I am running IE8 and it can't seem to find me.

Bung your wireless AP MAC in http://samy.pl/mapxss/

Thanks I had on idea browsers had this built in! This link shows how to turn it off in Opera:

http://www.tothepc.com/archives/disable-geo-location...

In reply to a post by infra_red:

Thanks I had on idea browsers had this built in! This link shows how to turn it off in Opera:

http://www.tothepc.com/archives/disable-geo-location...

Nice find, hopefully options like that can also be accessed in chrome and other browsers and that should be the end of your worries

Scroll down below the instructions:

You can also disable Geo Location feature in Safari, Google Chrome and Firefox web browsers.

Just click your browser....

Great, IE8 does not have this geolocation ability

Browser geolocation test
If your browser supports HTML 5's geolocation functionality, and you allow this page to have access to your location, a breakdown of the data provided will be displayed below.

This is provided for:

Privacy-conscious web users, so you know exactly the kind of geo-data your browser is reporting to web applications that request it
Developers (the code for this page is public domain)
Your browser does not support geolocation.

In reply to a post by CARPETBURN:

In reply to a post by infra_red:

Thanks I had on idea browsers had this built in! This link shows how to turn it off in Opera:

http://www.tothepc.com/archives/disable-geo-location...

Nice find, hopefully options like that can also be accessed in chrome and other browsers and that should be the end of your worries

The best I can say about Google is they have been less than transparent about this. They have driven round the country deliberately gathering MAC addresses to build up a database - we heard all about Streetview's clever pictures of people's houses but not so much about Google's little sideline.

I used to wonder how some websites knew more or less where I lived - they could not get that from the IP address - well now I know.

Edited by deleted (Tue 31-Aug-10 22:37:20)

In reply to a post by infra_red:

I used to wonder how some websites knew more or less where I lived - they could not get that from the IP address - well now I know.

Mine shows me up straight away by looking it up here. It puts me in Bethere Zone 12. So any site I visit can easily place me in the Greater Manchester area.

Closer than that is another matter.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Your IP address usually locates you fairly closely.

Not in the UK it doesn't. The blocks are registered in such a way that you can't really pin-point which part of the country someone is in.. Virgin Media are a good exception to that but even then it's generalities.

seb

In reply to a post by infra_red:

This worries the hell out of me. Google Latitude knows my exact location just from me using the internet on my own wireless network. How on earth do they do this?

If it can see which wireless networks are in range, it can send that data to Google which has logged that in their Streetview cars so they can work out where you are based on that.. i.e. they have a "wireless network -to- physical location" database

seb