google is not and never was your friend, it is a dictator tool: Degoogle

It's not google's fault. It was told to do so and has. Does anyone seriously expect them not to have done this?
Every American company, or company doing business in America, needs to toe the line of an unpredictable and vindictive president, especially one as fat and tempting as Google.
Now there'll be a disconnect in mapping between what some sources say and what others do, but anyone with a little history knowledge knows this isn't the first time.
- There's no legal requirement to comply.
  This is voluntary
  
  look, fuck google for many reasons, but not this. this is just keeping your head down and trying to survive the shit storm.

I'm trying to, but Proton made me throw up in my mouth a little.
Now I have the option to do everything I was doing, but poorly AND spread across 3 vendors.
- What's wrong with proton? It works pretty well for me.
  
  CEO publicly praised Trump and the Republican party. It's not the political alignment you'd want from the CEO of a service where privacy is their main selling-point.
  
  CEO went full maga, was given an opportunity to correct, then doubled down. After receiving blowback he tripled down and then started lashing out at customers using official channels.

I will continue deadnaming the gulf with the name assigned at birth. It's just going through a phase.

Can someone explain the 4D chess going on here? AFAIK this was just tweet diplomacy, the US hasn't passed anything about this. So why would google want to handle all the complaints and backlash they'll take for this?
- backlash? where? did google received any complaint ever?
- I think something official was actually signed in the last few days. Dumbest timeline.
- So why would google want to handle all the complaints and backlash they’ll take for this?
  Because it's worth getting on trump's "good side", per Ajit Pai's reasoning

To be fair:
I'm American and my phone is set up in the US with region being the US.
- For me it's extra strange. If I zoom out, I see "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)". However when I zoom in it changes to just "Guild of America".
  I'm American also in the US.
  
  If you zoom in to 1m resolution and then slowly zoom out, you'll see the name change back and forth several times. Very odd.
  
  You have to zoom in sooo much too for it to say Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). Weird. Makes no sense why Google would do this except to schmooze up to Little-Hands Trump.
- It's the same for europeans, just in a different language.

Time for a repeat comment: Organic Maps does everything Google Maps does (except traffic conditions), and is FOSS. Please encourage places to contribute business information to Open Street Maps.
- "Except traffic" is not a little thing. It's like putting up an ad for a house with all the features you'd expect, except a roof.
  With my daily commute, there are a dozen routes I can take and traffic conditions make it so that from day to day, there can be an hour difference between different routes. It's literally the only reason I use navigation apps over a cheap GPS unit with no live online connection requirement to navigate.
- Talking about FOSS; I prefer OsmAnd because its licence is GPLv3, as opposed to the Apache 2 licence from Organic Maps.
- I think this is important. That said, traffic info is the whole ballgame for many people. People who live, work, and drive in metro areas frequently use map applications even when driving everyday routes to avoid traffic.
  I don’t see Google/Waze/Apple maps getting any less popular unless there is a FOSS alternative that includes live traffic, which does not seem possible while remaining free. People will choose free every time, especially since Google maps works so well.
  Personally, I would pay some amount for a privacy-minded alternative, something like OrganicMaps with live traffic. But I doubt it could ever attain the user base it would need to provide accurate traffic info.
  
  Yea, I really wish I had more spare time. Algorithms like this are an area of expertise for me, and I'd love to build an anonymized service that works with Organic Maps. It's annoying when I know it is something I could make that would support high volume, but just don't have time for (mainly because of all the ongoing optimization it would require).

Next thing you know they'll change Canada's name to Not-yet-United States of America

Finally The gulf belongs to the whole American country. Not just those Mexican cartels

Yes, Tim Apple bent the knee, but the company seems to be holding steadfast.

In Taiwan it says:
Gulf of Mexico(Gulf of America)
- Same here in Canada, though I get the American version with an American VPN.
- Same for me in the US!
- Same for me in Australia

Even in the UK they have put Gulf of America.
The UK Government doesn't recognize that name and have officially stated they wont (at least in the short term)
- I live in the US and I won't recognize the name either.
  
