Comments on: clearing up a little confusion about geolocation in Firefox 3.1

By: Bhavesh Patel

Bhavesh Patel — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:09:53 +0000

Looks like with the latest builds gpsd can be used as a geolocation provider out of the box.
Please check out the bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492328
which is now marked as resolved.

This is pretty cool development :-)

By: Christopher Blizzard

Christopher Blizzard — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:51:40 +0000

You guys should write a component to implement this for Linux. Basically you need to write a component that implements this interface:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIGeolocationProvider

And it should work.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:14:59 +0000

Perhaps, on Linux platforms at least, you could use geoclue, which has a number of backends, including GPS, cell tower, ip address, and manual. http://geoclue.freedesktop.org

By: skierpage

skierpage — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:16:17 +0000

Joe Buck, “I’m skeptical of the usefulness of this feature for most users.”

??!?? Maybe if all you ever do is access a local site or mapping site from a stationary computer then indeed you don’t need this because you’ve probably told that one site your area. But I visit hundreds of other web sites.

Airline sites that prefill my nearest airport; network TV sites that know my timezone and local station instead giving me useless “at 9pm 7 central, 6PDT (unless pre-empted by sports game)”; and 100,000 brick & mortar sites that TELL me my nearest store instead of making me fill out yet another store locator form. It saves a lot of typing and lets sites present info right away (*if* I let them access my location).

As for privacy, I hope someone makes a provider that lets me choose from a list of saved place that are near but *not* my actual addresses, e.g. the police station several streets away from home, the bus stop near work, etc.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:57:35 +0000

Why isn’t Firefox 3.1b1 on the beta update channel?

By: sxpert

sxpert — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:49:17 +0000

you should include “connecting to localhost’s gpsd server if available” as the default…

By: Albert

Albert — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:36:06 +0000

For me, a killer use would be: never entering my current location in the ‘From’ location field when using Google Maps on my laptop, *while being on the road* – turning my laptop, web browser, together with a site like GMaps in a navigational tool.

Mix that with the future mobile builds of Firefox and you have a terrific open mobile platform to develop navigational tools.

By: Firefox 3.1 Beta 1’s Geolocation Info IS NOT Provided By Skyhook’s Loki — GPS Obsessed

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:26:20 +0000

[...] Radar news service you’ll be asked if it’s okay to use the coordinates. As Christopher Blizzard says, “We will include the hooks for people to add this information and the web api is always [...]

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:44:46 +0000

Joe – that’s what I’m thinking too… has anyone yet come up with a really good ‘killer’ use for this kind of thing? It seems like a lot of effort is going into this geolocation effort, but I’ve not seen anyone saying why they think it’s useful…

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:43:05 +0000

I think this feature is pretty awesome. However, I think it will end up as a PR nightmare in terms of privacy. The potential for it to backfire, in my opinion, makes it more risky than it is worth.