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Tried it. Firefox asked me "Allow petalsearch to access your location?". Closed tab. Better luck next time. EDIT: I know I can deny it, I know other search se

Tried it. Firefox asked me "Allow petalsearch to access your location?". Closed tab. Better luck next time. EDIT: I know I can deny it, I know other search services do the same, I know it can be used to search "close to me". My point is that trying to get this information by default is a bad sign.

kazinator 5y ago
It sounds like you should have clicked on "learn more", and then uninstalled Firefox. Because, there you learn that: > If you allow location access, Firefox gathers information about nearby wireless access points and your computer’s IP address, and sends this information to the default geolocation service provider, Google Location Services, to get an estimate of your location. That location estimate is then shared with the requesting website. If you disagree with location access, such that you won't use an application or site that asks for it, why would you use a browser that goes out of its way to make that possible in the first place? If asking for it is morally wrong, then adding the code to the browser which figures out that location and gives it to Google first, and then to the site must be a capital crime. Also from "learn more": > How do I stop all sites from asking to access my location? > If a site indicates to Firefox that it wants to access your location, Firefox asks, by default, whether you want to grant permission. You can set Firefox to automatically deny new permission requests to all websites, without asking.
aliswe 5y ago
Peak snark?
IshKebab 5y ago
If only there was a way to click "Deny"...
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  I feel like asking for location right away is a bit intrusive, especially as the API isn’t granular enough to specify whether they just want my country, city or exact location. The former might’ve been OK, the latter is way too much.
Markoff 5y ago
pretty much all search engines do this to provide location based results, nobody stops you from Denying such request, but it seems quite stupid to pick up on one service when many other services do the same thing edit: my bad, seems major search engines don't ask for location, but I remember seeing this request way too often on many sites to consider it something unusual to complain about specifically at this site
- Hitton 5y ago
  Neither Google, Bing, DDG or Yandex does it. They probably get rough location from GeoIP. If you use private browsing, this is extremely annoying, every session you have to click "block".
  - kazinator 5y ago
    > If you use private browsing, this is extremely annoying, every session you have to click "block". I just verified that if, in Firefox, you checkbox "[x] Block new requests asking to access your location" in the location settings, then a private window inherit this; and the popup no longer appears. For some reason, the per-site blocking is not inherited by the private windows. Maybe it's considered an unacceptable info leak or something. Or possibly it might be this: the individual per-site location setting can be positive or negative (accept or deny). If the settings as such were inherited by a private window, that would be bad because if any accepts are present, they conflict with the concept of a private window. Maybe if the private windows just inherited the deny entries, that would be reasonable; could be nobody has bothered coding that up, thinking that users who are bothered about location can just use the global switch.
boesboes 5y ago
So what do you use for a search engine?
kazinator 5y ago
> My point is that trying to get this information by default is a bad sign. Suppose we want to create a search site that can use location info (for some entirely legit purpose), but we don't ask by default. That implies it must be an opt-in user preference. To maintain a user preference, we have to create a tracking profile for the user. That's "evil" too, oops, and there will be a cookie pop-up. Say we are already doing that; we have various preferences. Why would we complicate them by adding a location preference, if that preference is already handled in the user's browser? Firefox indicates right in the address bar that you denied location access to the site. I always click deny on these requests, but if I had to code it, I probably wouldn't do it differently.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  You can store the preference in a “location_optin” cookie which can only be false or true and ask the browser for location only if it’s set to True. This is not tracking and would not even require a consent prompt for GDPR purposes.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  It shouldn't ask for location by default, but offer a toggle in the UI to enable local searches, which when enabled would ask for it. This way, it won't annoy the user for their location every time they search in a private window.

kazinator 5y ago

It sounds like you should have clicked on "learn more", and then uninstalled Firefox. Because, there you learn that: > If you allow location access, Firefox gathers information about nearby wireless access points and your computer’s IP address, and sends this information to the default geolocation service provider, Google Location Services, to get an estimate of your location. That location estimate is then shared with the requesting website. If you disagree with location access, such that you won't use an application or site that asks for it, why would you use a browser that goes out of its way to make that possible in the first place? If asking for it is morally wrong, then adding the code to the browser which figures out that location and gives it to Google first, and then to the site must be a capital crime. Also from "learn more": > How do I stop all sites from asking to access my location? > If a site indicates to Firefox that it wants to access your location, Firefox asks, by default, whether you want to grant permission. You can set Firefox to automatically deny new permission requests to all websites, without asking.

aliswe 5y ago

Peak snark?

IshKebab 5y ago

If only there was a way to click "Deny"...

Nextgrid 5y ago
I feel like asking for location right away is a bit intrusive, especially as the API isn’t granular enough to specify whether they just want my country, city or exact location. The former might’ve been OK, the latter is way too much.

Markoff 5y ago

pretty much all search engines do this to provide location based results, nobody stops you from Denying such request, but it seems quite stupid to pick up on one service when many other services do the same thing edit: my bad, seems major search engines don't ask for location, but I remember seeing this request way too often on many sites to consider it something unusual to complain about specifically at this site

Hitton 5y ago
Neither Google, Bing, DDG or Yandex does it. They probably get rough location from GeoIP. If you use private browsing, this is extremely annoying, every session you have to click "block".
- kazinator 5y ago
  > If you use private browsing, this is extremely annoying, every session you have to click "block". I just verified that if, in Firefox, you checkbox "[x] Block new requests asking to access your location" in the location settings, then a private window inherit this; and the popup no longer appears. For some reason, the per-site blocking is not inherited by the private windows. Maybe it's considered an unacceptable info leak or something. Or possibly it might be this: the individual per-site location setting can be positive or negative (accept or deny). If the settings as such were inherited by a private window, that would be bad because if any accepts are present, they conflict with the concept of a private window. Maybe if the private windows just inherited the deny entries, that would be reasonable; could be nobody has bothered coding that up, thinking that users who are bothered about location can just use the global switch.

boesboes 5y ago

So what do you use for a search engine?

kazinator 5y ago

> My point is that trying to get this information by default is a bad sign. Suppose we want to create a search site that can use location info (for some entirely legit purpose), but we don't ask by default. That implies it must be an opt-in user preference. To maintain a user preference, we have to create a tracking profile for the user. That's "evil" too, oops, and there will be a cookie pop-up. Say we are already doing that; we have various preferences. Why would we complicate them by adding a location preference, if that preference is already handled in the user's browser? Firefox indicates right in the address bar that you denied location access to the site. I always click deny on these requests, but if I had to code it, I probably wouldn't do it differently.

Nextgrid 5y ago
You can store the preference in a “location_optin” cookie which can only be false or true and ask the browser for location only if it’s set to True. This is not tracking and would not even require a consent prompt for GDPR purposes.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
It shouldn't ask for location by default, but offer a toggle in the UI to enable local searches, which when enabled would ask for it. This way, it won't annoy the user for their location every time they search in a private window.