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I have Waterfox configured to delete cookies every time the browser is closed. I find it unsettling that Weather.com seems to know my location even after their cookies have been deleted. What up with that?!

SnowyPlover
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    Storing your last-known location & getting your current location are two entirely different things. – Tetsujin Jan 08 '18 at 19:09
  • They can simply guess, based on your current whatever the current you are connected to on your ISP or cell tower. Plus, like @Tetsujin said, they can simply store your last known location for your login. They can do the same based on MAC address or browser "fingerprint" (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23827319/unique-web-browser-identification-id-for-web-control-panel-logins-in-perl). – computercarguy Jan 08 '18 at 19:28
  • the real question is, if you go somewhere else, does it still think you were where you were last? if so its remembering. if not it using network based location detection, like geo-ip. – Frank Thomas Jan 08 '18 at 20:13

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Your location can be determined through a number of ways, not only GPS. The first time a website wants to figure that out, it can't assume that you have any cookies stored in your browser, so it can't rely on that anyways. Deleting them therefore won't help.

One possibility that is used commonly is GeoIP. You can lookup some of the results of using GeoIP online yourself, using, for example, this website: https://geoiptool.com/

Essentially, the IP address that you get assigned often depends on where you are connecting to the internet. GeoIP uses a big database that maps IP address ranges to a certain region. weather.com can then go to one of those databases, lookup your IP and get the region.

However, this is a lot less accurate than GPS, depending on the quality of the database.

If you want to avoid that from happening, I recommend using a VPN service. This is a way to hide you actual IP address and use the one of someone else, typically in a different region then yours.

radschapur
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These answers don't seem to understand what is actually happening. I have encountered the same phenomenon as the OP. The question is not about the website guessing your current location, it's about the website remembering locations that you have looked up in the past, even after deleting the site's cookies from your browser.

For example, I have looked up weather in a disparate of handful locations over the past several months, including cities in North America and Europe. When I have looked up my weather in my home town I have used the site's search bar at times to search simply by name and the exact zip code of interest. The site saves "locations you care about" and every time you visit the site these are listed along a banner near the top of the screen. All of these locations continue to be displayed when I visit the site, including my home town--listed both by name and then again by zip code. Deleting cookies does not clear out this information.

So, now that the question is better understood, the answer to the question is that weather.com does not use regular cookies to store this information. Instead, it uses Local Shared Objects, aka flash cookies.

You can use this link to review your flash settings.

random_string
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