I am trying to figure out how to get the user's geo-location when a request comes in after they've clicked on a link. Is there a easy way to do this in rails, also is the geo-location provided by the user's browser, or is there another way this is determined?
Thanks!
Rajinder Yadav wrote:
I am trying to figure out how to get the user's geo-location when a request comes in after they've clicked on a link. Is there a easy way to do this in rails, also is the geo-location provided by the user's browser, or is there another way this is determined?
Thanks!
-- Kind Regards, Rajinder Yadav
who can get the user geo-location using their IP-Address
I am trying to figure out how to get the user's geo-location when a request comes in after they've clicked on a link. Is there a easy way to do this in rails, also is the geo-location provided by the user's browser, or is there another way this is determined?
You might want to take a look at the html5 geolocation api ( Geolocation API ). The browser will ask the user for permission, and precision will vary - last time I checked on my machine Safari used nearby wifi signals to work out its position (which was pretty good) whereas Firefox just did an ip address thing, which was out by a hunded miles (and sometimes is completely wrong, eg if I'm travelling and using a VPN)
Fred
Hi Fred,
thanks for that info, for my use case a general location of the user, like country and possibly region or city will do!
Q: About obtaining permission from the user, this needs to be done easy time? Thanks!
That's up to the browser to decide, and you should note that not all browsers support this api yet (I'd assume IE doesn't, and only recent version of Safari/Firefox do). If you only need something very coarse then you could do an ip lookup competely server side - there are various people who provide apis for that sort of thing.
Fred
Fred, thanks I got something working right now with an IP geo lookup.