I’ve written articles about the best VPNs for Chrome and Firefox. Encryption: A VPN also encrypts your internet connection, preventing third parties – like your Internet Service Provider, the government or a hacker – from monitoring your online travels.Location Spoofing: By routing your internet connection through a VPN server in another location, it appears as if your online activity is originating from the same location as the VPN server.How a VPN Can “Spoof” Your LocationĪ Virtual Private Network (VPN) spoofs your location by routing your internet connection through a VPN server located in another part of your country, or in another country completely. You can also manually change your location in your browser, or use a browser extension like Location Guard (available for both Chrome and Firefox). While this method can be defeated by turning off your device’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, that’s simply not feasible in today’s “always-on” world. Your home or office Wi-Fi network might be listed there.) (There are even online databases of Wi-Fi networks and their location.

However, there are other methods that can be used to detect your real location.īrowsers can detect and use nearby Wi-Fi networks to determine your location. The IP address can also be used to determine your geographic location, much like your home’s postal address offers the location of your house.īy using a VPN to hide your real IP address and get a new one, you can usually hide your real location. An IP address is a unique set of numbers that are used to identify your connected device on a network (including the internet). How Chrome and Firefox Detect Your Locationīefore we get into how you can spoof your location in your browser, let’s take a quick look at how the browser detects your location.Īrguably the most popular and easiest method for a browser to detect your location is by using your IP address. I’ll be discussing all of these methods in this article. Occasionally, it may take more than one method to successfully bypass the detection methods that websites and services on the web use to discover your location.

Methods can include using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), manually setting your location, or using a browser extension.

Luckily, there are various ways you can either turn off or “spoof” your geo-location in your browser.

While this actually comes in handy when you’re using mapping services like Google Maps or geotagging photos for social media, there are times when you do not want your actual location revealed, such as when you’re attempting to access geo-restricted content, or when you simply don’t want anyone invading your privacy. When you’re using the Chrome or Firefox browser, they automatically enable geo-location services that can reveal your location to other users on the internet.

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