Hello reddit. Please help me, I cannot figure out WHY this freaking MacBook is doing this. I’m running Monterey 12.1, I use a VPN when I’m on public wifi (I travel for work), and this problem occurs randomly.
When I google something “near me” it often shows a location that is not where I currently am. I know with a VPN it will show things around the exit node, but now I am at home on my own wifi VPN off and deactivated. When I google something “near me” it shows items in the city but I live in the suburbs. It’s certainly not “near” me. When I google the same thing on my phone it shows the correct location. For what it’s worth when I open Apple Maps it shows the correct location.
I am at a loss. I’ve looked at the network settings, location settings, restarting the computer and the same issue still occurs.
Do you have iCloud Private Relay enabled? It acts kind of like a VPN. Two settings to check are:
- Safari > Preferences > Privacy > Hide IP address
- System Preferences > iCloud > Private Relay (Beta)
For what it’s worth when I open Apple Maps it shows the correct location.
Why did you assume that it’s the problem of your whole computer ? Have you ever had the idea that it could be just the problem of that web page ?
Try to open Google Map in Safari, does it show your correct location or not ?
If it’s showing correct location, then obviously it’s the problem of “Near Me”. If not, then maybe you’ve just blocked Google from accessing your location in Safari.
In case you don’t know: NONE of Apple Map, Google Map, Near Me or whatever location based application rely on your IP address. These applications will first try to acquire system’s location service, and your system detect your location using WPS, WiFi Positioning System. So if you turn off WiFi, your computer won’t be able to know your location. Your IP address will only be used as the last resort if that web page can’t acquire location information from system.
Second, you can block any application from accessing system’s location service. And inside web browsers, including Safari, Chrome, Firefox and others, you can even block one single site from accessing location service.
So the first thing you should do is checking whether you’ve blocked Safari from in System Preference > Security & Privacy > Location , then check whether you’ve blocked google.com domain in Safari Preference > Websites > Location.
Fuckin THANK YOU!! I didn’t even consider this (stupid me). I just turned it off since I use my own VPN on public wifi networks.
This was driving me INSANE I was getting so fed up with it. Thank you!!!
Why did you assume that was my assumption? It was not. I was only providing additional information stating that the problem was not with the computer as a whole.
Thank you for your suggestions although that did not fix the issue. It was Safari Private Relay causing the issue