How does Google calculate my location on a desktop?

Question

Right this is confusing me quite a bit, i\'m not sure if any of you have noticed or used the \"my location\" feature on google maps using your desktop (or none GPS/none mobi

Answer 1

It is possible get your approximate locate based on your IP address (wireless or fixed).

See for example hostip.info or maxmind which basically provide a mapping from IP address to geographical coordinates. The probably use many kinds of heuristics and datasources. This kind of system has probably enough accuracy to put you in right major city, in most cases.

Google probably uses somewhat similar approach in addition to WiFi tricks.