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People are crazy about geolocation these days, because this is one of the ultimate trends of this new era. Everyone is trying to identify the real-world geographic location on their personal computer or mobile phones, as long as they’re connected to Internet.

Firefox for Windows Mobile is, which is also known as Fennec, is said to be updated with a brand new feature, the so-very-adored-by-everyone geolocation. If you wonder how this will be possible, let me tell you that it is thanks to the Google Location Services.



According to Doug Turner from Mozilla, it seems that the geolocation will be something like an “opt-in-tool” that helps users share location. But the location is shared only if they express their desire. Doug Turner said that: “We are happy to announce that Firefox 3.5 and Fennec will be using Google Location Service. We found that we agreed on the many privacy concerns around location. Do check out Mozilla’s privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy. I am pretty excited about these policies I think they are going to be the industry standard when it comes to network based geolocation providers”.



A great thing is that you won’t have to install an add-on in order to make geolocation functional. You will have, of course, the chance to give your permission before your location is shared with a website, which means that the service is entirely optional.

But how does the service work? Well, the first thing you should know is that whenever you go to a website that is location-aware, the browser will ask you, just like I said earlier, if you are willing to share your location or not. If you do, then Firefox is ready to gather all sorts of information with regard to the access points that are placed nearby and to the IP address of your computer. The information is then sent by Firefox to Google Location Services, in order to obtain an estimate of the real location, which is further shared with the website.

A very important aspect is that users will be able to enjoy the geolocation feature when using the Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 for desktop computers also. As far as the Firefox for Windows Mobile, the alpha version is expected to be released in the near future, while the beta one is said to come sometimes in the summer.

(Source: unwiredview.com)