Google maps without internet connection. Free GPS navigators for Android with offline maps
Last modified: 09/23/2010 22:45:58
Please pay attention to:
Where can I get the latest version of the program?
On the official website: http://earth.google.com/ (web installer) or via direct link (the latest official version is always available via this link): http://dl.google.com/earth/client/advanced /current/GoogleEarthWin.exe
Google Earth - Real-time image of the Earth?
No, these are just satellite images of varying degrees of age. The display of the Weather layers (updated every 3 hours) and Traffic jams is only close to real time. New satellite images are usually posted twice a month, but these updates usually only concern small areas, and certain regions may not be updated at all for several years. More details can be found here.
What versions of Google Earth are there and how do they differ?
There are 3 client versions in total:
- free - Free or Plus
- paid - Pro (free registration for 7 days)
- corporate - Enterprise - also paid and only for corporations. This version has not appeared anywhere on the Internet.
The differences between different versions are in additional “goodies”, but the most important thing is that all versions of the program use the same database of satellite images, so the quality of the images is the same for all client versions.
Here's what the Googlers themselves write about this (support):
Google Earth Pro does not provide real-time images. Most of the images were taken between one and three years ago and represent aerial photography from an altitude of 250-450 m. Google Earth Pro uses the same image database as the free and trial versions, so if you upgrade to the paid version, you will not notice any differences in images. However, in Google Earth Pro, images can be printed at a higher resolution (4800 pixels). To improve your organization's productivity, you also receive the following additional professional tools:
- High resolution printing.
- Import GIS data to quickly display geographic data.
- Spreadsheet importer to display thousands of addresses at once.
- An advanced version of Movie Maker for creating professional videos for clients and clients.
- Access support via email.
Comparison table of customer capabilities:
It is also on the official website (English): http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/pro_features.html
Is there a crack for the Pro version?
Yes, but only for the 4.2 Pro client. But it has become impossible to crack a later Pro version, but it is possible to activate some of the functions of the Pro client in the free client (Free/Plus). This is also done with a crack, but be careful - after some cracks (in particular, after the crack from JUNLAJUBALAM/MPT), the client suddenly stops loading data normally. Latest information on cracks and links here: http://forum.ru-board.com/topic.cgi?forum=35&topic=26491&start=0
What should I do (where should I write, who should I ask) to add/update a picture of my city?
No one will add anything to your order. All data is presented free and as is.
BUT perhaps you will be able to find someone from whom you can buy this photograph for individual use - google it, look for the appropriate services that work to order. And make some mega greens. There was a similar question with similar answers here.
Can I use Google Earth without the Internet?
It is possible, but with several BUTs. In general, Google Earth is a client-server system. The client is that small program (10-15 MB) that we download and install on our computer. This client is intended only to display data that it can request from the server via the Internet. A server is a kind of “site” on the Internet that stores all the necessary data for the client to operate. Accordingly, if we have just installed the client and we do not have the Internet (connection with the server), then the client simply will have nothing to show.
So, to use the client without the Internet, we need to have local cache from which the client could take all the data he needs. This local cache comes in two flavors:
- client's own cache - legal, but with a limit of 2000 MB
- local server cache - doubtful, but without any restrictions ( I recommend)
But in any case, you will have to accumulate this cache first. Will you accumulate it yourself, or take it from a neighbor - that’s a different question. The main thing is that without a cache (in any form), the client’s work without the Internet is impossible.
So what is this native cache? Although Google Earth is a client-server system designed for online work, the developers also provided an off-line mode of operation (without the Internet). When we have the Internet and we view something in the client, the client stores all the data received from the server on disk, in its cache. This cache is usually located in the user’s folder and consists of two files dbCache.dat and dbCache.dat.index (technically savvy people can look here: Cache device and format). So, the next time the client starts without the Internet, it will complain that there is no connection with the server, and will start showing data from the cache - but only what we have already looked at/downloaded earlier and nothing more. Therefore, we don’t need to take any special actions, the main thing is to remember the 2 GB limit and, if possible, use portable versions of the client so as not to lose the cache when reinstalling Windows or transferring to another computer.
Local server cache: This cache storage/accumulation option is a little more labor-intensive, but if your acquaintance with Google Earth is not one-day in nature, I recommend using it. Also, this option helps to save traffic.
To use the local server cache, you, firstly, need this very local server, and secondly, this is a special client, cracked stronger than others and “trained” to work with the local server.
Local server is a GeoCacher program (caching proxy server), which is installed on a computer and wedges itself into the data exchange chain between the client and the Google Earth server. Those. the resulting chain is: GeoCacher Client Server. At the same time, GeoCacher independently and independently of anyone, saves all data passed through it in mine a cache that is limited only by the free space on your hard drive, and not by the whim of Google programmers. At the same time, when accumulating its own cache, GeoCacher constantly monitors not to download unnecessary things from the Internet, i.e. checks whether it has the requested data in its cache, and downloads from the Internet only what has not actually been downloaded before.
