Browser knows my location in spite of VPN due to Javascript. How to fix?

Privacy Questions
1

After a website automatically knew my timezone, I did everything I could to find out why and change it. I went onto Browserleaks.com and found all of the details mapped onto my VPN location, except for Javascript which indicated my timezone. A commenter says all Browsers will reveal timezone except LibreWolf.

I must admit to being baffled and disheartened. I have been going through quite a lot of effort to maximize my privacy, and I am unsure how Brave even knows my actual timezone since I set up VPN before I even browsed, since installing Linux. I changed my timezone in my panel, but still Browserleaks successfully revealed my actual timezone.

I used Tor via Brave which continued to reveal my timezone. Actual Tor does not. But surely I can find a way to hide my timezone without needing to use Tor?

Any solutions?

2

Are you connected via WiFi on a mobile device? Your surrounding wireless routers are likely connected to devices with location services turned on.

For maximal privacy, use only wired connections.

3

What does this mean, you changed your timezone to something fake in your Linux OS, rebooted, and Brave still showed your actual timezone anyways?

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4

Reboot did the trick. This timezone issue is definitely something I wish I came across when reading everything on this website, unless I missed it?

And I wonder if using a fake timezone on my Linux OS is the only solution. It would be nice to have the real time down there. And I suspect the discrepancy between Javascript timezone and IP address time zone would be an easy way for websites to suspect I am using VPN and block access to the site accordingly.

5

I noticed because my significant other only slightly cares about privacy (despite my nagging) and that I used my SO’s phone to look for a specific obscure/niche place near our location in Google Earth one day. Then I used my phone to just open the same area, without really typing for the same place and behold: the same obscure place that I have searched in another phone is seen in search. I did this again now in another device with another VPN and WiFi and the same obscure place was not immediately there.

There was association of place, despite me using GrapheneOS with location off and the other phone being an iPhone in the same WiFi.

6

Just quitting and relaunching Brave should’ve also worked, but reboots always make sure. You can also set the timezone in Chromium browsers on Linux with the TZ environment variable, i.e. launching Brave like:

TZ=America/New_York brave-browser

(also works for many other apps)

3 Likes
7

Just for the record: Mullvad Browser obviously also behaves like Tor. It is an alternative if you ever want something like the Tor Browser in regards to fingerprinting protection, but don’t want to use the Tor network itself.

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