Why does FireFox think I'm in Canada?
So I recently got a new laptop (a Thinkpad P72) at work and so I installed the latest version of FireFox on it (this PC also has MS Edge, IE and Chrome installed on it). After using it for a bit I started to notice that every site I went to was displaying the Canadian version of that site for me despite living in the US and I'm dumbfounded as to why. Even the IT department at my job has no idea what's causing this as there isn't any kind of VPN or anything of that nature at play here. Part of what makes this so confusing is that FireFox is the only thing on my PC that seems to think I'm in Canada (specifically Toronto, Canada). Chrome, IE, Edge and literally everything else on this PC recognizes that I'm in the US.
For what I do at my job this is something of a non-issue but I like to browse the web on my lunch break and so this issue is endlessly frustrating in that regard especially since I vastly prefer FireFox over all other web browsers. I don't have this problem on my PC at home despite being logged into the same FireFox Account. I've done a quick Google search and it appears that this issue isn't entirely uncommon but I'm yet to find a solution that works for me so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Solución elegida
FredMcD said
What do these websites say about your location? http://whatismyipaddress.com/ Under the map, look for Location Not Accurate? http://browserleaks.com/geo https://whatismyipaddress.com/geolocation https://html5demos.com/geo/
cor-el said
You can use websites like these to see how your location is reported via a reverse DNS look up of your IP:
So browser leaks and html5demos both got my location right and those were the only two that asked me to Allow or Don't Allow access to my location. The rest of those links showed me as being in Canada.
WestEnd said
Did you get the right version of firefox and if so where did you download it from? And how are you verifying your location as opposed to what firefox is saying?
Here's the link I went to: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ I'm mostly getting it through various sites I'm visiting. Google is giving me Canadian Google and some online retailers are giving me the Canadian versions of those retailers (price tags with CA in front of them and such).
So this seems to have worked (https://yandex.com/support/common/browsers-settings/geo-firefox.html): Configure access settings for all sites
Enter the command about:config in the browser's address bar. In the window that appears, click I'll be careful, I promise!. Enter geo.enabled in the Search line.
I then right clicked on geo.enabled and set the value to false. This immediately fixed my problem. I'm back to getting US Google and US currency at online retailers and such.
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Did you get the right version of firefox and if so where did you download it from? And how are you verifying your location as opposed to what firefox is saying?
Hello thepenguin55,
This must be annoying ....
Just in case this happens when you use Google search only - would you try this please :
https://www.google.nl/preferences?hl=en-NL&fg=1
Scroll down to "Region Settings" and make sure that the right region is checked.
If you had to change it, then don't forget to click the blue "Save" button at the bottom of the page .....
When this setting is incorrect, it doesn't seem to matter in (some) other browsers, hence my suggestion to check this.
What do these websites say about your location?
http://whatismyipaddress.com/ Under the map, look for Location Not Accurate?
You can use websites like these to see how your location is reported via a reverse DNS look up of your IP:
Solución elegida
FredMcD said
What do these websites say about your location? http://whatismyipaddress.com/ Under the map, look for Location Not Accurate? http://browserleaks.com/geo https://whatismyipaddress.com/geolocation https://html5demos.com/geo/
cor-el said
You can use websites like these to see how your location is reported via a reverse DNS look up of your IP:
So browser leaks and html5demos both got my location right and those were the only two that asked me to Allow or Don't Allow access to my location. The rest of those links showed me as being in Canada.
WestEnd said
Did you get the right version of firefox and if so where did you download it from? And how are you verifying your location as opposed to what firefox is saying?
Here's the link I went to: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ I'm mostly getting it through various sites I'm visiting. Google is giving me Canadian Google and some online retailers are giving me the Canadian versions of those retailers (price tags with CA in front of them and such).
So this seems to have worked (https://yandex.com/support/common/browsers-settings/geo-firefox.html): Configure access settings for all sites
Enter the command about:config in the browser's address bar. In the window that appears, click I'll be careful, I promise!. Enter geo.enabled in the Search line.
I then right clicked on geo.enabled and set the value to false. This immediately fixed my problem. I'm back to getting US Google and US currency at online retailers and such.
Modificadas por thepenguin55 el
It seems that you have solved your issue, I will mark that as the solution, please feel free to change it if that is not correct.
thepenguin55 said
Here's the link I went to: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
To make sure you get Firefox in the locale you want (say en-US) get it from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/
The Canadian English (en-CA) locale was added as of Fx 62.0
Note that this isn't about the Firefox user interface code, but about how the website detects your location, either via a reverse DNS lookup or by using a geo location service. Some Geo location services do not have a database that is detailed enough and fall back to only the first part of the IP and thus are likely off You can considerably.
Modificadas por cor-el el
Okay, it turns out that this didn't really solve anything. Now what happens is it'll sometimes read the site just fine but it'll sometimes take me to the Canadian site still. This is maddening. This shouldn't be so difficult.