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My location online doesn't match the Windscribe server location

Many online services will determine your location using an IP-location database. They will search for the IP address you are using and assume you are in the location that corresponds to that IP in their database.

In some cases though, you might see that a website or app is not identifying you in the Windscribe location that you selected. There could be a couple of reasons for this.

Location Services are enabled in your browser or on your mobile device
Many apps and websites will use the browser's or mobile device's built-in Location Service utility. This utility can accurately determine where you are in the world without the need for an IP-location database, causing you to appear in a different place than what you selected in the Windscribe app.
You can fix this using a couple of different methods:

  • You will be prompted by the website or app to give it Location permissions. If you deny this permission, the app/website will then likely find your location using the IP address you are connected with
  • You can also spoof your location for the Location Services utility using the Windscribe browser extension or the Windscribe Android app
    • In the Windscribe extension, go to Preferences > Privacy and enable Location Warp. This will let you use Location Services in the browser but it will match the Windscribe location you select
    • In the Windscribe Android app, you can go to Preferences > Connection and enable GPS Spoofing.
    • Unfortunately Apple does not allow us to spoof the GPS location on iOS so the best option there is to disable Location Services

The IP-location database info is wrong
IP addresses are constantly moving around as they are sold and transferred. This means that IP-location databases will sometimes have inaccurate information leading to websites and apps identifying you in the wrong place.
Unfortunately, Windscribe cannot fix issues like this as we have no control over those IP-location databases. However, here's what you can try to get around the problem:

  • Connect to another server in a nearby location. Most online services only look at location on a country-wide basis so connecting to other servers in that country can produce more accurate location results on the website/app
  • If the website/app supports Location Services, you can enable that utility for your mobile device/browser and use Windscribe's Location Warp (browser extension) or GPS Spoofing (Android app) features to move that location to the one you selected in Windscribe.

It's important to note that all of Windscribe's servers (with the exception of Fake Antarctica) are physically located exactly where we claim they are. We don't use virtual locations or register IPs in different places than where we claim.
If a website or service incorrectly identifies that the IP is somewhere else, it's sadly out of our hands. It's up to the website to accurately determine the IP's location.

You can use a website like https://www.iplocation.net/ to do an IP location lookup and get results from several popular IP-location database services.
You can also use a site like https://www.arin.net/ to do an IP WHOIS lookup which will show you the actual registration details for that IP, including where it is located.

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