Therefore, GeoCacher can be used with a regular client to save Internet traffic. How and what needs to be configured for GeoCacher to wedge itself into the data exchange chain is written here: GeoCacher - User Manual.
Local client - this is the same “trained” client that will be able to work in conjunction with GeoCacher, in the absence of the Internet, and no windows will appear indicating that there is no connection with the server (the server, here it is, at hand - GeoCacher) and will “think” that it works as expected, on the Internet, with its native server. But in fact, it will receive data from the local server cache. You can get a local client here: GoogleEarth.LOCAL.
Is it possible to automatically load my city into cache?
Can. For this purpose, the PlaceMaker utility was specially written, using which, and following the instructions Automatic upload to cache, this problem is solved.
Is there somewhere I can download the cache of the entire Earth?
No, the entire Earth (images + terrain + layers) will weigh hundreds of terabytes. Even if there was someone to download from (you can download from Google itself), then where will you get so many brooms to save it all? But it’s quite possible to download the Moon, Mars and possibly Heaven, at least there the conversation will be about tens of terabytes...
How is Google Earth different from Google Maps?
Almost everyone. It's easier to say what they have in common. What they have in common is satellite images, which are the same in both cases. The only thing is that when updating images, they first appear on Google Earth and only after a few days the updates reach Google Maps.
What is a version change and why do they change?
Changing database versions on the server occurs when new data (images or layers) are added to the server. Versions change constantly, 5-6 times a month (Googlers work actively). The client learns about the version change from the dbRoot.v5 file; if desired, you can automatically monitor the version change yourself using the GEUpdater program.
How can I find out what was added in the latest update?
Usually, some time after the update, Googlers update their cumulative kml in which they highlight in squares all the areas where they updated the images. Googlers publish news on their blog that this kml has been updated, and that the images have been updated: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/
And here http://sasgis.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=820 unofficial monitoring of updates is carried out and coverage schemes with updated images are posted.
There is also an unofficial blog where they monitor changes in the service and regularly publish news about updates (English): http://www.gearthblog.com/
- Belarus, Mogilev 2008-2017, zed
- Based on Wikipad v1.6.0 engine
How to use Google Maps?
In this article I will briefly talk about what Google Maps is and how to use this service. The most interesting thing is that many users know about it, while others don’t even realize that with the help of an ordinary computer, you can see almost any street as if you had actually visited it.
I’m actually exaggerating a little, since you’re unlikely to see the streets of villages or small towns, but large and medium-sized cities are welcome.
Google Maps is free, you only need a browser and a computer, but preferably not the oldest one, since the page in the browser will still eat up a little RAM. You also need to have the latest flash player installed in your browser, and the Internet connection must be fast enough so that you can browse the streets comfortably.
That is, if you are going on a visit or just to another city, if you only know the address and you need to find out more, then Google Maps will help you, you can even study the route to your destination using such maps, especially if you live in big city.
Personally, when I became acquainted with these maps, I have never forgotten about them since then - I regularly look through the streets and also the places where I would like to go, where I used to live, what cities I have been to, in general, I don’t know about anyone, but it’s interesting to me , especially when you're bored.
Now I'll show you how to use Google Maps. We go to the Google maps website itself - https://www.google.com/maps/, you will most likely see a map with your location:
Now, to see a street, indicate it in the field Search on Google Maps- and click from the list on the street you need (the same street will most likely be in several cities).
For example, I will enter Mokhovaya Street, which is located in Moscow:
Google Maps will immediately show this street on the map:
Now we see this street, and we can look at it as if we were on it.
Everything is very simple - you need to drag this little man (he is located in the lower right corner of the page with the map) onto the street itself, when you do this, there will be hints (streets that you can view will be “blue”):
Here we release the little man:
And now we see the street as if we were on it:
Isn't that impressive? This is how you can view, for example, all of Moscow.
There are also these tricks - viewing not the streets, but what’s inside the buildings. To do this, you need to release the little man above the orange circle:
And this is what we will see:
In general, I can’t say that it’s very interesting, but I think it’s okay to watch it when you’re very bored.
That's all, I hope now you will travel around cities and look through the streets, as I sometimes do =)
Google Maps is one of the most popular and reliable navigation services, but it is not without its drawbacks. One of the main complaints from users about Google Maps is that navigation only works with the Internet and requires a very good signal to draw the area. Fortunately, Google Maps can be used offline, but this great feature is useless if you don't take into account the points described in the article. So, are you getting ready to go on a road trip or heading out into uncharted territory? Then these instructions for using Google Maps offline are for you.
Before you can use Google Maps offline, you need to download the area or region you are interested in. An offline map of the area must be downloaded before you move away from the Internet source.
