where is (geo)location stored on my laptop?

[ChrisGreaves]

Win10 up to date, Acer laptop.
I am shopping online, and the shop's web site pops up "Sorry, we do not serve/deliver to your area", and i think "How do they know where I live? I haven't even got as far as browsing their wares", and I answer "Chris, your location is stored on your laptop".
Well, OK, but excepting for meal delivery, almost everyone delivers at least as far as the Post Office here in Bonavista "A0C 1B0". Artichoke bulbs, plastic kits, laptops, paints etc.

How would I go about locating (sorry!) those places on my Acer Laptop where location data might be stored?
I use FireFox (up to date) browser only, although occasionally Edge/Bing get their foot in the door.

I know that duriung my first few months here in Bonavista both the phone and the laptop still thought I lived at "M4Y 1A3" in Toronto.

Thanks
Chris

[HansV]

Most websites determine your location from your IP address. For example, see https://iplocation.com/
You can use a VPN or proxy to fake your location.

[ChrisGreaves]

Most websites determine your location from your IP address. For example, see https://iplocation.com/
You can use a VPN or proxy to fake your location.

Untitled.png

(Just for the record, Google Maps believes that I am @48.6540687,-53.1133763)

I imagine that my internet connection is channeled through Baie Verte (5.5 hours by car in good weather, 261Km for crows that don't get sea-sick)
FWIW I spent a night in La Scie and visited Baie Verte on Monday, October 09, 2017
Cheers
Chris

[John Gray]

Perhaps all the authorities are interested in your current location?

[ChrisGreaves]

Perhaps all the authorities are interested in your current location?

Well, three separate groups of gents quizzed me in Fleur de Lys. Basically where was I from? Where was I going? Why was I here of all places stuff.
Just like Toronto.
Or any place in Newfoundland.
Cheers
Chris

[StuartR]

Most applications think I'm in Sweden - even though my VPN service tells me that I'm using a server in London

[ChrisGreaves]

Most applications think I'm in Sweden - even though my VPN service tells me that I'm using a server in London

Thanks Stuart and Hans.
It seems then that some web sites, if using the IP address to determine location, could be issuing the "We do not deliver" popup based on bad data.
Bad data when processed leads to Bad Information, and Bad Information leads to Bad Decisions.

I imagine that if I were still in Toronto (the world-famous "hub of business in Canada) and a local food delivery service told me it did not deliver (based on weird IP address), then they would lose a potential sale.

I have not been computer-involved in delivery applications, but I suspect that a better plan is to use the ISP address to confirm the postal/home/business address and issue the pop-up only if the correlation was poor.

Of course, the proof of the pudding, to coin a phrase, lies in asking the user to key in the address to which the service is to be delivered. After all, I might live at "M4A 1Y3" in Toronto but be treating my host at "M5X 2B4".
Or I might be using my host's laptop rather than my own.
Or I might be using my laptop to treat fellow workers in my host's business office,

Cheers
Chris

[John Gray]

Chris; what is being talked about is the external IP address of [your|the] local router! Your laptop, your host's laptop, etc, receive local IP addresses assigned via DNS in that router when the connection is made.
The geo-location effort relates to the router's external IP address.
I'm not sure if this is your understanding!

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris; what is being talked about is the external IP address of [your|the] local router! Your laptop, your host's laptop, etc, receive local IP addresses assigned via DNS in that router when the connection is made.
The geo-location effort relates to the router's external IP address. I'm not sure if this is your understanding!

Thanks John,
for joining in the effort to confuse me (HUGE grin!)
So now I am faced with THREE IP addresses. I think that I can deal with that.

(1) This Acer laptop has an IP address that is known to my router, sitting on the living-room floor. If I ever master the black art of computers I might even hook up the DELL and the Toshiba laptops to that same router, then I will have a little home network of three laptops, each laptop with a unique IP address which is/are known to my router.

(2) My router has an IP address that is known to my service provider (probably some firm in Halifax Nova Scotia).

(3) The service provider has an IP address that is known to The Internet.

I think of these as old-fashioned telephone exchanges, with the router acting as my Mum, yelling out "It's for You-ou!" from the hallway.

So when Hans writes "Most websites determine your location from your IP address" he is speaking of the physical location of my on-the-floor router, right?

