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Every computer/tablet in the house thinks it is located in the UK when our home is in the US

We leave in a month for 3 weeks in the UK and we have had the internet taken over by the UK from our home in the US. I have been researching our trip for many months now, but the last couple weeks I am basically done. My children are so annoyed and I am more than annoyed because I can’t google anything without it being related to the UK-store, prices, products. Try finding an air conditioning repair guy in the us when all it will do is search the uk. You basically need the name of the store you want and put that into Google. This happened a couple months ago when I was deep into my reservation of activities, we unplugged and replugged the router and “fixed it”. We all laughed I was doing too much research. This week no such fix. We left unplugged for an hour on two different days. All our locations on devices say in the US or they refuse to update. I found this for a UK person whose computer thinks they are in the US and did what it said but it didn’t work. - https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/314157470/i-am-in-uk-google-has-switched-to-be-usa?hl=en Any ideas? I have been deep into research for this trip even down to restaurants because of food allergies and that being the most difficult decision when you are hangry. Last week the only thing I did was book blackberrycars for our ride from London the Heathrow for plane home. I have to reserve Westminster when September opens. Any ideas on what to try to get our devices “back” to the USA?

Posted by
8702 posts

Do you have a VPN? If so, select a server in the US.

Otherwise, go into your history, delete all activity, erase all cookies, basically eliminate any search history.

Posted by
1978 posts

Are you using a VPN? Perhaps you set it to make it appear that you’re in the UK to make some purchases?

Posted by
235 posts

We do not have a VPN. I am the only one searching the UK but there are 3 other people’s devices all think they are in the UK and the uk has never been researched at all on their devices. I did clear all history on mine.

Posted by
868 posts

weird, really weird!

I'm in UK and this past week or so my default google.co.uk has been resetting to google.com - hard to tell what difference it makes since google results have become increasingly less useful over the past few years.

If all your devices are wi-fi then your router was an obvious suspect but you say you tried rebooting it. I wonder whether there is anything in the settings of that which will survive reboooting?

The only thing I can think of which doesn't seem to have been tried is get an outsider to bring a device into your home and connect to your wi-fi - or take one of your devices to another location and use wi-fi there - and see if these symptoms are consistent.

Posted by
23216 posts

I have the opposite issue. I live in Hungary and fight to keep US relevant content on my computer. But I think clearing the cashe will fix it for you. If not you may have to send it to a re-education camp.

Posted by
978 posts

To be sure, don't just clear cache, clear cookies, forms, etc., as well.

Probably this is what everyone else means also, but these are separate settings
in the browser clear form, so just in case you are reading this (too) literally...

You should do this for every browser product on each computer.

If that somehow doesn't work, try uninstalling the browser product(s) and then reinstall
it. Just be sure to save your bookmarks to a separate file and put them back in
when you have the new browser.

Seems unlikely, but perhaps you have some malware that crept in from one of the sites
you visited? If all the devices are on the same network, that might explain why all of them
seem to exhibit the same behavior.

I would be a bit leery of doing much financial stuff on your devices until you've eliminated
the malware possibility.

Posted by
2980 posts

You also can have your devices set to not communicate to each other through the cloud and work independently of each other.

Posted by
23216 posts

Nigel, thats because you are operating the mouse on the wrong side of the screen.

Posted by
235 posts

So clearing the history within the safari setting is not cleaning the cache? Where are the separate settings in the browser clear form? Google and I have been unable to figure this out. My Google.com page says United Kingdom down at the bottom in the grey space. Even when the location under settings after I change to United States. My daughter has decided that it is the IP address and only Comcast’s can fix it. Only link I have clicked in last two weeks was ironically from this website as I try to do everything on my own search in case of picking something up.

Posted by
978 posts

OK, I don't use Safari, but in Chrome, when you get to "delete browsing data", there
are separate tick boxes for: Browsing history, download history, cookies, cached images
and files, passwords, autofill form data, site settings, and hosted web data. 8 in all.

If you are somehow routing through a UK IP address, then you are, either explicitly
or unknowingly, using a VPN-like mechanism. Comcast cannot fix this in their network,
although they may have some kind of tech support than can help diagnose. Their norm
is to send all traffic into their own DNS/DHCP routers which route the traffic to the destination
sites.

Have you tried a different network, different browser, etc.? Take the device and go to
the library and see what happens there, for example. Download a new browser (not
Safari, but Firefox or Opera or something you've never used before) and see what
you get.

Trying to diagnose a problem when none of us can actually see what's going on is
never easy. I can only suggest you experiment with different configurations and tools
and see if you can isolate the issue down to one culprit.

