Game-style controls for Google Street View. WASD to move, mouse-look like a first-person game, zoom that doesn't tilt, and a docked HUD panel that never covers the map. No API key, no account, nothing leaves your computer.
A free tool from MMH Adventures, the studio behind Alt Time, PureWX and Streak for iPhone.
freeroam-how-it-works.mp4
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| W / S | Step forward / back along the street |
| A / D | Turn left / right (hold for a smooth turn) |
| Q / E | Look up / down |
| Z / X | Zoom in / out (or scroll wheel / pinch) |
| Click the view | Mouse-look: the pointer locks like a game, Esc releases it |
| H | Hide / show the panel |
Everything works the moment Street View loads; there's no "click once to activate".
- Docked HUD panel: Google Maps lays out beside it, so the search box, info card and minimap stay visible. Hide it with H or the ‹ button for a full-width view; during mouse-look it slides away on its own.
- Heading tape: a compass strip that slides as you turn, with heading and pitch readouts.
- Zoom goes straight in: Google zooms toward the mouse pointer, which tilts the view. FreeRoam zooms at the center, and keeps look speed the same at any zoom.
- Search → Street View: type a place name and you land on the street in front of it, facing it (skipping indoor photo spheres). Or paste
lat,lng. - Recent places: your last 8 spots with the distance from where you are now. One click to go back.
- Settings: mouse sensitivity, invert Y, auto-hide during mouse-look.
FreeRoam isn't in the Chrome Web Store yet. To install it from this repository:
- Download the ZIP (or
git clonethis repo) and unzip it - Open
chrome://extensionsand turn on Developer mode (top right) - Click Load unpacked and select the unzipped folder
- Click the FreeRoam toolbar icon — Street View opens on Lower Broadway, Nashville (or wherever you were last)
Works in Chrome 111+ and Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave, Arc).
The Google Maps website doesn't expose Google's JavaScript API, so FreeRoam drives Street View the way a person would:
- Moving and turning are synthetic arrow-key events sent to the Street View canvas; Street View's own keyboard handling does the rest (so S is a true step back).
- Looking, mouse-look and zoom are synthetic drags and wheel events, scaled for the current zoom level.
- Position and heading are read from the page URL (
@lat,lng,…,heading h,pitch t). - Docking turns Google's page body into a box beside the panel, so Maps sizes itself to the remaining space.
The code is plain JavaScript and CSS with no build step: content.js (panel, keys, mouse-look), pageScript.js (runs in the page to talk to the Street View canvas), background.js (toolbar icon), sidebar.css.
npm install # installs Playwright (dev only)
npx playwright install chromium
npm test # smoke test: loads the extension on a real pano and checks every control
npm run package # builds dist/freeroam-<version>.zipGoogle changes the Maps page from time to time. When a control stops working, npm test shows which one; the two brittle spots are the Street View canvas lookup and the URL format, both in pageScript.js.
- W only moves when there's a road roughly ahead, the same rule as Google's own viewer; at the end of the imagery W or S does nothing.
- Place search sometimes lands in an alley beside a building, or right against a big venue's wall.
- FreeRoam depends on Google Maps' page structure and one undocumented lookup (used by place search), so a Google update can break it until it's fixed here.
FreeRoam stores your last location, recent places and settings only on your computer and sends nothing to anyone. Details: PRIVACY.md.
Made by MMH Adventures LLC. MIT — see LICENSE. Bundled fonts: Chakra Petch and JetBrains Mono, both under the SIL Open Font License (fonts/).
FreeRoam is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google. Google Maps and Street View are trademarks of Google LLC. Street View imagery in the screenshots © Google.