It is worth noting that the cards that you can save offline have quite large volumes. For example, you can completely cache large cities such as Kyiv, Minsk or Moscow. They also take up quite a bit of space in flash memory, sometimes 1.5 GB, depending on the downloaded region. There is a way to download this data to an SD card to save space on your phone's memory. To do this simply go to Menu > Offline Areas > Settings > Storage Settings and switch from Device to SD card.
It's also worth noting that the cache of these cards expires after 30 days. This happens because the maps themselves are updated, they are dynamic and require adjustments. For example, a new restaurant has appeared in the city, or a dam has blocked the river and it is no longer on the map. Google wants you to have the latest version of Maps for the best user experience.
So that your “saved maps” do not need to be downloaded again, simply activate “automatic update of offline maps” in the settings. Now your card cache will be be updated regularly and you will always have the latest version of Google Maps. Also in the settings you can set the update only via Wi-Fi to save the gigabytes of your mobile Internet provided by your telecom operator.
How to download and save offline Google Maps
- Open the Google Maps app
- Find the area or area you want to download
- If you searched for a specific location, a name bar should appear at the bottom of the screen. If not, simply press and hold a button somewhere on the map to show that section. Click on it to display other options
- Then click "Download"
- You can now zoom in and out, making the loading area larger or smaller.
- After selecting the area you are interested in, click the "Download" button in the lower right corner
After downloading your maps, you can navigate and find directions using GPS just like in the online version, but without using the Internet. As you can see, everything is quite simple and convenient. It is also worth noting that not all elements from online maps will be available in offline Google maps. For example, some walking and cycling routes are not transferred when the map cache is saved. Everything else works as expected. You can find the addresses you need, find companies, and easily navigate on the map.
When in a good navigator everything is in one place.
Any iOS device comes with an application Cards. And although Apple is actively developing its own mapping service, due to a number of features of its operation, users from the CIS countries prefer third-party navigators.
A service from Google has won its place in the sun – Google Maps. Three months ago, the mobile version of the application received the long-awaited app, which at first worked exclusively on Android and only recently reached iOS.
Convenient, economical, practical... But it turns on, to put it mildly, in an unobvious way:
Note: To work with offline mode, it is strictly necessary to have a Google account. Before enabling offline access Log in to the Maps app.
- Open Google Maps and in the search bar find the locality or address you are interested in.
- Call up the settings side menu (tap on the three lines next to the search bar) and click on the item Downloaded areas.
- In the window that opens, click on the " + ».
- Google will prompt you to download a map for the area, region, or city you entered. By changing the scale you can significantly reduce the final size of the map (more zoom - smaller map). Once you have decided on the card size, click Download.
- Name the card with any convenient name and click Save.
- Wait until the download completes. The finished map will go to the section Downloaded areas.
The peculiarity of the offline mode in Google Maps is that the saved image is available within 30 days from the moment of downloading. After the expiration date, Google recommends updating the added area map from the appropriate section.
By the way. If you don't have enough memory on your iPhone, try this this is it .
Offline mode allows you to use the application as a navigator (including a voice assistant), but displaying current traffic jams and the current traffic situation (if there is no connection) will not be available. You cannot download country maps.
For detailed settings, see the explanatory video:
In one of the recent updates, the Google Maps application for Android received a number of new features related to working without access to the Internet. Let's see what offline capabilities Google Maps now has.
The ability to fully work with the Google Maps application without access to the Internet, announced in May at the Google I/O 2015 developer conference, was truly a surprise. This includes address search, POI search, planning, and changing routes. The functions are really useful, but few people expected such a step from such a progressive and Internet-oriented company.
(Fragment about Google Maps at the presentation from 1:24:08)
About six months have passed, and now all the promised offline functions can be used in the current version of the Google Maps application for Android.
Offline navigation and working with Google Maps without the Internet may be necessary when access to the World Wide Web may be difficult in a particular place, it is unprofitable to use the Internet while roaming, or for other reasons.
At the moment there are many applications, including free ones (for example), aimed at using maps without access to the Internet, but we definitely welcome the emergence of new offline functions of Google Maps. The user has a wider choice of suitable solutions.
There have been some solutions related to the offline operation of Google Maps before. For example, the ability to download a selected area on a map has been available for several years. At first this feature was present in the experimental development section, but later became available in normal mode.
But until recently, the value of offline use of the Google Maps mobile application was very small, because it was impossible to perform an address search, find the establishment of interest by request in the search bar, or build a route to the desired place. Now a lot has changed.
Let's note the main functions of the Google Maps application for Android related to working without access to the Internet:
- downloading a selected area on the map for offline access (the option existed before);
- address search, search for establishments, companies, ATMs, gas stations, etc. (POI);
- viewing a brief description, operating mode, contact information (if specified), ratings from users of the object of interest;
- planning a route and measuring the distance between points;
- navigation mode along the selected route with automatic adjustment of the route in case of deviation.
