geolocation showing wrong location in google map

Question

When I use http://html5demos.com/geo to locate myself, it shows wrong location(wrong city) in FF and chrome. Any reason why this is happening

Answer 1

I had the same problem using Chrome on Windows, but I got it to work, at least some of the time.

I was also using the example http://html5demos.com/geo

The location was not just inaccurate, it was also in the wrong city.

I tried the same example on my iPad (Safari) and there the location was correct. My iPad is using the same WiFi network as my PC, so I then knew it was not a problem with my ISP returning the wrong location, it was to do with the browser on my PC.

I got it to show the correct location in Chrome by going into the Chrome settings and clearing the cache and cookies.

It wasn't sufficient to just select in Chrome "Tools/Clear Browsing Data/Cookies & Cache", it was only after in Chrome I selected "Settings/Privacy/Content Settings/All Cookies and Site Data" and deleting all cookies, did the example show the correct location.

Update 1: I tried the same geolocation example the next day, and to my annoyance it was again showing the wrong city. I tried to get it to work by clearing the Chrome settings as described above and this time this solution didn't work. However, when I used the application CCleaner and selected Cleaner/Applications and cleared all of the Chrome data (internet cache, internet history, cookies and session) the geo example showed the correct location. I'm using the latest version of Chrome. Hopefully in future versions it will work more consistently.

Update 2: I tried the procedure above at a later date and couldn't get it to produce the correct location at all. It could be that the geolocation is now returning the location of my internet service provider, rather than my location, using my IP and Google Location Services. Of course this location is fairly useless. The reason why my iPad is returning the correct location is probably because it contains an inbuilt GPS. The iPad 3G / 4G have a GPS chip built in to the GSM receiver chip, whereas WiFi only models have no GPS. When 'location services' are switched off in the iPad settings, location via both GPS and IP are switched off. It would be useful just to be able to switch off the GPS on my iPad and just use IP location, but I'm not sure if that is possible.

Update 3. As I mentioned, I'm using a WiFi stick in my PC. I have noticed that when I look at the available WiFi networks (with View Available Wireless Networks) and mine is the only network, the geolocation example returns a location in a different city, but if any of my neighbours have a WiFi network in range of my PC, the geolocation example returns my exact location, to within a few metres. i.e. the geolocation in the browser is clever enough to use this extra information to locate me.

(I think the other answers to this question completely on the wrong track. The questioner states that the location was being shown in the wrong city, so the question is not to do with the location accuracy)