance, Pride, and various Heritage events from Google Calendar like, the week Trump took office. Oh and don't forget the time they donated millions to Trump's 2024 campaign, you know, the one after he'd already attempted a coup on the US government and where he was promising mass deportations, attacks on the "enemy from within", and loads of other lovely stuff like that. Oh and let's not leave out their participation in the creation of an Orwellian mass surveillance state.
They need to keep Daddy Orange happy to keep the administration friendly to their corporate excesses.
Apple Maps hasn’t fallen to the Mad King’s whims yet but I assume they will, as they did with the Gulf of Mexico. I’m hoping Apple’s new CEO has more of a spine than Tim Cuck. I mean Cook. (Aka “Tim Apple”)
Still normal in the UK
Google shows you different things based on your location
This is why I specified my location
Normal in NZ
What's interesting is I'm in Canada and it shows both the America waterways. It's only a trump idiot decree and not the rest of the worlds. Fail googly
Screen shot from Google maps just now.
I can't even search for Lake America. Gulf of Mexico shows both names from Europe.
Says Lake America for me. Depends where you are accessing Google
Yeah, fuck Google for so many reasons. I'm so sick of their shit. They sensor YouTube comments, too.
We all remember the usa and google doing this to The Gulf of Mexico don't we?
That is why we no longer accept US people referring to themselves as Americans, they don't own the continent(s), even though that is their obvious aim.
I Am Not American | Arrogant Worms
Lake Ontario in Australia
Sorry, can't find where to upload an image in Summit
Yeah, Google has done this for at least 15 years.
If you view the Ukrainian border in Russia, it's different than if you view it in a NATO country
Same for the border between India and China depending on which side you're on
Same for the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America
If you view this in the US, it's America, if you view it in Canada it's Ontario.
They change the map to match whatever the country you're viewing from says it is
State-affirming propaganda. Got it.
Google is hilarious, I can't think of a company that tries to drive me to violent terrorism on a more frequent basis
I feel that the foldable, paper maps will be making a big comeback in the near future.
Yes, if only there was an open alternative with better map data even. We could call it open sheet maps or something.
Nothing changed from my side, still lake Ontario.
I am in the long process of DeGoogling. When I saw this post I set my VPN location to Canada.
Ugh, they finally did it. I was checking both of them daily. Apple Maps still calls it Lake Ontario, but it's only a matter of time until Tim Cook bends the knee. He's the one who gave 47 a participation trophy made of gold.
Honestly, this isn't that terrible of Google. VPN outside the US and see what it says. I had to VPN in to get it to show up. Turn off the VPN, and it's back to Lake Ontario after force quitting the app and reloading it. There are a ton of instances where a country changes a name, or another country does not respect a change and map makers have to support those differences there. Yes the change was political, but changes like that are just part of running a map service.
I mean, if you wanna dump on Google, we can talk about how they're charging iPhone 17 Pro prices for iPhone 11 (or Galaxy S10) power and selling your personal information on the side. It's not hard to make Google look bad. Hell, just stand aside and wave at all the shit they do and your case is made.
Don’t worry, Google is just showing the information they are forced to show you. The rest of the world is different.
forced lol
“Forced” as in, the CEO would earn 200 million less in a year. I mean that a fucking good reason to bend to the orange twat. /s
Don't worry. Relax. It's just one step. One pill. One less than you had before.
Countries should ban US tech. If diaper Donny has control of them and can make them do this, then they shouldn't operate in our countries
Canada should just stop honoring us IP. They could let a Canadian company clone Google Maps.
they're not forced, there has been no official change.
I think you missed the part where President Dump made the official change.
Surprised there are no brackets for this. There well be though
The Maps team is in Switzerland. Gonna take its time. You first need to specify the change, get it approved by 7 engineers, implement the change, test it by 1000 underpaid Kenyans and thenn will be deployed with the next release cycle.
I can't comprehend what's going on!? Why!?
The result of 60 years of propaganda and anti-intellectualism
The result of people not revolting against fascist takeover; 30% of the people are allowed to control the direction of the entire country.
The 30% are also the most worthless, irredeemable, deplorable people
Use MapQuest. Problem solved.
Google was a little quick on this one. Not even a day and they changed it for Americans.
They're also absolutely cowardly - the rest of the world hate Trump and they know it because they're even too spineless to commit to putting it on everyone's Map.
Jfc. So how is OsmAnd these days?
Just installed it to compare my driving route tomorrow with Google Maps and OsmAnd crashed. Sigh.
I think car navigation is better in CoMaps, even though OsmAnd is superior in every other way.
I really don't like the user experience of OsmAnd to the point where I find it unusable. I use Comaps all the time and love it. Each to their own I guess.
Just tried Comaps and It was pleasantly acceptable.
OsmAnd doesn't crash for me but for some reason it gives most directions as notifications instead of saying them out loud, which is completely useless. I use HERE WeGo instead.
So.. Any good FOSS alternatives for navigation while biking?
