Google search results suddenly US based rather than UK - EE

[Gad-Westy]

Strange issue.

Our home 'broadband' is a EE 4G Sim in a Huwaei 4G router, wifi via unifi AP's.

I noticed that my PC laptop is now defaulting to giving me US google results rather than UK. This is also happening on our macbook. Both connected to wifi. It des not seem to be all the time though. Phones are fine via their own 4G.

I can get around the issue using VPN but any ideas on the cause of this?

[V8RAW]

The only thing I can think of is the public IP address you have been assigned by the ISP is registered in the USA.

Maybe the ISP has grabbed a new range from somewhere on not registered it correctly yet.

Check the registration here https://whatismyipaddress.com/

[Gad-Westy]

Cheers. Right now, google is working fine and that link says I'm connected to Edinburgh. I'll try it again if it starts giving me US results again.

[geeks]

Are you sure you didn't go to google.com rather than google.co.uk?

As an aside I have the same setup and everything is working as it should.

[Gad-Westy]

geeks said:

Are you sure you didn't go to google.com rather than google.co.uk?

As an aside I have the same setup and everything is working as it should.

When it started, I did wonder if I'd done something silly like that but it was the other half who tried it on the macbook and reported the same issue. Has been fine for over a year until now. I don't think we have changed anything at this end.

[donkmeister]

V8RAW said:

The only thing I can think of is the public IP address you have been assigned by the ISP is registered in the USA.

Maybe the ISP has grabbed a new range from somewhere on not registered it correctly yet.

Check the registration here https://whatismyipaddress.com/

This is surprisingly common in this era of widespread VPN use. A lot of people will use a VPN to place them in Country X, but they leave location services on and agree to every cookie going, so the internet knows they are really in Country Y. Which means some IP location services will show them in Country X, some in Country Y. I frequently check my "location" and have even had my country change without my IP changing.

Also, I have noticed since Russia started clamping down on Russian media sources, Google increasingly defaults to Russian when tunneling to certain countries, indicating that Russian folk are tunneling to those countries to access non-russian news sources... Hopefully to get honest news, but equally could be bot farms (although you would think they would take greater care to obscure the fact they are in Russia!)

[Gad-Westy]

donkmeister said:

V8RAW said:

The only thing I can think of is the public IP address you have been assigned by the ISP is registered in the USA.

Maybe the ISP has grabbed a new range from somewhere on not registered it correctly yet.

Check the registration here https://whatismyipaddress.com/

This is surprisingly common in this era of widespread VPN use. A lot of people will use a VPN to place them in Country X, but they leave location services on and agree to every cookie going, so the internet knows they are really in Country Y. Which means some IP location services will show them in Country X, some in Country Y. I frequently check my "location" and have even had my country change without my IP changing.

Also, I have noticed since Russia started clamping down on Russian media sources, Google increasingly defaults to Russian when tunneling to certain countries, indicating that Russian folk are tunneling to those countries to access non-russian news sources... Hopefully to get honest news, but equally could be bot farms (although you would think they would take greater care to obscure the fact they are in Russia!)

Cheers, there is definitely something odd going on. My wife noticed her phone is doing this sometimes too now when connected to wifi. And I noticed last night when watching something on youtube on one of our TV's that I was getting adverts for US only market stuff. I don't normally see Acura adverts! IP address still saying Edinburgh whenever I check.

[geeks]

You have kids? Dont suppose one of them has been tinkering with DNS or some such to try and watch US based things?

[Gad-Westy]

geeks said:

You have kids? Dont suppose one of them has been tinkering with DNS or some such to try and watch US based things?

I do have kids but they're quite young and I don't think either would know where to start with this. They do watch a lot of american ste on youtube and consequently talk southern Californian. I would not be surprised if those on the other end of the secret listening devices that world government has no doubt installed in our walls would assume we're at least half-american.