Keeping websites from knowing where I live

This questions is related to issues and practicality, not security.

I live in Brazil and, apparently, every single website I visit knows about it. Usually that's okay. But there are quite a few sites that don't make use of that information adequately.

For instance:

• Bing keeps thinking that Brazilian pages are way more relevant to me than American ones (which they're not).
• google.com always redirects me to google.com.br
• Microsoft automatically sends me to horribly translated support pages in Portuguese (which would just be easier to read in English).

These are just a few examples. Usually it's stuff I can live with (or work around), but some of them are just plain irritating.

I have geolocation disabled in Firefox, so I guess they're either getting this information from my IP or from Windows itself (which I bought here).

Is there a way to avoid this? Either tell them nothing or make them think I live somewhere else?

They are most likely looking up your IP address and using that to redirect you.

I just flat out wouldn't use Bing.

I would give TOR a try, but you might suffer from the same problem with respect to you don't know where you're going to end up IP address wise. You could be tunneling out of Germany or the States.

Look into paid proxies or use an SSH tunnel to a server hosted elsewhere.

Also check to see if Microsoft.com has a localized setting feature that will allow you to choose English as the main language.

For Google you should favorite www.google.com/ncr. This will always bring you to the main US search page.

The ncr stands for "no country redirect". Setting that as your homepage would be a good start.

As previously pointed out, websites are using geolocation based on your IP, which is a best guess attempt. Specific websites might let you set a location explicitly. Otherwise you are looking at using a proxy.

It may be a bit obvious, but have you tried using a proxy?

If it is your browser configuration, I recommend getting a firefox extension called User Agent Switcher. It lets you control the exact browser/OS info that gets sent to websites, which if you bought Windows there, it may be advertising that your from Brazil.

Websites don't actually know where you are. Some make a best guess based on information such as IP address or language settings. The only way they can know for sure is if you tell them explicitly.

If you have a Google account you can do this by going to the account preferences and locating 'edit your personal info'. There you should find an option to set your location.

BTW, if you want to temporarily view search results for another global location, it's possible to append a two-letter region code to Google search queries. For example, http://www.google.com/search?q=websupergoo&gl=us