I tried changing to Organic Maps but had to change back because it was really inaccurate outside of cities and the voice guide kept telling me to turn too early or too late 😮💨
I've been using osmand with great success. It's completely free and no membership required. You even get the plus features if you download it from f-droid instead of Google play
OsmAnd~ with Brouter works very well on Android. You can even choose various routing modes that change how much it avoids large roads. Unfortunately its a bit fiddly to setup and the OsmAnd UX is extremely yanky.
Organic Maps is shady anyway. I hear good things about comaps, but haven't actually used it for navigation because like every other FOSS app, it doesn't have live traffic data
That is a very big issue. I wish there was a way to get live traffic or even construction data into them.
Construction data is entered by the users on both Google Maps and OSM. I agree about the tragic. I mostly use Google maps for the traffic data, not the map. Unfortunately, there are no alternative.
I never had problems with Comaps or Organic Maps, and in my experience they are particularly good outside of cities.
I don't use voice guide though, but my advice would be to give comaps a shot and see if they fixed whatever bug you were having.
you mean evil
Is this only if your location is the US? Here in the EU I still see Lake Ontario on Google Maps. On OSM I still see "Gulf of Mexico" lol.
Yes. Thats how all these platforms work. Many things have several names that are region specific. If you are in France, you might even see "United States of America" renamed! (Spoiler, it is often translated).
Still shows their colours yet again that they make the change within America, even before the usgs maps.
OSM says Lake Ontario for me. Maybe you're looking at the Gulf of Mexico.
Google 100% supports trump. as do Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
That's Sundar Pichai
There has never been a square meter of dirt that deserved a bomb dropped on it more than that square meter of dirt in that photo. The world would instantly be a better place.
Private companies are not compelled to follow executive orders. They are instructions for the executive branch of the us government, per article 2 of the us constitution situation. Not the entire country. Not even the entire US government. Trump acts as if he is a king with limitless power, and then proceeds as if it were true. It works because the current US government is happy to play along, as are giant corpos, such as Google, et al. This is a massive psyop brothers and sisters. Use Google when you have to. Use Amazon if you have to. Fill up your gas tank and wash your lettuce. But for god’s sake do not be fooled, and do not play along.
They could do the right thing and resist the fascism. You know, like how anybody with a platform and a moral compass would do. But I suppose expecting shitty companies to not be shitty is too much to ask.
Not Google's job to take on the US government, that was the role of the people
And It'll be our role to burn down their offices and data centers.
and then where in your fantasy are you sitting in jail? or is this some sort of french revolution fantasy you're having?
Simping for fascists. Nice.
We are at the guillotine stage, not just in the usa
He only has the power to do that for the executive branch. He can’t compel citizens or corporations to follow along - not with the law anyway. He is getting away with it because the people whose pockets he’s lining are happy to play along as long as number goes up. That’s all they care about.
Exactly. And when companies and citizens are rushing to comply out of either fear of retribution or the hope that sycophancy will keep them in the protected "in-group"?...
Thats fascism.
He's also threatening companies with legal action if they don't follow his every whim. Trump is a 10 year old bully daydreaming about being a mob boss in an 80 year old corpse.
If this were about pulling data from GNIS, it would have taken at least a month to show up on their platform. Its governent data and legacy data pipelines.
Some Google developer had to write an entry for this to happen so fast. 100%.
Do you have a source for Google pulling for GNIS? I can't imagine it would be an easy thing to collate with Google's own data about geographical features.
Lol what are you even trying to do here
It is their practice but it's not a law of nature, or even a law of any kind. As an American company they could have shown balls and ignored Trump shenanigan. Expectedly, they didn't.
Then why does Google show "Gulf of America" in brackets to Europeans? Why did Google update "Lake America" to Americans faster than the actual usgs maps?
Sycophancy is the answer.
Complying with Trump's insane bullshit is supporting him. They should draw a fucking line and not update the map. Or use a source that hasn't changed the name. It still shows lake Ontario in Canada. He should have to force every single fucking thing he does through court to make anything happen.
Just use some OSM provider or Mapy.com. Both are great options.
This act itself really isn't that bad on Google's part. The problem is that they made themselves government contractors, killers for profit. The reason this matters is because if they said they weren't changing the name you'd praise them.
That's cause them dudes in the Epstein Files. It's always Tit for Tat.
Getting in a tiff about this lake shmake nonsense lends to its legitimacy.
Let's talk turkey. How about them heretofore Epstein files, now known as the trump files.
Actually it's spelled Turkïye now
I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the room at Google where the discussions are being had as to what to label the lake. If I'm to be charitable, I'd assume they've renamed it because they're consistently following an internal rule which says they use geographic names from the GNIS, which was updated by the executive order, and they haven't yet decided whether they should make an exception in this case. Every nonsensical rename in the GNIS weakens its credibility as an accurate database. I'm sure the debates are interesting. We don't actually know if this is Google "bending the knee" or sticking with the rename for some other more technical reason.
Google has no decision to make here. They have a policy and system that aligns geographical names based on country records. The rest of the world will continue to see Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario. Those are not the only two conflicted names across the world, there are far more.
google maps, australia
It's gonna take me a long time to call it that.
