
While mobile users have been able to rely on Google Maps to pinpoint their locations for some time, starting today Google Chrome 2.0 and Mozilla FireFox 3.5 users will also be able to locate their positions from their browsers.

To use My Location for Google Maps, just look for and click on the small blue circle in the upper lefthand corner of maps (above the street view man icon and below the compass). Google Maps should then find and place your approximate location using the W3C Geolocation API.

The first time you activate My Location, your browser will display a security message, asking you whether you wish to share your location with Google Maps. If you deny this request, your location isn't shared with Google Maps and the My Location feature won't be activated. If you accept, your browser will try to determine your location.


If you don't have Chrome or Firefox installed (or another browser with the latest version of Gears), the company says it will add more browsers "soon."

I gave it a shot on Firefox, and it took three times for Google to pinpoint me. The first two attempts failed entirely. Let us know if you fare better, and how accurate the service was in rendering your location, in the comments.

The Blue Circle Comes to Your Desktop [Google Lat Long Blog via Gizmodo]