Outdooractive Reviews 247

I loved ViewRanger and was disappointed when it was taken over by Outdooractive which I thought was a very inferior product. Now after a trial free subscription of one year Outdooractive have stolen all the OS tiles that I bought through ViewRanger and are asking me to upgrade in order to have access to OS maps. I am totally disgusted with them, and will look for another app.

What a hopeless app. I loved ViewRanger and the support it offered. This company is just interested in selling its 'pro' offer and there is no help worth mentioning to find your way round their convoluted web site.

Loved ViewRanger. Now it’s Outdooractive, I’ve lost my tracks, plus my OS map, WHICH I PAID FOR with ViewRanger, has disappeared - unless I want to upgrade. It also has a really irritating quirk of joining random points together when you’re plotting a route. I’ve downloaded the excellent OS app instead but sorry to have lost ViewRanger though.

You have to upgrade to "Pro" to use offline maps, which wasn't the case with ViewRanger. It's expensive and the app just crashes. Maps don't load and it's all very slow - absolutely useless. Won't be using it again. Would rather pay for OS app.
Edit: They have vastly improved since I left my last review so getting an upgrade from 1 to 4 stars. Very useful and I like route plotting feature.

Absolutely useless!
Bought maps don't show
Customer services don't reply ( after 3 weeks )
How long do they need?
Avoid
I had used viewranger for years and v happy but this type of change isn't progress.
Sorry but true

Before even using the app you have to say goodbye to all and any privacy you thought you had. Some analysis showed that the company has zero interest in maps, navigation and outdoor activities but is a front for datamining. They collect user data and sell it to anyone interested. Smart and very likely profitable. Too bad the app is poor and offers nothing you can't get elsewhere without handing over all your privacy and data.

I have never used View Ranger as a lot of the negative reviews here seem to have. I therefore have no beef or point to make other than does the app deliver. The short answer is - it is terrible! There has been no thought gone into the user experience. Nothing is intuitive, menus packed with commands that mean nothing, a navigation dot that you can hardly see, routes that disappear when you're part way though, inaccurate GPS placement that was always struggling to catch up to where I actually was and then when it did, it was 15m out. I could find no way way to make north always up, change the dreadful voice or change the navigation cursor. Then to add insult to injury the app ran my phone battery down to 5% in just a couple of hours. I searched for cycles and it found a fantastic one in Singapore. What a joke. I took out a year subscription with a free month to try it out That was the only decent thing the developers did - I'm cancelling ASAP.

Got to the start of my walk and started up oa app track would not load as no network signal I down loaded Rought to work off line but still would no connect 1hr l8r it loaded but the track was 10mts away from the path absolute joke the small dot that u follow is a joke and started to point in the wrong direction this is a joke when u reach a cairn again the app says u are 10mtr away from it and I was on a lake shore and it said I was in the lake whaaaaat like other users was forced to transfer from view ranger

I first discovered Viewranger in 2015 and it gained my confidence immediately - did what it said it would do, fast to start up, low on resouces, very reliable - such that I bought all the OS UK 1:25000 and 1:50000 maps which I used on my two phones and tablets regularly and effortlessly until 2021 when Viewranger was taken over by Outdooractive. This takeover is a complete disaster in every practical respect - OK, the OS map resolution is better and tracking is clean (when it works), BUT, its slow to start-up, heavy on resources, can't download the maps easily, hard to set up so it works on difference devices and regularly stops working for no apparent reason. SO, I am at the point of giving up and will be asking for a refund on my lifetime OS maps! A complete disaster. Bring back Viewranger and fast!

I found that I could re-install Viewranger and not lose my maps, by re-installing from an early version. As long as I do not update I can continue to use VW which still works fine.

ViewRanger was free and easy to use. What happens someone buys it, changes the name and asks you to pay. it’s more complicated and less easy to use & draining on the battery. I want something where I can plan a route in advance and follow it precisely when Arrive at the starting point. Using my Apple Watch; three directions - straight on, left and right. Is that too much to ask? I may start looking for a new Walking App.

At the start this app seemed fine. However, it drains your battery and killed your phone if out for more than two hours - it did that to my NEW Galaxy S20 Note Ultra. This defeats the object of having a map/tracking app as your route is not tracked and saved plus you have then lost your map to know where you are going and you also have no means of contacting anyone for help as your phone is dead!
The other issue I found is that the tracker switches itself off mid route and goes back to 'start'. So absolutely pointless having a tracking device.
Viewranger was great - why did it have to change?
Once I've transferred my routes/tracks I'll be deleting this app and use another one that is reliable.

Got forced onto Outdooractive from the excellent Vieweanger. Terrible overall and drains your phones battery far too quickly to be useful.

OutdoorActive is a very capable app but - as lots of people have said - compared to ViewRanger it's a nightmare to understand and use. Hiding the things you search for behind a 'show content' button, using vague terms like plan/route/track with no clear distinction, making it very unclear how to save routes (or are they plans?) for later use, etc. It really needs someone to put some care into usability and I only use it because I was a ViewRanger user before the acquisition. If I didn't already have all my routes imported here I would choose another app.

Dreadful loss of functionality compared to Viewranger. Also lost all the maps I had paid for in a move which was forced upon me with zero consultation. Not worth paying for. Recommend you avoid .

Really finding this app essential now. Had Viewarnger and it was OK but so clunky and I had to buy tiles. I have all the OS maps that I want or need.
Outdoor active works seamlessly on my phone. I have read the negative reviews and can only conclude that other people must be using unsuitable phones, on my iPhone it works a treat. I download my routes so that I don't need a data connection, just GPS.
I presume if your phone doesn't get GPS very well then there could be a problem but that isn't the app's fault, it's the phone.
As for being dificult to use - I'm 70 and it's a doddle. Maybe I'm special but I doubt it.

I have a years subscription to this app, so I have really tried to learn to use it. I actually like the browser based interface and its easy to plot routes on the web etc. But when it comes to actually trying it go on a walk using the app its a dismal failure. The tracking is inaccurate and can be 10 m out. Downloading a route offline, says its worked, but when you get to the start of a walk, turns out it hasnt. only now its to late as you have no phone signal. Even if you do get it to work, the app crashes after about 2-4 hours of use. So about half way through a decent walk. If you restart the app its lost the offline map. So basically its useless and downright dangerous as a tracking app. I'm switching to OS maps.

Terrible, terrible, downgrade from Viewranger.
DO NOT BUY, it's a wate of your money!

Terrible downgrade from view ranger. I spent a fortune on maps all over UK , Alps and Corsica. Swapped to this app as had to and I can't even make a simple trail , GPS keeps dropping , rather than tracking me all the time , it only appears to clock my position when I am actively looking at app. So lots of straight lines between points were I look at were I am on the map , rather than tracking me continually

Forced off Viewranger. Reliability is essential when you’re out in the wilds and the Outdoor Active app is completely inferior. I think this is a good example of corporate arrogance and greed.