Maps.Me offline navigation app for iOS, Android and BlackBerry will now take you from point A to B for free

Before Nokia invaded the Android world with its HERE maps suite that offers offline voice-guided navigation for free, eating Google Maps' lunch, there was the MAPS.ME app. Launched in 2011, and built on the OpenStreetMap project, it has arguably one of the best crowdsourced POI collection, and country maps are available as an offline download for a nominal fee.

Well, that fee is no more, as MAPS.ME Pro is now available for absolutely free on most major mobile platforms, ditching the paid variant. Besides data compression for using the least amount of data to create a route and navigate it, MAPS.ME allows real offline satnav, unlike Google Maps, whose offline functionality is severely limited. 

With MAPS.ME you can search for POIs and addresses, create routes, and follow them with turn-by-turn directions. All this good stuff is now free of charge, and the crowdsourced nature of the OpenStreetMap project means you can spot some unorthodox places or routes, too, which compensates for the fact that the search and navigation aren't as smooth and polished as those of Nokia's HERE maps just yet. 

Still, MAPS.ME is now one more excellent free offline navigation alternative for Android, also available for iOS and BlackBerry, and its map downloads take much less space on your handset, without sacrificing detail. MAPS.ME currently sports mapping data for over 345 countries and islands, and you can take it for a spin from the source link below.