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Geolocation API

Also called browser geolocation, navigator.geolocation, location permission, IP geolocation

Definition

The Geolocation API is the browser feature that lets a page ask for the device's physical position as latitude and longitude, which the browser hands over only after the user allows it.

Last updated 7 November 2026

How it works

A page calls navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(), the browser asks the user, and if they allow it the page receives coordinates and an accuracy radius. The browser works the position out from whatever it has: GPS on a phone, nearby Wi-Fi networks, or the operating system’s location service.

This is different from IP geolocation, which a site does on its own server by looking the visitor’s IP address up in a database. IP geolocation needs no permission and is usually accurate only to a city or a region.

Why it matters when you run several accounts

If a profile grants location access, the coordinates it hands over should fit its proxy’s location, its time zone and its language. Coordinates worked out from your own Wi-Fi undo the proxy entirely, and they are the same for every profile on your computer. Blocking the request is a valid answer too: plenty of real users never allow it.

How SoftGlaze Browser handles it

The Location setting has three modes: Based on IP (the default), Custom, with your own latitude, longitude and accuracy, and Block. Based on IP uses the location the app looked up through the profile’s proxy at launch, and by default the page still has to ask each time. Latitude, longitude and the geolocation mode are columns in the batch import template. Firefox profiles have geolocation switched off, so neither the real location nor the real IP can leak through it.

Sources

  1. Geolocation APIMDN Web Docs
  2. Geolocation (W3C Recommendation)W3C

Outside sources were checked in November 2026. Browsers, standards and vendors' pages change, so details that depend on them are as of that month.

Related terms

  • Timezone mismatchA timezone mismatch is when the time zone a browser reports does not fit the location of the IP address it connects from, for example a browser on London time arriving from a New York address.
  • Accept-LanguageAccept-Language is the HTTP request header in which a browser lists the languages its user prefers, in order of preference, such as en-GB,en;q=0.9; scripts see the same list as navigator.languages.
  • WebRTC leakA WebRTC leak is when a page learns your real IP address through the browser's real-time communication feature, which gathers network addresses directly instead of through the proxy that carries the rest of your traffic.
  • Residential proxyA residential proxy is a proxy whose exit IP address belongs to a home internet connection, so sites see traffic arriving from an ordinary household rather than from a server in a data centre.

Read more on this site

See it in SoftGlaze Browser

Separate profiles, each with its own cookies, device values and proxy, on Windows. Try the app's screens in your browser first, or start the free trial; no card needed.

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