Location Finding With Google Maps Comes To Chrome And Firefox

I only get the city, no range or dot of any kind. Also, this only works for me in Chrome. Is there anything you need to do to enable it in firefox? I'm using 3.6 nightly build 20090707

I'm very interested to know how this geolocation system works, if some people have been able to get such fine-grained results. Does it involve skyhook-style wireless triangulation or is it strictly IP-address based?

semiquaver

It was within a few blocks, pretty good, not great, but a good starting point.

xcountry827

definitely didn't work. i live in eastern PA about 1 hour north of philadelphia and it thought i lived in Austin, Texas

Douglas Brace

Not much here. Got Dubai... I live in Norway

Dag-Inge Aas

I live in Athens, Greece... it shows me the whole city... I guess it's better than nothing...if I do that on Google Maps on my Nokia N95, the "my location" via wi fi tells me I'm in India...

dham84

OK, Anonymizer.com works as advertized.

realsnickers

Well. It tracked my location within 100 feet! I was impressed by that!

Then I tried it again, and this time, it tracked me in the East Bay.

Then, doing the same thing again, it was lucky enough to keep me in California.

Works with Safari 4.0 too... does this mean the iPhone latitude site we saw a while back will be active!?

Finally, an official, built-in feature that implements geolocation.

MePerson

It gets my general area... it's able to see that I'm one of 120,000 of 32 million, which I guess is impressive in its own right. Maybe it's different from ISP to ISP, but it can only tell me the city I'm in, and I know that (thank you very much)

LegoAddict

Your location could not be determined. Lame

Nice!

Fail.

markntravis

Didn't give me an exact location. It just zoomed in on Grand Rapids.

This is interesting... I'm at work, but it located me down the street from my house. Work and home are only 3.5 miles apart, but it marked me within a couple hundred feet of my house. Must be reading a cookie or something, right? Or is the Google just that freaky?

Burgundy Corningstone

Tried it again at home on chrome and its way off. I'm now in Phoenix apparently

tande04

I'm in Shanghai today. My 'location could not be determined', just so ya know.

HarmonyNuggletron

I'm on a large college campus with the same SSID used for many acres, and it knew exactly which small spot on the campus I was on.

dtemp

It gave me a 2 block radius and the circle missed my spot by about 150 feet, so not too bad. And thanks for the reminder to upgrade to firefox 3.5; there's some pretty good updates I had no idea about.

BlumpkinKing

It got the city right. For my home connection, that's about as much as I care for anyone to know about where I am.

Google just informed me I am floating helplessly about a quarter mile off-shore, in the gulf of mexico. I am now googling "sharks"

@Beastage: Blah, sorry guys I'm mistaken

@telepheedian: its automatic

Wow, 3 houses away. That is impressive/scary!

c0n0r

I don't get the dot on my google maps...

oat

@highlandmiata: Now that I am at home instead of school, with the same computer using the same chrome, it is dead on (well within the block)

highlandmiata

My location cannot be found. Good, I am going incognito anyway.

PaddyDugan

Well it got my town right.

@UlvaOryx: Same here, zoom level of about 100km, but at least the city I live in is in the centre of the picture (but that may just be a coincidence, as I live in the capital city)

shinchan

how do i use this say with driving directions on google. Doesnt seem like I can do that currently. Bummer.

periferral

@Barry99705: You have to click "Share location with ..." on the toolbar thing that slides down at the top of the page... it took me a minute to see it.

works with safari 4+ with google gears too!

Viktor Pentacle

Ok, so I click the box and then what? It just brings me to the middle of suburbia.

justagigilo85

Same for me, I am using my iPhone for internet access though. So the tethering might have something to do with that.

geez... got my location almost perfectly... down to like 10 meters. this is scary

m1ch4L

@Beastage: Where is the option in Bing?

telepheedian

Firefox 2.5 works for me, but Chrome 2.0.1 won't show the dot. Oh well, it doesn't seem to be too accurate with my home network, it got to me within a few cities.

telepheedian

Failure. On iphone tether, both Chrome and FF35 were off by a few thousand miles. I am in Toronto, and it picked Vancouver. Should it work better or worse on a tether via bluetooth?

