So…this might be a stupid question, but I was testing a social media analysis program on VPN and despite the VPN being set for a different geographical location, it showed the time zone currently displayed on the phone (which wasn’t updated to current time due to being on airplane mode from travel but still).
Can someone please help me understand why VPN’s don’t seem to override the location/gps functions of a phone. I’m not sure I understand it.
Thank you!
The VPN itself works, but your browser and apps pass along all sorts of information to the servers they access, often things like time zone, screen resolution, browser/app version, etc. etc.
You’re correct. VPNs do not override the location/gps functions of a phone.
VPNs only change your apparent IP address. This is often used to geolocate when no other location information is available.
If your phone knows its location from something aside from its IP address - eg. GPS - and you have location services enabled and switched on for your app, then your phone is going to tell the app the location it thinks it’s at regardless of where your IP address is.
VPNs really do work, but if your phone is set up to tell an app where you really are then it’s going to know.