Subject: Re: bug#35746: IceCat/Chromium timezone is wrong

From: Ben Sturmfels <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 23:43:58 +1000

On Fri, 17 May 2019, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

> Hi Ben,
>
> Ben Sturmfels <[email-masked]> skribis:
>
>> Possibly completely unrelated, but noting that both icecat and chromium
>> do this - which is wrong:
>>
>>> new Date().getTimezoneOffset()
>> 0
>>
>> Where node does this - which is correct:
>>
>>> new Date().getTimezoneOffset()
>> -600
>
> I noticed it in IceCat and thought it might be a privacy feature.
> But maybe it’s a genuine bug?
>
> Ludo’.

This does appear to be a privacy feature. To report the correct timezone offset, go to  "about:config" and disable "privacy.resistFingerprinting" then restart IceCat.

Note that toggling "privacy.resistFingerprinting" immediately changed the result of `new Date().toString()` on all tabs, but `new Date().getTimezoneOffset()` was changed
only on the about:config tab. After a restart all tabs showed the correct offset.

See this IceCat bug report discussion:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnuzilla/2019-06/msg00010.html

Regards,
Ben