BrunhildeMyrtilus

didn't work at all for me - put me in Los Angeles, CA when I'm all the way across the US in Washington DC. Kind of like iPhone google maps which thought I was in Cambridge, MA for the longest time

About freakin finally.

So how does that work w/o GPS? It got my house exactly - more accurately than the GPS in Pre.

CassandraAchilles

Not too accurate. Google Maps on my iPod Touch is far more accurate.

smegz

Well, it I'm at work right now using Firefox 3.5 (but definitely not Explorer) and it targeted my city within a 100-mile radius, but nothing too specific.

Aparently, I live on the other side of the street. My girlfriend will be mad. Naked ladies here. Downgrading FF.

Deoki

Apparently im in the middle of nowhere! =D

It placed me in Austin, TX. Texas, New Jersey same country so close enough I guess.

ShailiAgasthenes

it was way off for me. live in louisville, KY it said i was in austin, tx

markurbancic

Says I'm in NYC, but I'm in Virginia. So only 400 miles off.

BeverlyGadgey

All it showed me was my city on both Chrome and Firefox. Sad face.

Not bad. Picked me up at my office no problem.

i dont have that dot option, i got 3.5 what the hell

Godson

I zoomed in and centered directly on the building I'm currently in and it STILL couldn't determine my location!

Ike_Skelton

It didn't put a dot anywhere on the map for me, just showed about a map of about 50x70 miles that I'm within.

Stitchopoulis

@popepeter: Same thing here. Now I'm left with doubt as to where I actually am right now. I don't like this feeling.

Twinder

It might work for users at home. But for many corporate users that use one external IP address, their IP may be located in the city of their data center.

wk1234

Dead on, down to the friggin pathway to my house

pettiblay

I have no dot currently. But oh, I'll be checking. update - I can't be determined. I wonder if that's because I'm on a corporate network?

I'm nowhere. It couldn't determine my location. I'm one stealthy dude.

ottermann

@Beastage: That may be, but I can't find the button to 'find me' on Bing, so it's effectively worthless.

Ike_Skelton

@Barry99705: Same here :/

Ike_Skelton

They got me down to the correct street.

Wburg

It has no clue where I'm at.

It gave me a "Your location could not be determined." How saddening.

popepeter

I got "Your location could not be determined". I'm in Tucson, AZ.

ColinGrimlet

testing it now from my friend's house it gives me a zoom level of 50km and the center of the map is around 50km away from my real position, so quite bad... but i tried once the geode beta as firefox plugin, and it was just awesome. hit around 5 meters beside my house. so i dont understand why it is so bad now... perhaps they dont want to be that accurate, using the geode beta i could select what to give: exact location, street, district, city, region.

UlvaOryx

cool cool, it was about 50 feet away from my house, very nice

jaywilliams92

I just tried it at work on our guest network and it was within 20 feet. That's a little too accurate for my liking w/o GPS

sxs3200

@Signore Pinko-Panko! realizes his little joke...: Works fine here, I find all browsers to render pages about the same speed these days IE8 included. But I didn't notice any weird issues with FF 3.5, maybe it some older addon you have?

It worked perfect for me, it put me EXACTLY where I am! And I mean, 1 / 2 mts error! I'm in a small city in Argentina.

lol of course it fails yet live search/bing had this working and working good for about half a year now, nice try google, come back next year.

It put the dot about a block and half away from my office. Impressive.

It found me exact location! It was right on my street and circle was maybe 100 ft long.

TechnoGeek

Google missed by two blocks.

Yoshifizzle

Wow, that was quick. It found me within 500 feet radius in less than 2 seconds. Neat.

Not too bad... only 1200 mi out! It placed me in Burbank CA, while I'm actually just outside of Vancouver BC.

Google pretty much nailed it to within two blocks of my house.

AnitaInsect

@GiovannaDemophon: Same here; it put me in Austin, but I'm in Illinois.

CSX321

I found the right city, I guess. Woot?

pretty good - it was only 600 miles off.

skevy

@tande04: Safari 4 had a few crashing problems for me when it was in beta but after the official release it seemed pretty quick and stable. It doesn't eat up resources when playing flash video as bad as FF. I even looked at a few plug ins that people swear by and I didn't see anything impressive yet. I also want to try chrome but I'm waiting for the Mac release.

