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New Firefox knows your location
Mozilla released its Firefox 3.5 browser today, and one of the more interesting new capabilities is "location-aware browsing." The feature, which will be familiar to iPhone users, determines the computer's location and asks permission to share it with sites that use it to enhance the functionality of online applications.
The feature grew out of ongoing efforts to bring Firefox to mobile devices. Mozilla decided that it made sense to include geolocation functionality in its PC-based browser, as well. It uses the IP address and wifi signals to determine location, by default, but it also could work with GPS, which is starting to appear in more mobile computers.
Obvious applications include mapping and online directions, but Mozilla officials say they're looking forward to seeing what web developers do now that the feature is available. For example, Mozilla director Mike Beltzner cited the possibility of new online games that would use a person's location to assign "quests" to find nearby objects.
"You can start to meld the physical and online worlds in some pretty interesting ways," Beltzner said.
Addressing privacy concerns, the browser asks the user's permission before sharing location with a site. But in case you're not as enamored with the feature as Beltzner is, this page describes how to disable it.
See more on Firefox 3.5's features in these detailed release notes.
About Todd Bishop
Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle.
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