  ...what name?..
- It's the same in every language, or at least in russian and french.
  
  Everyone should report it as bug.
- UK should sue them..

I wish I could degoogle my android phone. Sadly, it would mean many of the apps I use would stop working..
As far as I understand, only F-droid apps would work on e.g. GrapheneOS - is this wrong? I believe there would be issues with
Local chatting app
Local map app (As good as OrganicMaps is, it seems to have limited support in route finding)
Local banking app
Local investing app
Apps for university affairs
Zoom
I feel so sad that I am locked to the platform..
- How do people feel about e/OS? I just started playing around with it on an old phone and it seems to work with most apps, including banking and Google apps (their store has an optional Google login).
- For route finding, what about GraphHopper Maps?
- As already commented, the vast majority of apps are fine with Graphene and its optional sandboxed Play Services. Mainly some banking apps can be tricky, but otherwise you're good. You can also use alternatives like Aurora Store rather than Google directly to get your existing apps which aren't on F-Droid; the only real exception there is paid ones.
  I got a Pixel and made the switch over about a year ago, and it has been pretty smooth sailing. I also really do appreciate having full control over which permissions to allow each app. I know some people do prefer to run Google's stock camera app or keyboard, but it's easy enough to not give those network access to phone home.
- You can install any app on GOS. You can use sandboxed google play to use the gplay store as normal, or Aurora Store if you just want gplay apps but not services.
- I moved to GrapheneOS a few months ago and haven't really looked back. Someone else below covered using the Sandboxed Google play / Aurora Store (I use both, in addition to fdroid).
  Although I could conceivably install more apps, using GrapheneOS had made me think more deeply about whether I actually need an app, instead of using a web browser. It's true that using the web is a degraded experience (likely intentionally so, in some cases), but this is a cost I'm willing to pay for better security and privacy.
  Finally, I wanna rep Magic Earth as a solid alternative to Google maps. Route finding is accurate and includes traffic warnings, etc. It uses OpenStreetMap data FWIW.
  
  Yeah but some apps just do not have website equivalent, which is the main issue. For instance, the local messaging app does not have web version.
  On the Magic Earth app, does it show multiple alternative routes? I found Organic maps problematic in that it only gave a single route.
- Same as almost everyone, I need some apps that just won't work, even with sandbox GSM and Play (ie: banking apps, ev charging, my kids' school reporting app), so I just have a sub-200 dollars phone just for that (One Plus n200 is now 84 dollars).
  Since I only use apps when there's no other option (web version and PWA for everything else), it's actually refreshing. I charge my car at home unless I'm on a road trip, and only use banking apps 1 day of the month to get paid and pay bills. Outside of that, I'm home free with everything self hosted and absolutely no social networks other than Lemmy and Mastodon.
  Unfortunately, if you want privacy, you need to compromise. However, absolutely nothing will make me drop my GrapheneOS use for everything else.
  I get it that's not optimal, but the alternative, in my opinion is even worse.
  Good luck degoogling, and I wish you enjoy the mental health improvement once you do.
- GrapheneOS has the option to run sandboxed google play services which you can then download any google play store app. This allows for much greater security as the apps cannot see the other apps you download. Also, you could use Aurora Store which allows play store app downloads without a google account.
  There are issues that can pop up and is something you'd need to look into on app by app basis. Lately, it seems they have most banking apps working though.
  
  I feel like my local bank etc. is relatively shitty in terms of software, so I am expecting it to not work anywhere other than android & iOS. Local map apps and local messaging app is the bigger issue for me, though.
- F-droid works on any Android phone, doesnt need to be GrapheneOS. I have installed in on regular installs plenty of times.
  i know its not as easy / inconvenient, but is there any way to use the companies website instead of the app? For example, i usually log into my banks website to check things or to make a transfer between accounts. Yes you cant scan a check or make desposits, but i also not use a lot of companies App's in the first place. I just dont understand why everyone needs apps - do you really need an app for your ISP?
  
