3 min read

Last week, Betterweb announced the release of Qwant Maps, an open source and privacy-preserving map. In the current scenario where services like Google Maps are always tracking user data, Qwant Maps respects user privacy and proposes to give users exclusive control over their geolocated data. All components developed by Qwant Maps are open source, enabling users to improve their experience by contributing directly with the Qwant map. Qwant map uses OpenStreetMap as their main data source.

OpenStreetMap is a free and collaborative geographical database supported today by more than a million contributors around the world. Any voluntary user can freely contribute to enrich their database with new places. Qwant Maps also uses OpenStreetMap data to generate its own vector tiles, base map, and web APIs.

Key components of Qwant Maps

Inbuilt search-engine

Qwant Maps uses Mimirsbrunn search engine, which allows users to search for “punctual” geospatial objects, such as addresses, administrative areas and points of interest. Mimirsbrunn also called Mimir, is a web service of geocoding that matches the user unstructured text query with a specific point on the map.

Renders visual-art based on vector tiles

Qwant Maps illustrates a rendering of visual art based on vector tiles, which are generated, served and rendered by the Kartotherian stack. It is developed by the Wikimedia Foundation according to the OpenMapTiles open source data schema. The varied options for vector tiles offers more technical flexibility, which allows users to easily integrate different styles and native support for specific renderings like 3D, rotations, etc. The Qwant Maps tiles are updated every 24 hours to incorporate daily changes from OpenStreetMap data.

Quant Maps uses Python web API

Idunn is the Python web API, which exploits different data sources to provide users with the most useful information. It highlights the map in such a way that all the information is provided in an understandable manner. The main goal of Idunn is to add context for all the required ‘points-of-interest’ areas in a consistent referential.

Users are quite excited with the open source and privacy preserving features of Qwant Maps

Qwant map is launched!✅🎉🤩 https://t.co/cDRUttqXUP — Antoine FERRAND (@TonioBerry) June 29, 2019

Maps has been one of two remaining desktop platforms where I'm still in Google's grasp. Pleased to hear soon only YouTube will remain as such. — Tornike Khomeriki (@AnC0mmie) June 28, 2019

However, some users are already complaining about its inaccuracy.

Mmm, Still a way to go before it is usable. Type in Elgin, Scotland and it returns Elgin Street (Scotland) United States, eh no! Try Inverness, Scotland and it returns Church of Scotland, or Inverness, Canada. These are simple searches too. #BackToDrawingboard — Syenta (@Syenta1) June 28, 2019

A user on Hacker News states that, “Quant Maps search seems to be quite lacking. Searched for a large store in my city, where I recently drove using Google Maps, and it can’t find it. It just responds to a match to the city name. When I used just the name without the city, it found a pub halfway around the world with exact name match.”

Another user comments, “I used Qwant for a while (lite, the main version is so cluttered), but found the results to be hardly usable. I do hope they manage to stay afloat though, as I am happy about any Google challenger.”

Visit the Qwant Maps website for more details.

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