Firefox Add-on "OSM Everywhere"

I had that idea for quite a while and now I finally tried if it is feasible to make this possible.

Result is here: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/osm-everywhere/

The Add-on is marked as “Experimental” for a reason. This prevents “regular users” from finding it via the search bar on addons.mozilla.org. In my opinion this Add-on should be primarily used by mappers and the OSM community. Most regular users don’t care on which map flavor they get the information they want but for the OSM community it may very well help to spot errors more often if they are able to actually use the map they are working on.

And to be honest: It kind of makes me happy to see maps in the “OSM style” more often :slight_smile:

So what does this Add-on do:

  • My Add-on registers listeners that listen for tile requests going to some common services. Currently these are “Google Maps”, “Bing Maps” and “Here Maps”. If a tile request is captured the relevant information to make a tile request to the OSM tile server is taken from this request and the tile picture is replaced with an OSM tile “on the fly”.
  • Every single tile is stamped with “Tiles © OpenStreetMap” to a) make clearly visible where the Add-on did some changes to a map and b) to complete the copyright info on the map.
  • Requests to the OSM tile server have the referrer “https://osm-everywhere.firefox-addon.invalid/” so tile server admins can see more easily how many requests are created by Add-on users.
  • Caching works. Means: If you visit “your region” on openstreetmap.org regularly, then there is a good chance that the Add-on just takes the tiles from the browser cache and does not request any new tiles at all.

Or in very short terms: If my Add-on is installed, then “most of the web” magically “uses OpenStreetMap” which automatically makes OSM mappers have a look at the map more often and maybe even zoom into some regions to check if there is some stuff still missing.

But keep in mind: This is everything “just for the look”. I can’t even cancel the original tile request. I just replace the content coming from the original tile provider. Meaning: Doubled traffic which may be relevant if you use some mobile cellular service.

And most important info last: Does not work in Google Chrome. Will not work in Google Chrome and: Noone should use Google Chrome anyway :smiley:

Why should I use this add-on?
I have no problems displaying OSM in my Firefox now.

It does not change “displaying OSM” in any way. I guess my skills in explaining stuff are worse than expected :stuck_out_tongue:

Let’s assume supermarket “X” offers a map which lists all locations of “X” which is built based on Google Maps.

If you now install my Add-on, then this map now is “magically” based on OpenStreetMap which not only looks nicer (in my opinion :smiley: ) but also allows to zoom in and check for locations, close to you, if the “official locations” are actually all on the OSM tiles, too. If they are missing you have an opportunity to check this locally or place a note to make someone else have a look.