Location Request?

Location Request? a reader asks…

I’ve noticed that lately my web browser (Google Chrome) is giving me a popup it never used to. When I visit sites, the popup asks me if I want to share my location with the website. I get that for using mapping websites like google maps and mapquest, but no other website should be asking for my location! Can I turn that off? Also, some sites I visit display an annoying popup asking me if I’ll accept notifications from them. Can I turn that off?

As web browsers have advanced, website designers have also. It’s becoming more popular to try to get more information from visitors to a website, primarily for marketing purposes. Fortunately, both those features (location and notifications) can be easily restricted from the Google Chrome Settings page. Click the ellipsis (three dots) at the top-right of your Chrome window, then click/tap Settings.

Scroll to the bottom of the Settings page and click/tap the “Show advanced settings” link. From there, look for the Privacy settings and click/tap the button “Content Settings”. That pops up a smaller window that you can scroll down to the Locations section and the Notifications section directly underneath.

They are both set by default to ask you every time a website wants to track your physical location and when they want to show you notifications. You can change this by clicking on the next radio button beneath, “Do not allow…” and do this for both of them. Notice there is a Manage Exceptions button. Click/tap that and you can add or remove specific websites where you want your physical location tracked (such as mapping sites), or where you want to see notifications from that website.

An example of the latter would be your favorite news website, where you want to be notified of breaking news. If you’re not sure of the exact URL to add to your exceptions list, visit that website and copy the URL, then paste it into your exceptions list.