  Yeah, I meant that most apps are not available from F-droid.
  Local messaging app does not support web version. Silly/outrageous, I know; guess they want iron grip on the data. What can I do though, when everyone uses it.
  You do not use banking through mobile at all? Seems that would be inconvenient at times.
- For most of those things you could probably use the browser on a degoogled phone? I can't speak to your specific banking or university apps.
  You might want to set up a separate work profile to sandbox that browser usage and/or dodgy apps (see Shelter if you can't do this through the Android settings).
- You can get by for most apps with MicroG which is a cut down implementation of play services but some apps will absolutely refuse to run on a non-factory Android image.
  Last time I was on a custom ROM I got most things to work to some extent but some jush didn't work e.g. NFC payments via Google Pay.
  IIRC there's legislation being discussed in the EU that could compel Google to offer hardware signatures for custom ROMs in future.

Organic Maps:
- Organic Maps is really cool :-)
  
  Yeah, it's even better than GMaps for me, because GMaps doesn't have bike navigation (where I live) while Organic Maps has all the bike lanes marked and navigatable.

IIRC Google shows different names and borders depending on the location you're accessing it from. They just follow whatever the local government thinks is right.
- There's no thought in our government, so they're already messing that one up. Also, it's just the president who cares (and I guess some people who voted for him).
  I'd imagine a majority of people here aren't calling it the new name (or even know the name changed).
- In Portugal, it appears as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”
  
  In Germany, it is still "Golf von Mexiko".
  Edit: when you zoom in, it is the same as in Portugal.
  
  Same in Canada.
  
  That has to be illegal..
- Slow your horses there partner. That sounds an awful lot like facts and logic. We don't do that stuff here, so quit using that brain of yours. Take the outrage bait and join in on this circlejerk.
  
  You're right. No more braining!

“There's no saving America -- we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. Burn it down! And from the ashes, a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed!”
— Senator Armstrong.
- Time to make the mother of all omelettes. Can't fret over every egg!

America is so fucking weird!
- Only most of us. Please send help.
  
  Putin is on the way 😝

Just checked. You can even select it, but cannot report an error at that location. But you can leave reviews, so…

Planet America, orbiting the American sun, in the galaxy called America
- The Galaxy of (truth, Justice, and) the American Way!

This move makes zero sense to me. Why, change it? It's not it's official name or international recognized name so wtf
- It could be simply because they can do it, peasant
  
  Thayana good point. I need to remember my place in this world 🤣
- The USA is now part of a list of "sensitive countries" with authoritarian states with their own version of reality. When users in one of the countries on this list visit Google sites, they see that government's version of reality. This is nothing new. Google does it all the time with disputed territories. It's only news because it's the first time the US has an authoritarian government.
  Here's how it looks when visiting from a Mexican device with the language set to Australian English while located in Hungary.
  Edit: undoxxed myself lol
  
  ...looks pretty much the same on bing maps, except they're so committed that they named it twice...
  
  In Google maps set to Polish while in the UK, it shows
  Zatoka Meksykańska (Zatoka Amerykańska)
  Which translates to
  Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)
- Curry favor with the trump admin
  
  And it will undoubtedly pay off for them. This is the first brazenly tech oligarchy-driven administration.
  Remember who was at Trump’s inauguration? Musk, obviously, but also:
  Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
  Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
  Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta
  Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet
  
  Trump, a populist president, is flanked by tech billionaires at his inauguration
  Tim Apple isn’t your friend, either. No oligarch is.
  
  To be clear, they've changed names in line with official government policy before, not just for Trump's admin.
  
  If something as ridiculous currys favor and infkuence with Trump the USA is truly coming to an end.
- Distraction from:
  closing down the Consumer Protection Agency, USAID, and the Education Agency
  cutting off funding to the universities
  stealing our student, treasury and health records while taking over the purse
  not following federal judge's orders
  building an unregulated concentration camp in Cuba
  etc.
  Edit: That's why trump did it. All tech companies are in his hands now.
  