How to use these offline features?
First, you need to first download the area of interest on the map. Address search, POI search, route planning, etc. without the Internet will work in this downloaded area. You will not be able, for example, to search for ATMs in Dnepropetrovsk if you have only downloaded the section of the map with Kiev.
And then you can use Google Maps without the Internet, as if you were working normally. Please note that the detail of downloaded maps for offline access will be more modest.
When selecting an area to download, the program first estimates how much data this area can occupy. Note that the application overestimates the estimated volume, and greatly. For example, having chosen the area covering Kyiv, instead of the stated 250 MB, the downloaded map took only 52 MB.
The list of sections uploaded for offline access is located in a separate menu item. You can update data or delete unnecessary areas.
If the downloaded area includes several settlements, there are no restrictions for building routes between these settlements. By the way, with offline access only car routes are used.
The quality of the routes laid is very high. Thanks to the advanced algorithms used in Google Maps for this.
The navigation mode itself along the selected route is quite convenient. The most necessary settings and functions are there, but, of course, special applications for car GPS navigation, such as iGO, will be noticeably more advanced in this regard.
We're very excited about the new offline features added to Google Maps. Now, even if you have difficulty accessing the Internet, the Google Maps application will still be very useful.
Just recently we wrote about that, and now we will continue to work on useful things, resulting in another step-by-step instruction for novice Android users - how to use Google Maps offline.
Note: This article is intended for new Android device users or those who want to refresh their memory.
Before you begin
There are several requirements to take advantage of the recommendations in this manual. As you guessed, you need a smartphone or tablet running on Android, and the latest version of Google Maps must be installed. Most likely, Google maps is already installed on your gadget, otherwise, you can always download the latest version of the application for free from Google Play Store.
Pros and cons of Google Maps
Google Maps is a powerful navigation tool, but it also has its downsides. The fact is that Maps works great with a constant Internet connection, which cannot be said without it. Google started working on this issue many years ago, and now you can download all the necessary data to navigate the area. The downloaded map image will be exactly the same as when working online.
The Download Map feature allows you to cache an area the size of a typical large city. Before we tell you how to save a specific map area for offline use, let's discuss some difficulties that you may encounter along the way.
First, Google Maps offers offline maps for a limited time - 30 days. The fact is that Google is constantly improving its maps - during this time, streets may be added or removed, or several business centers will appear, in any case, after this time you will have to re-download and save the desired area of the map. Well, if you are going on a long hike without an Internet connection, then Google Maps offline is unlikely to be useful.
Secondly, Google Maps offline mode has limited search and navigation functionality. Of course, in offline mode you can find out how to get to your destination and record your route. However, you will not be able to reverse your route created at home if you have Internet access. We hope that you remember the way home, or at least know how to use a map without navigation.
And finally, you can only download six offline maps. The idea is that for most cases this is more than enough, and you won't need a lot of free space to download maps. This means if you're going on a long trip, then you may have to stop halfway to remove the first set of maps and load the remaining maps to get to your destination. Not fun at all, is it?
How to use Google Maps offline
Well, we have reached the key point of our article today, how to use Google Maps offline.
First, you need to make sure that you have a stable Internet connection, preferably WiFi, since you will have to download approximately 80 MB of data or more, which is approximately how much one area of the map occupies.
Launch the Google Maps application and navigate to the area you want to save for offline use.
Click on the search bar at the top of the screen.
Now you can zoom and scroll the area you want to save, and then click the Download button. If the selected area is too large, the following message will appear at the top of the screen: “Area too large. Zoom in on the map”, and the Download button will become inactive.
When everything is done correctly, a window will appear in which you need to enter the name of the loaded map area and click Save.
Now your map area is saved and you can use Google Maps offline.
What's next?
Once your maps are uploaded, Google now gives you 30 days until they become out of date. After this time has expired, you can always reload the saved map (offline map), to do this, log into Menu/Your places/Setting up offline maps then find the desired map and click the map menu and Update.
Do you need to make a trip within your city using Google Maps offline? Navigation works offline, just create a route when you have an Internet connection, say before leaving home. Google Maps will automatically download the information it needs to show you the route to your destination. It will even download the area of the map it needs, so you don't have to download the map manually. Once your route is set, Google Maps will have the information you need until you arrive at your destination, or until you turn off Maps on your device completely.
Please remember that you will not be able to initiate navigation using Google Maps in offline mode, downloaded maps of areas in order to simply view them. But still, if your smartphone or tablet is equipped with a GPS sensor, then you have a powerful tool in your hands to find your way, and you don’t need access to the Internet at all.
What do you say: Will you use Google Maps offline for travel, or trust another navigation application?
Stay tuned, there is still a lot of interesting things ahead.