Every time a website asked for your location on Chrome for Android, it was a binary call: hand over your exact GPS coordinates, or share nothing at all. That’s changing. Google just officially rolled out approximate location sharing, giving Chrome Android location sharing a third option that sits neatly between full access and none.
When a site asks for your location now, you’ll see two choices in the permission prompt: Precise (your exact coordinates) and Approximate (your general neighborhood). Pick Approximate and the site gets a rough area, not a pin on your street.
What This Actually Changes for Websites
The distinction matters more than it sounds. Plenty of websites ask for location when they don’t actually need to know exactly where you are. Checking local weather, browsing nearby news, or pulling up regional store hours — none of that needs your GPS coordinates. With Chrome’s screen sharing privacy upgrade and now this, Google has been quietly tightening what websites can pull from your phone.
For cases where precision actually matters, like ordering delivery or finding the closest ATM, you can still hand over your exact location. Your call, every time a site asks.
Google is also building new APIs so developers can specify which type of location their site actually needs. The idea is to stop sites from requesting maximum access by default. The feature is live on Chrome for Android now, and desktop Chrome will follow in the coming months, according to Google.
Android has offered precise vs. approximate location at the app level since Android 12. Websites are a different layer, though, and Chrome hadn’t extended that same granular Chrome Android location sharing control to individual sites until now. Better late than never.
