Is there a way of detecting whether a user has already given permission to use navigator.geolocation?

Question

Apart from setting a cookie the first time round, is there a way of detecting whether a user has already given permission for navigator.geolocation to return the lat/long of

Answer 1

According to the spec, no - there's just the three methods on navigator.geolocation. However saving to a cookie or local storage is probably perfectly suitable - the permission is also stored in the user agent, so it should work correctly as the user moves between browsers.

Answer 2

Please see this answer on how to do it using the Permissions API: Check if Geolocation was allowed and get Lat Lon

Works without prompting the user if permission was granted previously.

Answer 3

What about using localStorage which should be supported by all html5 browsers (that support geoLocation)

if (navigator.geolocation) {
    navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(successFunction, errorFunction);
} 
//Get latitude and longitude;
function successFunction(position) {
    var lat = position.coords.latitude;
    var long = position.coords.longitude;

    localStorage['authorizedGeoLocation'] = 1;
}

function errorFunction(){
    localStorage['authorizedGeoLocation'] = 0;
}

function checkauthorizedGeoLocation(){ // you can use this function to know if geoLocation was previously allowed
    if(typeof localStorage['authorizedGeoLocation'] == "undefined" || localStorage['authorizedGeoLocation'] == "0" ) 
        return false;
    else 
        return true;
}

And then you check using the below function :

alert(checkauthorizedGeoLocation());

This is the jsfiddle if you need to check