I still call them the Edmonton Eskimos
It'll always be the Skydome to me
I refuse to call Mac's stores the circle k
As of 2026-08-30:
Are you viewing this from America? Because Google changes the names of things based on the country you are in.
I’m in the USA and GoogleMaps shows Lake America right now.
Apple Maps shows Lake Ontario
Using a continent's name deliberately for a nameless country is a confusion point I won't be touching with a ten-foot pole. Cheers.
I do want to stop using google maps in its entirety, but there are problems with all the other map and navigation apps that haven't been solved that google has working just fine.
Say I want directions to a store or restaurant 20-30 minutes away. I know what its called, not its exact location, so I type its name in and google can give me a list of all places with that name no issue.
I try that in magic earth, organic maps, co maps, its a toss up if it knows the place I am trying to find. So I try typing in the exact address if I have time and can find it online. 90% of the time that just doesn't find the place, and givss me an entire street to look down.
Lastly, often I want to call these places ahead of time, or look at a menu, get a vague idea how much it costs. Google maps just... has that information right there. Hours, images of food, menus, everything. No one else has that, and complications arise, especially when Duck Duck Go give me the wrong number and I place a pick up order from a place on the wrong side of town.
I want to replace google, but damn it if right now its just the best option and doesn't screw anything up. There are times when I cannot afford being late or lost and I can't risk using the other ones.
At a certain point you may have to make a sacrifice. You may have to reject convenience, and call the store, or park your car and walk down the block. And while you're at it you can update the OSM address.
I know it's not the easiest way and I'm not judging you one bit—I also take the less principled option sometimes. But I can't even render Google maps on my phone now, and it's amazing how things just turn out fine when I muddle through.
I come from the 90s for fuck's sake, before all this. I'm not going to let some power tripping ad platform make me feel helpless.
If all the services suck, you could just not use any of them, like everyone did for literally millions of years. I don't understand why supporting corporate neofascism is OK if their services are convenient.
very amazing arguments there
the person described their issue and your response amounts to 'before these services existed people were fine too'. forgetting that as times have changed the different ways to live and access resources have changed. just a few decades ago newpaper information, telephone directories, etc were the way to find this exact information that barely exist if at all in most places now. before that there were travel guides and handbooks. before that travelling posts where u could go and ask. do u think today u can find anyone who's job is to guide and give out information? no. lets not pretend we have the same world we did before.
im not gonna go into millions of years ago for hopefully obvious reasons
neofascist corporations are controlling basic infrastructure. stop calling it a convenience to use them. one can argue alternatives are better, or quitting these infrastructure is possible. but that is a long, hard, difficult chore for many.
All that stuff is a lot of expensive data entry and purchasing of live data feeds.
I have no interest in paying for a search engine, but if someone like Kagi did a legit google maps replacement, I would pay.
Kagi has maps in browser, but not an app. I haven't used it much. Data seems to be from OSM, mapbox, apple and maybe google. Plus Wikipedia of course. Map layers are mapbox. I use OSMand usually so haven't given Kagi maps much of a go despite using Kagi daily. I’m not a heavy maps user so it would probably be good enough for me but “Legit” would depend on your requirements .
So many cowards
not yet for me
Cringe
Showing up as a fictional Lake "America" for me on a Canadian IP.
pretty much
Only in the US though
On the contrary....
I knew google was fucked when I pulled up youtube shorts and the first video was fuck face tucker carlson dropping anti semitic terms.
According to wiki
So a rare use of the given name by the local people. The french had a go of a rebrand but it didn't stick.
Ontario pretty obviously doesn't have a romance etymology my dude
I'm just going to play devil's advocate because it was essentially mandated that they change it. What does google say outside of the US though? If they changed it for Canadians or non-US, then absolutely they deserve all the pitchforks. If it's just in US, well, we shouldn't be mad at them for this one.
It's an executive order, no business has to follow it.
They're picking their battles. They could go against this, but what would they win? Mild PR from users? They have a lot more to lose. I have no love for google but this was never going to be a fight they were going to make.
It would be a solid PR move to ignore the orange pedophile's tantrums, but all of silicon valley is just another head of the same grotesque chimera that is the US ruling class.
Eh I don't think it would. The vast majority of American's don't care, or eyeroll. The blame right now isn't on google, it's on the one who signed the order. Those who do care are a very small minority. So maybe Google gets a bit of PR? But they also piss off the white house, and valiant or not we've seen how petty they can be there.
Heh, turns out it was a solid PR move.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/mapquests-app-surges-to-no-1-in-navigation-after-refusing-to-rename-lake-ontario/
Accuracy. Literally the #1 thing I value in maps. Changing the name tells me that they care about political appeasement more than accuracy.
Maps are political. Their accuracy is only defined by politics. According to the us gov, that is now accurate. If you von into canada it also shows as accurate.
European here just checked it still says Ontario on mine. Checked gmaps on android and ios as well as Apple Maps, all say Ontario here.
Thanks for checking! Yup makes sense. In that case I see it purely as they flipped it in the US, it's not their fight to have.
Can executive orders force private companies to change how they name something? It sounds like a First Amendment issue.