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how to Open Source weather forecast in privacy respecting ways that actually work! :) - 100% Open Source Android Weather App

prologue: (u can skip it)

SmartPhones try to spy and collect data, that why SmartPhone games and weather-apps are usually free.

Because the user pays with user data.

What even fuels the paranoia are stories like these:In 2011 Rothschild bought a controlling stake in Weather Central

probably not to control the weather, but to understand it and thus secure their wealth from climate change, which gets harder and harder to ignore and deny even for the most self destructive business men.

no need for apps, a well done weather website is enough:

the easiest… and privacy friendly way to check on weather forecasts is still firefox browser app and website/url or even better Tor-Firefox-Browser-Bundle (but Google blocks Tor) that has the weather forecast data displayed in a way, that:

  • the user can use for free
  • the user can make sense of and will answer those questions with one nice dashboard:
    • “will it be a dry or wet day today/tomorrow?”
    • “what temps and rain can be expected today/tomorrow/the next 3 days?” (most forecasts become very inaccurate beyond 3 days)

let’s start with dwd.de, their dashboard is kind of primitive and user-unfriendly and speaks the language of “go figure out on one’s own”, what is nice: dwd re-generates a general weather forecast overview picture.png for the next 3 days, on a daily basis…

which is okayish to get an overview, but of course it would be nice to know… when the exactly the rain starts…

Google Desktop View:

here Google has (nobody is doing everything wrong) for their weather forecast view that with one glimpse tells the user, when the rain (probably) is going to come (usually it is coming later than predicted)

the problem:

  • of course Google is the BigBrother of BigData so should be avoided
  • this nice weather with the temp and rain curves is only available only Desktop Browsers!
    • workaround: If user wants it on mobile: Firefox Android App has a neat feature: “Desktop-Page” (View)

DuckDuckGo Weather

DuckDuckGo.com can do that now too: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weather+lisboa&ia=weather

it’s okay… but here again: no hourly forecast of rain…

they are using: https://darksky.net/forecast/38.7204,-9.1373/ca24/en

the Open Source weather App: RadarWeather

whats great about it:

  • the app itself is 100% Open Source and privacy friendly
    • what might be problematic is BigData collection by OpenWeatherMap.org? (UK, London based, with whom will they share their data?)
  • the animated rain radar view is nice
    • there are no rain prediction charts up front, but the hourly “when will the rain start” question can be answered with the rain-radar view 🙂 so thumbs up and thanks for that 🙂

how to get it?

download / get the apk android app: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.woheller69.weather/

“show me the src” https://github.com/woheller69/weather

This application is forked from Privacy Friendly Weather (https://github.com/SecUSo/privacy-friendly-weather) a privacy friendly weather app. The original function has been modified to support the new OpenWeather One Call API, which provides a lot more features, like precipitation forecast for the next 60 minutes, hourly forecasts for the next 2 days, 8 day week forecasts, etc. In addition a rain radar functionality powered by RainViewer API (https://www.rainviewer.com/api.html) has been added. More weather categories were added, most images and icons were replaced. RadiusSearch now also shows the results on a map with weather icons. A chart showing forecasts with min/max temperature and precipitation for the next week has been added. In addition to the built in city list it is now also possible to use search-as-you-type location search via the photon API (https://photon.komoot.io) which is based on OpenStreetMap.

RadarWeather lets you watch the weather for cities and locations you are interested in.

Weather data is provided via the free API from OpenWeatherMap. As the new One Call API allows only 1000 calls per day, every user must enter his own free OpenWeatherMap key (https://home.openweathermap.org/users/sign_up).

Data for the rain radar is retrieved via the free RainViewer API.

Features:

– Current weather

– Hourly forecasts for 48h / 3h forecasts for 5 days

– 8 day forecast

– Precipitation in next 60min

– Rain radar

– Radius search

– Widget with optional GPS auto position update

– No advertisement

Minimum permissions:

RadarWeather only requires the minimum amount of permission, namely only the INTERNET permission. This permission is necessary to make HTTP requests to remote servers for retrieving weather data.

Optional: authorization for GPS.

What privacy problems might arise?

This app has features you may not like. Learn more!

definitely consider donations to:

https://liberapay.com/F-Droid-Data/donate

they publish their finances:

https://opencollective.com/f-droid#category-BUDGET

#linux #gnu #gnulinux #opensource #administration #sysops #weather #climate #android #apps #apk #app

Originally posted at: https://dwaves.de/2021/08/15/how-to-open-source-weather-forecast-in-privacy-respecting-ways-that-actually-work-100-open-source-android-weather-app/

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