14 DAY TRIAL // While building the first Beta for Firefox 3.1 codenamed Shiretoko, Mozilla already revealed that it was adding geolocation capabilities to the browser, courtesy of Doug Turner, the developer of Geolocation Services for v3.1. But ahead of Shiretoko, Mozilla Labs has made available Geode, an add-on put together by Justin Dolske and Aza Raskin, but designed to make Firefox 3.0 aware of the end user's location. Essentially, with the new capabilities, websites can determine the location of visitors using Firefox via the W3C Geolocation Specification. “Geode [is] an experimental add-on to explore geolocation in Firefox 3 ahead of the implementation of geolocation in a future product release. Geode provides an early implementation of the W3C Geolocation specification so that developers can begin experimenting with enabling location-aware experiences using Firefox 3 today, and users can tell us what they think of the experience it provides. It includes a single experimental geolocation service provider so that any computer with WiFi can get accurate positioning data,” revealed a member of the Mozilla Labs.
Of course that there are inherent privacy concerns associated with the browser letting websites know the users' exact location. In Mozilla's perspective, the browser will first of all provide notification of the websites that request geolocation information. In this context, no data will be shared without the explicit consent of end users.
“Geode and the Geolocation Services in Firefox 3.1 will use the same W3C API for Geolocation, meaning that the same Javascript code will work in both. The still-in-development Firefox 3.1 version will allow the user to choose a geolocation service provider, which can either be a peripheral device like a GPS, or a web-based service provider like we’ve used in Geode,” the Mozilla Labs representative added.
Geode is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0 can be downloaded via this link.