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I always wondered wtf the browsers language setting is for. Can a website not query this for the preferred language rather than make a language decision based o

I always wondered wtf the browsers language setting is for. Can a website not query this for the preferred language rather than make a language decision based on an IP address geo lookup? I am English, my browsers language order is to set English (UK) then English (generic). No foreign languages. However I live in France and if I visit a site it will give me a French version due to my location rather than the language set within the browser. I (apparently wrongly) assumed saying I want content in English would mean the website would query what language the user wants and then send that. Could someone explain what the browser language preference is for?

ubercow13 6y ago
That is what it's for, it's sent in the request header to every site you visit. It's just that not many sites honour it.
kevincox 6y ago
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which is incredibly frustrating, I wish websites would start to respect it so users start to configure their browser properly. Users don't configure it (and quite possibly don't know how) so many websites ignore it. Many websites ignore it so it isn't that useful to learn how to configure it.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  On my sites, the URL parameters wins. For example, when the user is explicitly changing a page's language. #2 is the site language cookie from a previous visit. If that fails, #3 is the language the browser requests. If all those fail, English, because it is the most common language the company uses internally. In our user testing, we run into a lot of situations where the computer's primary user, and the person who set it up, are a child, who speaks English. But our site is more geared toward their parents, who often will speak the language of their homeland. For this reason, I make it stupidly easy to change languages, and we have a policy that ALL content has to be translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, which covers 99.8% of our customers. You don't find out these sorts of things through modern "telemetry" gathering and such current methods of testing. You find these things out by going into the field and watching your customers use your products. But interacting with wetware is beneath people in the SV bubble.
- satysin 6y ago
  Perhaps I am wrong but in my experience Chrome, Firefox and the platform included browsers all set the browser language to the OS language by default. While not a perfection solution I feel if the user is able to understand the language of the OS they are using then giving them a website in the same language is much better than picking one based on an IP location. I totally agree the browser language options are hidden with a pretty crappy UI that no normal user would find and use easily.
ThePadawan 6y ago
Even worse, GeoIP doesn't even have high enough resolution. I'm currently in Switzerland. Different regions speak German, French and Italian (among others). If you just use "this IP is in Switzerland" to try and guess the best language, you will definitely get it wrong. 25% of .ch pages I have never visited before start out in French, most others in German. No rhyme or reason.

ubercow13 6y ago

That is what it's for, it's sent in the request header to every site you visit. It's just that not many sites honour it.

kevincox 6y ago

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which is incredibly frustrating, I wish websites would start to respect it so users start to configure their browser properly. Users don't configure it (and quite possibly don't know how) so many websites ignore it. Many websites ignore it so it isn't that useful to learn how to configure it.

reaperducer 6y ago
On my sites, the URL parameters wins. For example, when the user is explicitly changing a page's language. #2 is the site language cookie from a previous visit. If that fails, #3 is the language the browser requests. If all those fail, English, because it is the most common language the company uses internally. In our user testing, we run into a lot of situations where the computer's primary user, and the person who set it up, are a child, who speaks English. But our site is more geared toward their parents, who often will speak the language of their homeland. For this reason, I make it stupidly easy to change languages, and we have a policy that ALL content has to be translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, which covers 99.8% of our customers. You don't find out these sorts of things through modern "telemetry" gathering and such current methods of testing. You find these things out by going into the field and watching your customers use your products. But interacting with wetware is beneath people in the SV bubble.
satysin 6y ago
Perhaps I am wrong but in my experience Chrome, Firefox and the platform included browsers all set the browser language to the OS language by default. While not a perfection solution I feel if the user is able to understand the language of the OS they are using then giving them a website in the same language is much better than picking one based on an IP location. I totally agree the browser language options are hidden with a pretty crappy UI that no normal user would find and use easily.

ThePadawan 6y ago

Even worse, GeoIP doesn't even have high enough resolution. I'm currently in Switzerland. Different regions speak German, French and Italian (among others). If you just use "this IP is in Switzerland" to try and guess the best language, you will definitely get it wrong. 25% of .ch pages I have never visited before start out in French, most others in German. No rhyme or reason.