  No, there are no smokescreens. Trump is literally this stupid. Don't attribute to maliciousness what can be attributed to narcissism.
- pleasing the power, so they remove any law that protect our privacy against google prying eye
- I think I heard that Trump did it because he thinks it gets him around some Biden era rule that he can’t reverse that bans oil drilling in parts of the “Gulf of Mexico.” It’s really stupid. Exxon and Chevron have both “acknowledged” the name change.
  
  Oh that makes sense. Like when muskrat tried to get out of Twitter suis because the name changed.

It's even weirder because America doesn't mean just the United States
Geographically, America is too ambiguous of a name for the Gulf of Mexico
Wouldn't the Gulf of California also qualify as being the Gulf of America?
The Caribbean Sea?
Basically every river system from the Mississippi and and the Amazon are also "American" from northernmost point of North America to the southernmost point of South America, it's all "America"
Naming the Gulf of Mexico "America" is almost as bad as naming a country "earth"
- Hey since America is the center of the earth, we should change it to the Gulf of Central America!
  
  Mexico's full name is ”The United States of Mexico", I think they should rename their map's version to Gulf of The United States just to add to the confusion and make the point these things, like all facts, are useless when people suffer no consequences from making them up.
  
  Really, we could just call it the Gulf of the Americas. That would be perfectly correct in every way.
- Question for all non-US natives. When somebody tells you they are from America do you think the continent or the USA?
  
  Saddly the US because those fuckers are just so loud and never shut the fuck up.
  
  Everyone knows what you mean if you say you're American

Meanwhile in the UK

Fuck Google and Samsung and everyone else who is preinstalled on my phone from the factory. I switched my phone OS to an AOSP GSI without the Google mobile services. Will probably be switching to WordPress from Blogger.
- How about Concrete5 instead?
  https://github.com/concretecms/concretecms
  
  Though there's an option to write Pandoc-based static site blog.
- You should probably do some research on WordPress before migrating. Personally I wouldn't touch WordPress with somebody else's 10ft pole right now, the drama is an extreme turnoff. I've tried every AI chat bot except Automattics because I'm not interested in their games. Plenty of other great blogging platforms to choose from.
  
  I mentioned it because it is the closest thing to Blogger.

Meanwhile on Openstreetmap:
name Golfo de México
name:en Gulf of Mexico
official_name:en_US Gulf of America
Showing just enough acknowledgement to confirm they've discussed the executive order, but they aren't going to follow it.
- Ooh I would LOVE to do it and I did that with 2 places but I don't like:
  The fact it doesn't show you the best match of your search based on distance by your location (or is because)
  It doesn't show the 2 places I sent ~1 month ago or they're hard to find (available on site, not on organic maps)
  
  I'm gonna download StreetComplete, it's a neat incentive for exercise.
- Surely that is following it? Change the name in American. Leave it the same in English.
  
  It's kind of a malicious compliance thing. The new name will not show up on any map renders, moreover it's not likely to be shown in most apps even if you select the object (because official_name:* is not supported by most apps).

Using the website from outside of the US shows it with its proper name, but then the asshat version in parentheses.
- I have no use for a map service that isn’t sure about the names of places.
- Same in the US when you zoom out.
  
  Might be caching though, those tiles are probably cached.
- Yeah, same here in Australia.

Degoogled since 2018
hardcore mode, google domains blocked by DNS
YouTube scrap data
GrapheneOS with used Pixel
- Same, same. Fuck Google.
  I'm never going back.
- “degoogle” - uses Google phone
  
  It's a funny irony but a Pixel with GrapheneOS is the gold standard for mobile device security. Buy it secondhand and cut out their profit.
  
  100% These people think they are sticking it to Google by buying a pixel and installing a custom ROM. Instead they just inflated Google's user count.
- Preferred search engine?
  
  I've been using startpage floor about a year now, has worked great.
  
  SearXNG, personally.
  
  Self hosted Searxng for me

- I've reported an issue. Enough people do it they might do something.

Deleted.

Surely it’s only “Gulf of America” from the southern tip of Florida across to the Mexican border?