@Johnyq1982: I explicitly gave it permission to locate me when FF asked, and it still said my location could not be determined.

MauriceCallidice

My work computer: Showed what you get when you search for Portland, OR. (My office is in Hillsboro, OR, a suburb) Home computer: Puts me in Seattle. Guess that is where Comcast routes me through... Maybe this is better on WiFi networks.

bigbill25

I don't get the dot to appear on the map. Perhaps my ISP hasn't yet enabled these features?

it showed me that i reside in northern virginia. real accurate...

spiderman1265

65 yards away!

@Hiphopopotamus: If you're online via wifi you'll see scarily accurate results (i.e., down to your block).

Holy crap. Got within 3 houses of mine!

IsadoraFlan

In Chrome it found me about 85 miles off in the wrong city, and it couldn't find me at all in Firefox (both on the same computer). No idea whats going on there, but I like the concept.

ValinLibo

works in safari fyi, located me almost exactly

AirliaKolling

I'm at work in Austin TX and it gave me: "Your location could not be determined." I'll have to try from home later.

irotsoma

sniff sniff......sad but true......it said it couldn't find me. Oh well.

[Sarcasm Alert] This is a very useful feature. It told me that I was in Houston, TX, which I didn't know.

wbremner

it got my house with about half a mile! That's pretty insane! I live in a small town, so maybe that's why, but it actually worked pretty well for me.

CyrusHalonian

My location is Pittsburgh, PA and was given as Austin, TX. I am not impressed.

UpshawDowell

The blue dot is right. outside. my. window. Hand to God, it's all blue and shiny and covering everything in a pretty blue light.

skymotel

@Signore Pinko-Panko! realizes his little joke...: It seems to be the same for me. I was really hoping that it would be alleviated with 3.5 but then I just got all sad-faced.

It sound like other people are getting hit-or-miss results, but it put me at exactly the right location.

just kept showing me the bottom half of england, i live at the very top of what it showed me (half way up england).

cerby

mine was right on the money. with in steps of where i was.

htifun

I am Toronto and it wasn't able to determine my location. ((

ispekhov

Could not determine my location... Fail! Oh well.. most Google stuff works / rocks... just sayin'.. fail.

CharityKollar

Got pretty close. Probably off by about 20 miles or less. I'll try again when I'm home and see how close it gets.

ku1185

Well, it works for me, closest zoom level, radius of 100 meters. I vote impressive.

UshaAlcmaeon

I just use Google Earth and the GPS built in to my aircard. This has a purpose, but it seems like Google itself has better options.

About 500km (310 miles) off.. You can do better google!

Gillonde

Couldn't find me at all in Wisconsin. haha

Jingles8302

Your location could not be determined.

next to useless here

@tande04: It's a habit a lot of us will have to break.

Wow, it works quite well!

@tok3ninja; is still in Beta: But it does edit, saving the need to comment to yourself ;)

tande04

I'm wearing my Tinfoil hat...

cobra_commander

it shows me being down the hill from my house. about 3000 feet away. im barely in the blue circle area surrounding.

Jason Daniel Head

I can't tell if it just decided not to zoom in or whether it just didn't know enough about my location to make that determination. It put about 100 sq mi. on the map but it did actually center where I'm located, just zoomed out.

the location finding on the iPhone / iPod touch is much better than this, the area is to broad. I wonder why Google is doing that

It had me pegged somewhere in Chicago. I live in Wyoming. Something tells me that it's the fault of my ISP, not Google's, but I'm just guessing.

Ty Brown

Huh, I seriously need to upgrade my browsers. The only one I have current is Opera. To the downloading!

Holy monkey, editing comments is sweet!

my secret identity

It says i am everywhere and nowhere.

"Your location could not be determined." Take THAT the man!

I clicked, the button swirled for a few seconds, then stopped. That was my experience with this fantastic swirling loading button technology.

shiftyeyedgoat

If it can't find your location you have to change the settings on your browser.... On FF you go to tools - page info, then click on the permissions tab (all while on the google maps page) and allow share location.

Johnyq1982

Found me pretty spot on, and thats with a WiFi connectino with my laptop. Wow.

