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find a good geolocation service (https) #2469

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tessus opened this issue Feb 8, 2020 · 2 comments · May be fixed by #2503
Open

find a good geolocation service (https) #2469

tessus opened this issue Feb 8, 2020 · 2 comments · May be fixed by #2503
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@tessus tessus commented Feb 8, 2020

Joplin curently uses ip-api.com (80) as the geolocation service. Additionally it uses api.ipify.org (443) to retrieve the IP address, which is then fed into ip-api.com (80).

There were reports that the geolocation service does not always provide accurate results.

This change involves 2 parts:

  • use a more accurate API, which is free and uses https
  • maybe get rid of the separate request to api.ipify.org (443)

The files involved are:

ReactNativeClient/lib/geolocation-node.js
ReactNativeClient/lib/net-utils.js
ReactNativeClient/lib/shim.js
@tessus tessus self-assigned this Feb 9, 2020
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@tessus tessus commented Feb 9, 2020

@laurent22 I've been looking into this and here are the results:

ip-api.com is actually quite precise. I suspect the person who had an issue either used a VPN or there was a glitch in the geo database. However, I'm really concerned about unencrypted traffic on port 80. To use SSL with that provider one has to buy a pro account, which we couldn't use in Joplin anyway, because the API key would be for everyone to read in the code.

I found another provider that looks promising: freegeoip.app They allow 15,000 request per hour. Thus, even if 150 people behind a company LAN were to use Joplin, they would have to create 100 new notes per hour to reach the limit. They also support SSL out of the box.

I suggest the following: A setting where people can choose between freegeoip.app (443) (default) and ip-api.com (80).
While the setting is not absolutely necessary, it makes it easier to add or replace a geo provider in the future. (e.g. the returned json uses different keys for longitude and latitude).

Please let me know what you think. I can either get this done tomorrow or on Monday.
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@tessus tessus commented Feb 13, 2020

@laurent22 what's the plan? Is it ok to create a setting for the geo location service (it would only show up, when people check the Save geo-location with notes.
tessus added a commit to tessus/joplin that referenced this issue Feb 14, 2020
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option to choose geolocation service
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tessus Helmut K. C. Tessarek
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121a648 
- freegeoip.app (443)
- ip-api.com (80)

removed unnecessary request to `api.ipify.org`

closes laurent22#2469
@tessus tessus linked a pull request that will close this issue Feb 14, 2020
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option to choose geolocation service
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