Posted by
235 posts

Thanks for all the input, I cannot clear more than that on safari and this last time, it didn't clear anything so who knows. I will be going to a family members house later today and will try and see what happens on a different network, which has been used before. Google is being less than helpful and just thought someone might have had this problem before. We also have the most random, off the wall, stuff happen to us- I guess this gets added to the list. People always say I have never heard of that happening before, yep, that is me.

Posted by
2118 posts

How to Fix It
1. Check VPN or Proxy
If you use a VPN, disconnect or switch to a U.S. server.

Check Windows: Settings > Network & Internet > VPN

  1. Adjust Windows Region Settings
    Go to Settings > Time & Language > Region Set Country or region to United States

  2. Set Time Zone
    Same menu, then under “Date & Time” set to Eastern Time (US & Canada)

  3. Check Browser Location
    Google Chrome: Go to google.com/preferences and change region to United States

Clear cookies and cache—sometimes websites hold on to old location info.

  1. Reset Location Services Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Turn it off and then back on to re-ping location accuracy
Posted by
2980 posts

Under the History menu, assuming you are in Safari on a MAC computer, all the way down is "Clear History..." When there, selections on the dropdown include "Clear All History", which will also empty your cache and cookies. Under Safari preferences, go to General, set your homepage as whatever you wish, if Google, make sure it is simply https://google.com/. Similar applies to other devices.

Posted by
2118 posts

Lastly, turn your wi-fi router off and restart it. Somebody in your house has chosen the wrong setting.

Posted by
418 posts

First of all, where is your internet coming from? Is it from a coax cable or fibre optic cable connected to a vendor supplied modem? If so, it sounds like your modem is assigning your account to an IP in London. If so, your wifi router has no choice but to use that IP address. Your computers and browsers can't change that IP address. Messing with your router or web browsers will do nothing. If a friend hooks up to your wifi, their browser will send requests to the web which will be coming from that same IP address.
If there's a cable modem, turn it off for 1/2 hour minimum, turn it back on and check again. You may now have a new IP address assigned by the provider.

Is your internet coming from a cellular network box which receives 5G, and then provides wifi or ethernet output? If so, ask the supplier of that box.

What are all these "devices"? Laptops, phones, tablets? Assuming at least one of them is a cellphone, can you shut off wifi, and get internet from your cell network? If so, you will then be getting a different IP address.

To learn more, you can visit a site which measures up/download speeds, like
Speedtest by Ookla

It will tell you your IP address, and where is coming from.

I have an esim from Roamless, which I use for international traveling. If I connect to a cell tower here in Michigan with that esim, my IP address then becomes one from London. Maybe Roamless is working like your provider is working now.
EDIT: I just tried it again with the Roamless esim, and now it says I'm in Washington, D.C.! Who knows!

Posted by
456 posts

I had a similar problem a couple years ago after planning a trip to Spain. I used Firefox, DuckDuckGo search, and google maps, and after some time of planning, my computer decided I was Spanish. All searches for anything, even local stuff, came back in Spanish. Google maps was all in Spanish. I can’t remember what I did but it eventually reverted. I know I looked online for a solution and there wasn’t a good one.

Maybe best to use the vpn when doing trip research in the future?

Posted by
6181 posts

Thanks for all the input, I cannot clear more than that on safari and this last time

If you are using safari, have you checked your location services setting for the safari browser? (Check settings > privacy & security > location services > safari)

I have location services turned on and safari set to “while using”

Posted by
418 posts

I think a big question is (and I don't know the answer), How does your browser know your location? The answer might be:

  1. The browser get location info from the laptop or phone. In which case settings in Windows or Android determine if location is active, and which apps are allowed to use location. I don't think this is your problem, because I can't see ALL your devices having location settings all changed at once.

  2. The browser and/or search engine uses the IP address of the device (which would be the same for all of your devices using your wifi). In which case the search engine resolves the IP address to a location.

There are many search engines. For privacy, I either use DuckDuckGo, or Startpage, but that's just me. These search engines may have different ways of getting location, so trying other search engines may be worth trying.

Posted by
1866 posts

I had this same problem last summer. I kept getting Italian Amazon pages, Italian Wikipedia pages, etc. And I kept getting Google search results in German and Italian. It took me two weeks to figure out how to get everything back to normal. I don't remember everything I had to go through, but it took a lot more effort than simply clearing caches and cookies.

Posted by
235 posts

Well I am glad I am not the only one this happened to. I will hopefully find a solution but turning off for an extended time does not work. We clear history and reset region (it says current region and we change to United States) but google.com (yes it says just that) states at the very bottom on the left United Kingdom. Then you go look to the settings on google and it changed back to current region. It has to the the IP address and the techno person in the house hasn't been able to change it. At least it is is English, I will be screwed if it is not in English. It is Computers and tablets, usually we only use phones to search while out of the house only.