Html5 geolocation how does it work

HTML5 geolocation is a browser API application programming interface that is utilized for obtaining the device geographic position latitude and longitude coordinates.

This can help detect the geo location of the visitor or user on a website or app. Hence it can be used to pin point a device's location making it a very useful technology for websites or apps that require the exact user's location to work. HTML5 geolocation is strictly permission based i. Only if the user agrees to provide permission, the latitude and longitude coordinates will become available.

It is important to be aware on the implications of permission when designing your location based website or app in terms of handling cases where the user disagrees to sharing their device location. Video and Audio Playback. Playback Control with Media Source Extensions. Capture and Record.

Manipulating Media Files. Loading Performance. Get Started. Optimizing Content Efficiency. Optimizing JavaScript. Never Load the Same Resource Twice. Web Storage. Lazy Loading Resources.

Order Loading Thoughtfully. Critical Rendering Path. Web Performance Optimization with webpack. Rendering Performance. Audit your site. Encrypting Data In Transit. Preventing Mixed Content. Help, I've been hacked. Assess spam damage. Base Technologies. Web Components. Service Workers. Chrome Dev Summit is back! Visit goo. Click on "How Google Chrome determines your location". If you allow Google Chrome to share your location with a site, the browser will send local network information to Google Location Services to get an estimate of your location.

The browser can then share your location with the requesting site. The local network information used by Google Location Services to estimate your location includes information about visible WiFi access points, including their signal strength; information about your local router; your computer's IP address. The accuracy and coverage of Google Location Services will vary by location.

Google Chrome saves your location information so that it can be easily retrieved. This information is periodically updated; the frequency of updates depends on changes to your local network information.

Also, I believe that Google Location Services contains a database built from data collected by Google Street View vans as they match locations with WiFi signals from routers or at least used to. For what it's worth, the API specification itself is agnostic to the geolocation implementation. So while it's true that Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome both rely on network-enabled geolocation via Google's Location Service database, that's not a requirement of the standard.

For example, Mobile Safari on your iPhone will in some cases use GPS rather than WiFi-triangulation or cell-site geolocation, depending on what location service is most accurate and accessible at a given moment. And we can hope that future browsers will provide some choice of the location provider.

I agree that it would be good for user privacy and functionality if browsers supported geolocation technologies that didn't require sending a list of WiFi IDs to a third party; I suspect that as GPS sensors are more often integrated into smartphones and laptops, we'll see browsers that let you use GPS sensing for the W3C Geolocation API.

It might also be nice to have a feature for desktop computers where the location can be manually specified in browser settings, this would also be compatible with the current spec.

In Firefox open a new tab and type in the address about:config. Go past the warning message and type geo. From Firefox's "How does it work" :. When you visit a location-aware website, Firefox will ask you if you want to share your location. Then Firefox sends this information to the default geolocation service provider, Google Location Services, to get an estimate of your location.

That location estimate is then shared with the requesting website. If you say that you do not consent, Firefox will not do anything. You should examine a website's privacy policy before sharing your location with them. My guess to the last question in update4 is that supposedly they are updating your location from time to time, based on what device you use.

For example if you used only your PC to access the web, and there is no known wifi networks nearby then your location will be determined by IP address, however information about your network will be gathered, later say you connect iPhone or any other device with GPS to your same wifi network, and use GPS on it, google will match those GPS coordinates to your wifi SSID or IP address.

You may use local third-party providers such as Baidu , Autonavi , or Tencent. The developer can now access this location information in a couple of different ways: Geolocation. In both cases, the method call takes up to three arguments: A mandatory success callback: If the location retrieval is successful, the callback executes with a GeolocationPosition object as its only parameter, providing access to the location data.

An optional error callback: If the location retrieval is unsuccessful, the callback executes with a GeolocationPositionError object as its only parameter, providing access information on what went wrong. An optional object which provides options for retrieval of the position data. Geolocation The main class of this API — contains methods to retrieve the user's current position, watch for changes in their position, and clear a previously-set watch.