The rixh are trying to achieve world domination before we collectively strip them of their excess wealth to fix wealth inequality and dethrone them.
I wish i were kidding...
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

Where are you located? I'm still seeing the correct name and I'm in the USA
- Not sure if memeing or serious

HERE WeGo still has Gulf of Mexico. Use HERE WeGo instead of Google shit.
- I prefer OrganicMap. Free and Open source made with the help of the community. Your suggestion is only play store and as a degoogled user I don't have access to it (Aurora store, I know but still). Not sure which one is better in terms of UI/UX but the fact It's not open source is a no go for me
- Open Steet Maps also shows Gulf of Mexico. Most maps seem to get their data either from Osm, Bing or Google.

Google goes full mask off. What a terrible look. This is it, this is what I needed to see to make the final push to move away from Google. My next phone will probably be an iPhone, and I'm not excited about it. I've almost completely degoogled my android device, I'm testing immich right now and the only things left that I rely on are maps and YouTube. I also buy a lot of my ebooks and comics from Google, but never again. There's no way I'm buying a phone that's supported by Google after this change. There's no way I'm spending any amount of money on Google play at this point, or any other Google owned platform. Zero. And it really sucks, because android is the closest thing we have to an open phone platform. Maybe someday a GNU/Linux phone will actually be viable, but today it isn't and that only leaves me running to Apple as a savior. It's too bad that Google can't compete on a technology level, instead of gargling Trump's balls.
- APPLE?
  THEY DONATED MILLIONS TO TRUMP'S INAUGURAL FUND
  There is no ethical consumption undercapitalism. Google, Apple, whatever, its all the same evil, "pick your poison" situation.
  (This map rename is tame in comparison to the political donations that EVERY corporation does. You'll have to boycott like almost every company if you want to avoid that)
- Buy a second hand Pixel and flash GrapheneOS on it.
- For replacing youtube, use https://grayjay.app/
  Also, why do you leave your de-googled device? Just don't pay for stuff on their store and use alternative stores with anonymous access like Aurora store or just go full f-droid.
  I use iodéOS and am very happy with it. Easy de-googled life.
  
  Grayjay is nice, not perfect but getting better all the time. I won't buy a new device because of this, I unfortunately just purchased a new phone on a Black Friday deal. But there is no way in hell I'm going to inflate android's user base with my next device purchase. That's where I draw the line, no more Google hardware or software purchases. Zero. I'm sure as fuck not buying a Pixel, or buying anything through Google's marketplace. I'm not buying another Android device, and I'm not sure if there is anything that could change my mind at this point. Google is dead to me after this.
  It's important to remember that Google is an adtech business first and foremost. It's basically the only way they can generate cash. ADtech relies on user counts and active users to negotiate prices and other business deals. I'm not helping Google facilitate those business practices in the future. Buying a used pixel and putting Graphene on it sounds great in principle, but you are 110% adding yourself to the pool of Google pixel users, inflating the value of Google's advertising business. You don't get to opt out of that user count, even if you are 101% 'degoogled' your are going to be counted as a Google phone owner. Because you would be.
- Pinephone + dumb phone is a valid option though. The only thing my pinephone struggled with was calls/sms, so the dumb phone handles that.
  
  Does pinephone even have verified boot / secure boot?
  Also, dumbphones are much more susceptable to malware.
  
  I fully believe that combination works well. I also fully believe that if you asked a random person off the street to trade in their smartphone for two devices that only have partial functionality you would get told to go F yourself. I don't think it's a 'valid' option in 2025, and I would love to know what the average person on the street would say if they actually hear you out on all the benefits. I'm a 'tech enthusiast' I guess and a long time FOSS lover. I have been daily driving Linux for over 15 years at this point. I'm not sure if I would put up with two half-phones in my pockets all day everyday, and I know my friends would laugh at the idea. I almost purchased a PinePhone on more than a few orders from the Pine store but I keep holding off for thing to become stable enough to use the phone as a phone.

Australia google maps user here: