Mozilla Location Service (MLS) is an open service that helps various devices locate their location on this planet using non-GPS location aiding services like WiFi access points, mobile cell towers, Bluetooth beacons and more. It is a very useful for the mobile devices that do not have GPS chip and cannot locate the device using the geo-location satellite. Those devices can access the MLS database and then they also can locate themselves through the database containing the various networking services and their locations.
If you use Mozilla Firefox browser in your Android smartphone, then you can contribute to the MLS data by enabling it in the Firefox. After enabling it, your Firefox browser will send information about your WiFi access points, mobile cell towers and Bluetooth beacons that you may be using along with the accurate GPS location obtained through the satellites.
Here is how you can enable the Mozilla Location Service in Firefox on Android:
- Launch Firefox browser in Android and pull down the browser menu.
- From the Firefox menu, select Settings.
- On the settings screen, select Privacy.
- On the privacy screen, you can select and enable Mozilla Location Service.
- When Android asks for confirmation, choose Allow.
- This is it, from now on you will be contributing to the MLS database. Once enabled this data will be sent to the service anonymously. According to Mozilla, it uses only WiFi and has no impact on the smartphone battery.
For helping the Mozilla Location Service database, your smartphone must have GPS chip and you must have enabled the GPS service in your smartphone. For this you can pull down quick settings in Android and tap on the location icon. For better accuracy, you should also choose high accuracy mode for the location settings in Android. You can find more information about Mozilla Location Service by visiting https://location.services.mozilla.com/.