How to Disable Geolocation in Firefox

Geolocation is the process of determining your nearest or exact location on the Earth. Even though Geolocation concept is connected with GPS, our IP Address can also be used to trace roughly where we are.

Geolocation feature can be used to trace where you are. Modern browsers like Firefox supports Geolocation feature. By default Firefox will always asks for your permission whenever any website requests your location.

Why do websites want to know my location?

In order to serve you better. For instance a website may want to know your location in order to provide better deals around your location like restaurants or hotels etc.

What information is sent via Geolocation?

1. Your IP address
2. Your MAC address
3. If you are browsing Internet via Wi-Fi then signal strength (to find how far away you are!)
4. If browsing via Mobile then cell ID of towers closest to you and signal strength.
5. Your mobile IMEI number in order to server you better.

This Geolocation feature is served via Google Location Services (GLS). The data passed to Google is processed by Google’s Privacy Policy. Of course the information is safe as long as it is with Google. But the data sent to the website is governed by website’s own privacy policy. A thing we may not sure how safe is our data. It is the responsibility of the website to dispose the information and not to leak it to others.

If you want to disable this Geolocation feature or if you want to turn off Location-Aware browsing permanently then here is the procedure.

1. In the URL bar i.e. Address bar , type about:config
2. In the filter text bar Type geo.enabled
3. You will see a propert geo.enable whose value is true.
4. Now Double click on the geo.enabled preference. The value changes to false.
5. Location-Aware Browsing is now disabled.
6. Just close the tab and you’re Done!