Mobile Firefox will support geolocation

There's an old online real-estate joke with the punchline "Geolocation, geolocation, geolocation," and we've gotten word that geolocation will be supported out of the box with the Firefox mobile browser, aka Fennec.

Firefox will use Google Location Service and while it won't require an add-on to make it functional, it will ask your permission before giving your location to a Web site. (If you've ever used an iPhone or iPod Touch, you're used to this. But in Firefox's case, permission will be asked in a drop-down dialog box as seen above, and not in an obtrusive modal box.)

Triangulation will take place using GPS, WiFi, cell tower or manual entry, and geolocation also will be included in the upcoming Firefox 3.5 desktop browser.

From Mozilla's Doug Turner:

We are happy to announce that Firefox 3.5 and Fennec will be using Google Location Service. We found that we agreed on the many privacy concerns around location. Do check out Mozilla’s privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy. I am pretty excited about these policies I think they are going to be the industry standard when it comes to network based geolocation providers.

Doug does an excellent job of explaining the technical details of it all, including privacy concerns, on his blog, and Google's got more tech specs on its end. And speaking of Firefox/Fennec, there's a new alpha build available (HTC Touch Pro only, folks) that can now render pages, say some testers. Give it a shot, but be sure to back up your phone first.