Mozilla working on a Location Service without GPS

Mozilla working on a collaborative Location Service using relays and public WiFi networks antennas. The community is called to the rescue to map the territory.

A public location Service non-intrusive and non-GPS, the project which is working right now the Mozilla Foundation. The service, which is currently in its infancy, is oriented mobile, "even if the laptops do not have a GPS also can use it to quickly calculate their approximate location" announced Monday Firefox. "If the market is crowded location, including many commercial players such as Neustar IP Intelligence, Maxmind IPligence or Google, no public alternative exists at present," says Mozilla. In addition, our position as a developer of open source software puts us in a better position to tackle the problems related to privacy, "

Free alternative to giants as Google

"On a technical level, the necessary location data will be provided by the antennas, public WiFi networks and thanks to IP addresses," said Mozilla while ensuring that the monetization of these data was not considered. As usual, the foundation should indeed offered this service to the public in open data. And Mozilla launches project with an advantage: its data access Firefox on PCs and laptops many users. The foundation uses its community to help in the realization of the service. Indeed, it is the side of the mapping that Mozilla needs help. The foundation therefore published an Android application called MozStumbler allowing users to identify networks and antennas used. To motivate his troops, Mozilla has even set up a real-time ranking of the best contributors.

Mozilla project is commendable and could offer an alternative to dependence on heavy users of the web such as Google.