The farther away a cell tower is, the more power it takes your phone transmit to it. So a cell phone always tries to lock onto the strongest signal so that it can transmit using the least amount of power. A more useful way of looking at it is that received signal strength represents the rough distance to the cell tower. So now picture that cell, shaped like a wedge of pie, with the strongest signals received closest to the tower, and weakest furthest from the tower.
Imagine slicing the wedge of pie in curved lines ringing the tower, with strong signal strength in the closest slice and the weakest signal in the furthest slice. It looks very roughly the WiFi logo. Each of those slices represents some tiny area of the planet, and you're standing in one of them. If you're in a larger populated area, like a city, your phone will usually get signals from more than one cell tower.
So picture the intersection of overlapping slices from tower A, tower B, tower C, and tower D. The intersections define a smaller and smaller area. So how does Google know any of where these cells, wedges, slices, and intersections are?
From the billion Android phones that have GPS turned on including yours, when your GPS was on , constantly sending reports of their GPS location and what cell towers and signal strengths they see. Google has used this data to map out where each cell is located, and what the approximate signal strength is at each point.
They have a giant database on their servers with this information; your phone queries that database by making a network request that lists all cell towers that are in range, and the Google servers respond with your estimated location. It's all very approximate, of course, because radio signals don't actually travel in perfect little pie wedges - they bounce off buildings and cars, they get absorbed by trees and walls and fog and clouds and people.
And new cell towers come and go every day, so the radio transmitter landscape is frequently changing, too. The millions of reports produce only average GPS coordinates. But that's OK, because even imperfect location data is still good enough for most user needs. Finally, for additional accuracy, the Google Play location services software on your phone keeps track of the last known location of your phone , and may use this to better estimate your current location.
In particular, the last known location is a plausible estimate for your current location under the heuristic that you might not have moved since the last time your location was queried ; if this seems consistent with cell tower information, it might be used to improve the accuracy of your estimated location.
According to Google :. Your phone's location, if you have Location History turned on. In addition, you can set your default location using the Google Maps app, so you might've done that in the past. Try changing your default location and test again with GPS turned off. You can test this theory by switching your phone to flight mode, then moving a distance away. If your phone still thinks you are in the old location, then you know that this is the case.
Then, you can switch on features on your phone one at a time, and see when it works out that you've moved. That will tell you which radio was used. Note that, since GPS is entirely passive, a phone in flight mode may still be able to receive it's location from the GPS satellites. A Javascript can capture your latitude and longitude and can be sent to backend web server and do fancy location-aware things like finding local businesses or showing your location on a map.
The location is returned with a given accuracy depending on the best location information source available. GPS on - the GPS provides your location and this location "can be" stored in your phone by some apps and when it senses that you are online it can transfer those information right to your location history or on their ends.
Internet - The internet can trace your location via IP address tracing each known router or if you use mobile it can triangulate your location via the cell sites. It's like a triangulation using an ordinary telephone. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How does Google know where I am?
Ask Question. Asked 5 years, 3 months ago. Active 2 years, 8 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. There are 2 location permissions. Fine and coarse. Your public IP address is just a small piece in the puzzle. What google does do, of course, is collect vast amounts of other data from 3rd-party providers. This data, in absence of an enabled location service on your device, allows google to figure out where you live, and to temporarily attach an IP address to that location.
It also lets it and other service providers store a tracking cookie on your browser to uniquely identify you as you, and, say, not your sister browsing through the same IP. Interesting… I was wondering why google. We live in the middle of nowhere, no google streetview cars have not been within 20 miles.
Our internet works via satellite: no phone lines here power comes from solar. The satellite ground station is in France, therefore our IP-adress is french: we normally get i-ads in french… so how does Google know I am in Greece? Then you mentioned the smartphone, and it becomes clear … it is using the same wifi net as my computer. Is there any way that google could possibly request my wi-fi SSID name from my web-browser?
I was wondering how Google knows my location although my gps is turned off and i also disabled google location history. I remember on search settings there was an option to disable precise location. That option is no longer there. How can i turn this off? I have experimented with my desktop on a Google Map webpage. Note, I am logged in to Google and gmail on the desktop, with the same gmail account as is on my Android sitting in front of me by my home desktop.
There is a compass looking icon on the lower right. And, very interesting, if I turn off my phone, now the desktop cannot determine my physical location. I just noticed today that google chrome knows my home address… it appeared as autofill…I have location turned off… I have no pc…only my mobile phone… How can I prevent this?
Turn off autofill in your browser. I am only here because google got my location wrong. Then Firefox sends this information to the default geolocation service provider Many geolocation services, however, only look at the IP address they see from the server side. By the way: With java installed, a website can read the local ip-address without asking for permission.
One possibility is that modern browsers support a feature called the Geolocation API which states the following:. No guarantee is given that the API returns the device's actual location. This api can be accessed from JavaScript if the user grants permission. Without a position device like GPS this API will throw an accuracy warning, but can still provide location information.
Warning: Google maybe using other voodoo to determine your location, after all this is Google Are you running NoScript?? Google uses JavaScript to find out most of its data, along with cookies, Flash Cookies, and metadata.
Try clearing your cache, clearing your cookies, and using a different browser if you really want to fool google maps, also don't log in to google before you check.
You most likely can't fool Google unless you are completely deleting everything in your browser and blocking Javascript, but Javascript is needed to do anything with Google, so good luck.
From Google's support pages :. When you click Location on your computer, Maps uses different sources to try to get an accurate read on your location. This info might come from:. To elaborate on that a bit, " your computer's web browser location info " refers to a feature available in modern browsers that lets websites request permission to access your location through your web browser.
If you approve that request, your browser will do the best it can to provide accurate location information to the website.
This will include GPS data in the case of websites on a mobile device, location information inferred from the presence of nearby wireless networks in the case of a laptop or desktop with a WiFi or 4G card, and simple IP information as a last resort.
Note that this is your browser which is determining your location, not the website. Therefore, the browser might use your real IP address to determine your location, even if the website you're visiting doesn't know what that IP is. The second point, " your phone's location, if you are a Location History user " refers to a feature of multiple Google services which tracks your location using data from multiple different devices. From Google's support page on managing your location history :.
Your location info can also be used by any Google app or service, including the ads you see. So basically, if you're signed in, Google Maps on your computer could potentially decide to use GPS data from your phone to determine where you are. Google doesn't need any special permissions from your browser for this, since it's getting this information from your phone, not your browser. You can determine when Google Maps is using data from your phone by hovering your mouse over the GPS icon in the bottom right corner of Maps:.
When you are using a VPN your routing table gets modified and added the networks for which you can access. Perhaps I misread your question, but according to my understanding from your question - You are routed to Google through your internet connection and not the VPN. Unless you are going to Google from a terminal server through your VPN, which renders my answer invalid.
Some good information about how Firefox handles Location-Aware Browsing here and also a bit more detail about the Google Location Services here. If you want to ensure that your location isn't passed by the browser and your using firefox then its quite simple to disable it you just do.
One will be your proxy IP, the other will be your "real" IP address, which the proxy is leaking. Most popular proxies, such as Squid, can be configured not to leak. Simply using a VPN service doesn't hide your true identity or your location. There are many ways to be identified and tracked, and trying to plug all of the leaks is pointless.
Instead, just use a different VM for each new identity and location, and always connect it to the Internet using the appropriate mix of VPNs and Tor. Also avoid cross contamination through browsing, accounts, interests and so on. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 7 months ago.
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