We have all experienced it: you click a link to read a local news article or find a restaurant menu, and immediately a popup appears in the top-left corner of your browser: “This website wants to know your location.”
While sharing your location is useful for mapping apps and delivery services, constantly being asked by random blogs and retail websites is annoying and feels like a privacy invasion.
Fortunately, you can use Google Chrome’s settings to manage these permissions, block specific sites, or disable location requests entirely.
How to Stop All Location Requests
If you never want a website to ask for your location ever again, you can turn the feature off completely. When a site tries to ask, Chrome will automatically block it silently in the background.
- Open Google Chrome on your computer.
- Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner, then select Settings.
- On the left-hand sidebar, click on Privacy and security.
- Click on Site Settings.
- Scroll down to the “Permissions” section and click on Location.
- Under the “Default behavior” section, select the bubble next to Don’t allow sites to see your location.
You will no longer receive location popups. If a website absolutely needs your location to function (like Google Maps), you will have to manually grant it permission using the method below.
How to Revoke Location Access for a Specific Site
Perhaps you accidentally clicked “Allow” when a weather website asked for your location, and now you want to revoke that permission. You don’t have to block the entire internet to fix one mistake.
- Go back to the Location settings menu (Settings > Privacy and security > Site Settings > Location).
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you will see two lists: Not allowed to see your location and Allowed to see your location.
- Look through the “Allowed” list until you find the website you want to restrict (e.g.,
https://weather.com). - Click the Trash can icon next to the website’s name.
This instantly deletes the site’s permission to track you. The next time you visit that website, it will be forced to ask you for permission all over again.
The Fast Shortcut for the Current Website
If you are currently on a website and you want to instantly check or change its location permissions without digging through menus, look at the address bar at the top of Chrome.
Click on the small Lock icon (or the Settings icon) sitting immediately to the left of the website URL (e.g., https://). A small drop-down menu will appear showing the permissions for that specific site. You can toggle the Location switch on or off directly from this menu.