Recently while using Google Maps on latest Firebox 3.6 beta3 (I updated my favorite Firefox to the latest beta3 few days back) I noticed that the browser asked me to share my location in order to provide more relevant local search results for your location. I didn’t knew how precise my location can be tracked using network but believe me it was amazingly accurate. Google tracked my ‘exact’ location using ‘Location-aware Browsing’ feature and by ‘exact’ I mean 100% accurate.

But, this means a new problem I.e. Privacy. if using ‘Location-aware browsing’ (aka GeoLocation) Google can track you then sooner or later hackers/spammers/crackers/etc are also gonna track you down. Though I like the feature but being a privacy lover I do not like Google or anyone else tracking me via ‘Location-aware browsing’.

Though, Mozilla team claims on their site that Firefox does not track your location as you browse on web and it provides only limited location information is sent to the website that too with user’s permission only, Firefox also enables user to change the permission to share his/her location with any website by him/her. BTW, Firefox also allows user to clear the “random client identification number” assigned by Google GeoLocation Services (normally remains valid for two weeks).

If you wish to disable the Location-Aware Browsing completely in your Firefox, do the following step by step:

1. In the URL bar of Firefox, type about:config
2. Type geo.enabled
3. Double click on the geo.enabled preference (value will change from “true” to “false”)
4. Location-Aware Browsing is now disabled