Jake Williams

Same here as with the last couple of commenters. Coincidentally, it placed me a block away from where I live despite the fact I'm 30 miles from home at the moment. Sounds like a good enough reason to leave work early...

TJ

It accurately guessed I am in the Tampa Bay area. Wasn't street accurate, or even suburb accurate, though.

ranwanimator

"Your location could not be determined" On Chrome 2.0. Maybe something to do with filters at work?

within feet of where i am, nice accuracy, especially since I don't live in the US

WillardTabalisha

"Your location could not be determined." I guess that's better than Maps showing me a margin of error.

uRbAnlP

It guessed I was about 25 feet from where I actually am. Not bad!

aldenf82

not bad. It actually got my city on the map, of course so are all the surrounding cities. So I feel safe that google doesnt know where I am...

yet

@Monty: Pretty much did the same thing for me.

@Signore Pinko-Panko! : Huh. It worked the second time around.

Signore Pinko-Panko! realizes his little joke doesn't make sense...

@tok3ninja; is still in Beta: #$*(%&T just copy the link. Didn't realize the comment section doesn't autotag like it used to :(

Seems like a bunch of you are a little sad about the dot not being on your doorstep. If you are curious read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolocation_API Like Sean said, give it time and it'll get more accurate.

@Hiphopopotamus: Interesting... I'm on FiOS, it got within 2 miles of my location

Kizler

@joelydanger: Am I the only one who thinks that 3.5 actually runs slower and eats more RAM than 3.0x?

Signore Pinko-Panko! realizes his little joke doesn't make sense...

It couldn't find me. And I didn't have Tor enabled. Turning on Tor made it crashy.

Signore Pinko-Panko! realizes his little joke doesn't make sense...

@malaklaze: oh, it got the address correctly, pretty accurate.

malaklaze

It's a no go for me. Would be nice for traveling when you don't know the zip you're in.

chrisaroz

@joelydanger: I've had nothing but trouble with Safari. Seems bloated, crashy,takes forever to come up. I'm happy with Chrome when I can get it, at work I settle for FF.

tande04

@illegalprelude: or to find stuff near you

malaklaze

It was within a half an hour (driving) of where I actually am, which when we consider the size of the world, is pretty impressive. Probably not going to impress most cell phone users, however.

@superbee2.0: I'm behind a proxy as well.. couldn't determine my location.. i'm so sneaky.

Skeetz

It gave me a zoom level of about 75-100 miles... so yes, Google accurately guessed that I am somewhere between Upstate New York and Central New Jersey. Kudos?

@kagekiri: I didn't even get a dot, just zoomed to the city. :(

tande04

Using Chrome, it got my city basically correct, but there is no dot telling me where I am, so I guess I am lost in this big ol city of mine.

highlandmiata

it could not determine my location, must be because of my super secret spy cloak

Well, I live in a suburb of Denver, CO and if failed to find my location. Nothing special about my internet connection, unless Comcast is messing something else up now.

Turak

It was able to determine the city, but that's it...I'll stick to the google maps on my G1

superhalo

@tande04: It found me within about 30 yards or so. Not bad.

kagekiri

I got the entire SF Bay area returned - not very impressive.

winkydink

worked perfectly for me in FL

malaklaze

This is really cool and makes me want to like Firefox, but it still idles pretty high on the processor and takes a boat-load of Ram even after 3.5. I've even tried doing the same things side by side with Safari and it seems like Safari is more conservative.

Except when you are running through a corporate proxy back east and you are actually sitting in Oregon, but it does a decent job of finding where the proxy server lives.

Uh it got the city right.

tande04

Some people are paranoid about stuff like this but this is actually super helpful when you need to find yourself for example to get an address to somewhere.

Odd...It put me in the right city, but on the other side of town. And i'm using wi-fi in my apt.

QueenHawkeye

My location can't be determined... Hopefully I'll find my way back home tonight!

TheRealGizmo

This tells me I'm in the middle of Seattle, even though I'm not even in that state. Strange.

Didn't work at all. Says I am about 4 hours south of where I actually am. It's using the old BS IP method that doesn't work very well.

whoster69

FAIL - it couldn't find my location in 5 attempts :/

TimotheaNermin

Says it could not determine my location.

mrbofus

It found my house exactly when I tried a second time. Works well!

didn't work for me...