JFI: MLS Retiring (Mozilla Location Service)

General
#1

Does this impact SFOS?

3 Likes
#2

Probably not because the whole GPS experience on SFOS (with or without MLS enabled) kind of sucked and sucks. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

2 Likes
#3

GPS sucks nearly everywhere. Unfortunately it’s in French, but the lecture is worth it: Pourquoi sommes-nous tellement accros à Google Maps et Waze ?

1 Like
#4

Patents against mozilla stumble. Sounds like they used the wrong jurisdiction. But then again, we don’t have an equivalent effort here in Europe. Would any company step in and maybe grab some EU funds? Those satelites cost much more than a stumble software.

2 Likes
#5

Please ask in the community meetings

Thank you.

2 Likes
#6

Probably not because the whole GPS experience on SFOS (with or without MLS enabled) kind of sucked and sucks.

If you encounter a problem where it takes 30-60 seconds to get a GPS fix, as I’ve experienced with my devices: Sony X Compact, Sony XA2 (though sometimes it takes a bit longer, about 1-2 minutes), and finally, on my daily driver, the XZ2 Compact running a community port of SFOS.

Even under LineageOS, I’ve had similar waiting times. So, if you haven’t unleashed the Kraken (Google), you’ll have to pay with something (time).

1 Like
#7

30-60 seconds would be ok. Thats rarely the case. Usually is in the 5+ minutes range.

4 Likes
#8

Not talking about the time it takes then to get and keep the apps running (gmaps im talking about you!!)

#9

I use GPSInfo and let it running. This works like a charm.

4 Likes
#10

Just use grapheneos supl server and everything is fine.

#11

Interesting use case!
May I ask, what is the toll on the battery life like? And which model do you own?

#12

I have an Xperia 10 II, but the battery is already bad. I start GPSInfo whenever I need an application with GPS. For cycling with komoot I can do about 2h - 3h with display always on.
Of course, I have a power bank with me, just in case :slight_smile:

#13

Ah yes ; i own an xperia 10 ii as well; I must say the battery life is OK for me; except in some cases (video decoding, gps). I have noticed the screen brightness has a big effect on the power consumption

#14

I wanted to record this somewhere since a number of alternatives came up in an HN thread:

3 Likes
#15

I don’t think so. Their website states:

supl.grapheneos.org - TLS reverse proxy to supl.google.com

A reverse proxy hides the user’s IP (which on IPv4 an operator’s NAT renders mostly useless anyhow) but the supl requests contain the IMSI as session id making tracking as easy as possible. Here are a few loglines from my instance of supl-proxy (the IMSI passed to supl.google.com is random and only used for that session):

2024-07-07 20:39:21,775 [INFO] __main__: Packet from mobile
{
  "length": 36,
  "version": {
    "maj": 1,
    "min": 0,
    "servind": 0
  },
  "sessionID": {
    "setSessionID": {
      "sessionId": 0,
      "setId": [
        "imsi",
        "62 02 21 27 61 48 19 f4"
      ]
    },
    "slpSessionID": {
      "sessionID": "d9 0a 6c 1f",
      "slpId": [
        "fQDN",
        "supl.google.com"
      ]
    }
  },
  "message": [
    "msSUPLPOS",
1 Like