Using Dell GPS in FireFox 3.5, not Google/Skyhookwireless

Question

I want to make sure FireFox is using my local GPS on my machine (Dell Mini-10) for Location Aware browsing, not Google wi-fi triangulation services.

How would one make sure FireFox is using the GPS? To use GPS a driver or browser plugin (Loki?) I assume is needed to talk locally with Firefox and local hardware. Firefox config would need to be modified to point to a local URI?

1) type about:config in FireFox address line, 2) filter by "geo" and you will see:

• List item geo.enabled;true geo.wifi.uri;https://www.google.com/loc/json

The "will it work" test would be working FireFox offline, and having a good GPS signal in the middle of nowhere (no wi-fi, radio turn off), Firefox should be able to report your GPS location.

How to?

Answer 1

Currently Firefox only uses the Google geolocation service to translate WiFi IDs and IP addresses into latitude and longitude coordinates, it doesn't support attached GPS.

It might be that Firefox will one day support multiple location providers including your own GPS or, since Firefox is open source, you could even write that code yourself. Also, the Location Platform on Windows 7 provides support for external GPS, so it may be that Internet Explorer or Firefox will one day use that Location Platform for W3C Geolocation requests. But neither can be configured to use your GPS today.