If that is so, then my router thinks it is in Baie Verte; or at least, has been set to broadcast that naughty fact to the world.

Bottom line is still that the web-page thinks that I live in Baie Verte⁽¹⁾ for purposes of food/meal delivery service.

Cheers
Chris

⁽¹⁾ "The major "Baie Verte fault line" starts here and runs from here to Long Island Sound by way of Vermont"

[John Gray]

ISPs tend to get allocated one or more blocks of IP addresses to hand out to customers' routers, so geolocation sometimes ascribes a whole block to a particular location of that ISP, perhaps their head office.
I think they often a better job nowadays, particularly with mobile phones having GPS!

[PaulB]

Most websites determine your location from your IP address. For example, see https://iplocation.com/
You can use a VPN or proxy to fake your location.

Interesting. Iplocation.com identifies my location as Waterloo, ON, which is over 500 km west of where I am actually located. (This is with my VPN off.)

[BobArch2]

Most websites determine your location from your IP address. For example, see https://iplocation.com/
You can use a VPN or proxy to fake your location.

Interesting. Iplocation.com identifies my location as Waterloo, ON, which is over 500 km west of where I am actually located. (This is with my VPN off.)

And according to iplocation I seemed to have moved from Pickering Ontario to Cambridge Ontario ... only 106km away. Not as far as Paul's forced move!

[BobH]

This is what a VPN can do for you.

iplocation (616 x 150).jpg

I think there must be other means used, however, because I am shown local (to Temple) businesses when I browse for them and allow location to be used in the search.

[ChrisGreaves]

... so geolocation sometimes ascribes a whole block to a particular location of that ISP, perhaps their head office.

I can assure you that there is no Head Office of any kind in Baie Verte!
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

And according to iplocation I seemed to have moved from Pickering Ontario to Cambridge Ontario ... only 106km away. Not as far as Paul's forced move!

Hi Bob. Given a choice of moving from Pickering to Cambridge or from Bonavista to Baie Verte, me, I'd move closer to Fleur de Lys
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I think there must be other means used, ...

Hi Bob. I think so too. Cookies, for one thing.
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Most websites determine your location from your IP address. For example, see https://iplocation.com/ You can use a VPN or proxy to fake your location.

I am dog-sitting again (yippee!) but I shall make Tom pay by having him check HIS location through his iPad-wossit, when he arrives home.

Tom's house is but a ten-minute walk from mine.

So I returned to the source link (Hans's post) and clicked on the link (to confirm a correct link before emailing it to Tom) and waddya know - I am currently on a TTC ferry partway across the route from the mainland to Toronto Islands.
NOT as some of the clever ones will have guessed at dear old M4A 1Y3 (College and Bay), but afloat.

Just a couple of days ago I was in Baie Verte

Well OK. Tom has a different service provider. Not Eastlink, but maybe he is still with Rogers, a robber-baron based in Toronto. (later) he is with Xplorent as the screenshot sows, lower edge)
Still and all, Tom enquires about delivery from some (small) business in Bonavista, will they issue the "We do not deliver" popup based on bad data?

(signed) "Puzzled" of who knows where?

[Argus]

Does Firefox share my location with websites?

Noticed this quite some time ago, Firefox: about:support tells me that my copy has a "key" for Google Location Service ("hittad"=found).

Fx Google Location Service.PNG

I don't use it, but see the increasing use of location services as a bit of a nuisance.

(2) My router has an IP address that is known to my service provider (probably some firm in Halifax Nova Scotia).

(3) The service provider has an IP address that is known to The Internet.

Number 2 is the one that tends to be the one known to the Internet; and your ISP of course ... (As mentioned, number 3 is part of a block.) Then there are different solutions; (some use VPN), there are ISPs assigning private addresses (guess when it started it was most common with mobiles), it's a bit like your router assigning different IP addresses within your network.

So when Hans writes "Most websites determine your location from your IP address" he is speaking of the physical location of my on-the-floor router, right?

As mentioned, it is anything but the physical location of "my on-the-floor router".
BTW, mine is on a shelf. So, now I've shared my location with the world.

(In a not so funny future: Wi-Fi devices set to become object sensors by 2024 under planned 802.11bf standard)