Mozilla announced last week that Firefox 3.5 and its mobile Fennec browser will support Google Location Services, the same geolocation provider behind Google Toolbar with My Location and Google Latitude.
Last October, Mozilla released Geode for Firefox 3.0. Geode is a plug-in that hooks into the desktop browser, and if you opt-in, uses Skyhook Wireless-provided Wi-Fi location technology to find you. With the release of Firefox 3.1, Mozilla decided to enable support for the W3C Geolocation Specification, but left it up to third-party developers to create plug-ins to enable geolocation. However, the company found that unless enough Firefox users downloaded these plug-ins, web developers had no incentive to create websites that utilized the geolocation features. And that’s where the Google partnership came in. No more chicken-and-egg problem.
From a user perspective, Firefox 3.5 won’t locate you unless you opt-in. And you’ll be asked to do so every time a website wants to find you. As more end users become comfortable with desktop geolocation, more developers will create location-enabled web services. The thinking is that eventually the content you find and use on the web will become increasingly relevant as your location becomes a parameter for its delivery. While I think that over time people will become more comfortable with location. It seems though, at the moment, that there are more web users concerned about privacy than actually seeing the usefulness of location.
In any case, you can download Firefox 3.5, beta 4 right now.