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

From: Ben Sturmfels <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 23:02:04 +1000

On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 11:02, Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]> 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