How does google know my real location even using VPN

If I google search "time right now", it shows accurate time, along with my location (which is in India). But if I install a VPN on my chrome and access through US based IP-address, it does not show US time. But it shows other search results, that are related specifically to my location/timezone! How does it know that?

I have tried all of the following:

  • Set my computer's timezone to GMT-5
  • Cleared all browsing data, even infact created new user in chrome.
  • Restarted browser many times.

Even after doing all above (in every order), following snapshot is the result:

Update: Following is my hypothesis: Browser based VPN extensions start a few seconds after the browser starts. And in this time lapse, chrome makes a ping to google's server, and reports its identity and IP address. After that, no matter what location I use on VPN, google shows search results relevant to my original IP address. I figured this out when I finally installed a VPN on the OS. After that, I restarted chrome, and search results were then based on US, exactly how it should be.

Google knows my location even using VPN


It gets the information from your browser which gets it from your operating system.

If you change the information on your PC and you restart your browser, you'll get a different result.

I've done it myself in a web application where time is important. I check their browser's timezone with the timezone configured for their account (if any) and notify when there is a difference in the timezones.