Google announced that “you can now choose to share your approximate location with websites, instead of sharing precise location” on Chrome for Android.
Thank you for the article, but I can’t help but feel your knowledge of iOS is somewhat lacking.
Both iOS and Android have supported approximate location at the OS level for a while. However, browsers strangely lack this feature.
As far as I can see, all browsers on iOS have long had this feature, with “Precise Location” being something you can toggle for every app in the OS settings (Privacy & Security/Location Services), including browsers. I have it toggled off for all browsers.
I just tested it again with both Orion and Firefox Focus, and both show my approximate location on maps websites. The dialog above the browser (if you chose “ask next time” like me) also provides a “Precise” toggle allowing you to override the browser default when particular websites prompt you.
I’d like to see the article updated to reflect this.
For apps, yes. But for websites, you can’t choose to only give approximate location, only a binary allow/deny.
It’s true you can choose to give the browser itself approximate location but that would then apply to all websites.
That dialog box with precise location overrides the permission for the entire browser, so if you just want to give it to Google Maps or something then you really can’t.
Maybe I could’ve worded the article better, I meant that browsers don’t have the same approximate location feature that the OS has, a website is to the browser what an app is to the OS.