4 ms·

>> For example, your browser's language is set to English. Cool. That's where this example should stop. Your site should then serve me English, because that's

>> For example, your browser's language is set to English. Cool. That's where this example should stop. Your site should then serve me English, because that's the language I've told you that I understand. Why are you changing it based on my location? Why are you serving an English-speaking tourist in Mexico "the appropriate version of our Spanish translations" when their browser just fucking told you THEY WANTED THE ENGLISH VERSION?!!

goto11 6y ago
The problem is most users doesn't even know that you can set language preferences at the browser level.
- gambiting 6y ago
  What do you mean? I don't think we're talking about language preference, simply about...language of the browser itself.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    There's a setting for language preference that is set in the browser, and transmitted in every request header. This is the thing that we're talking about.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Right, I have no idea how it works(and I guess like was said, 99% of people don't), but as a user I'd reasonably expect that if I have my browser in English, my operating system in English, then I want to see websites in English.
      - jobigoud 6y ago
        We don't need to know how it works, it asks the web pages to serve content in that language, it's made explicitly for this use case. It should be the first choice. Second choice could be browser language.
- self_awareness 6y ago
  If a user doesn't know about it, he probably has the browser set to his native language, which resolves the issue before it's an issue.
  - juliushuijnk 6y ago
    I might be outlier, but I like my software interfaces to be in English. Keeps them all the same ('save all', etc) But I would rather consume content of a website in my native language. While I'm not complaining if it it will serve me English.
    - macintux 6y ago
      Having your software interface in English also makes it easier to find help when you’re confused by something.
    - account42 6y ago
      Firefox has two separate settings for "Choose the languages used to display menus, messages, and notifications from Firefox." and "Choose your preferred language for displaying pages" so your use case should be covered by not second-guessing the user settings.
  - innocenat 6y ago
    Maybe true in the West. Not totally true in a lot of countries where the OS is almost always in English despite the fact that user may not be able to comprehend English (they can read lone word just fine to operate menu and such)
- dwheeler 6y ago
  By default browsers get that from the OS, and that was typically set on first boot. It's a very reliable signal.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  This seems well within Google's (especially) ability to fix. They seem to rely on similar settings for knowing whether to bring up a "This page is in Polish. Do you want to translate it?" popup.
gambiting 6y ago
Absolutely agreed. The language of the browser is the only thing that should matter. I constantly have issues with this as I want to browse everything in English, my operating system is in English, my browser is in English, but because I have my region set to Polish in the operating system(to get things like comma as a decimal point for numbers and sensible date format) but of course websites assume that I want to see websites in Polish thanks to this region. Just like....stop doing that.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  For sensible date and time formats in English, you can use en_GB. I don't think there's any standard English locale with comma as the decimal separator, although my Android phone and Ubuntu installation offer en_DK for some reason. Linux's locale allows more granular settings, but that's not possible over HTTP.
  - jobigoud 6y ago
    For the date you can customize it in Windows as well. I've been using YYYY-MM-DD as my default for years.
self_awareness 6y ago
This is so true and so irritating. The problem with "appropriate translations" is that a fair number of them is horrible and broken. Sometimes they're plain wrong. It's not about small companies; but giants like Microsoft also gets this wrong -- for example, Polish localization of Visual Studio development tools is often not understandable for a native speaker of Poland, also sometimes it's plain wrong because it lists options that aren't there now, maybe there were used at some point in the past. This is the reason why I consciously select English as my main Internet language, and the language of my OS, because I don't really want to be annoyed with poor quality translations. I just wish Internet pages would just use my browser's setting and stop trying to be intelligent, because it only produces problems and nothing more.
shannongreen 6y ago
You must have stopped reading at that point because the comment went on to talk about using the location to select a regional dialect only. Your browser's language is set to English. Do you serve UK, US, Australian or Canadian English?
- flipchart 6y ago
  South African English! :)
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  Then we should have browser settings for regional dialect, because the same thing holds true. I don't stop being a British English speaker just because my IP address is in Toronto. Language is a property of people, not place. edit: Also, I'm an English speaker living in Berlin. This shit happens to me all the time, and it's a trigger. Apologies for blowing my cool. And I'm used to reading any flavour of English. The regional dialects really don't matter. Colour can be color and I'll still understand. I won't understand "Farbe".
  - bonestamp2 6y ago
    > Then we should have browser settings for regional dialect We do, and that's what I'm using. Sorry if my example was confusing, I should have worded it better. I am using the regional setting from the browser to determine the correct region for your language, I'm not using your physical location in any way. My comment was an outline for the right way to do it and I blew it when my example had the person with their region set to mexico actually in mexico (which is true most of the time, and true in my example, but is not how the app logic works because it's not true for everyone all the time). Either way, I think the actual logic agrees with what you would expect -- you get the language your browser is set to regardless of where you're connecting from. Additionally, if you have your region selected, we'll also tune your desired language for the right region of that language too regardless of where you are physically.
    - marcus_holmes 6y ago
sgt 6y ago
But couldn't it be possible that Spanish people might use an English installation of the browser (because of some other reason), yet they obviously still want their local websites in the native Spanish, not some questionable translation of it?
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  It could be entirely possible. But at least the user controls this and makes this choice - they choose to set their language preference to English (because of some other reason). If they want to view a Spanish website in Spanish, they can set their language to Spanish and re-request the site, and they should get the Spanish version. It's inconvenient, sure, but setting the site to show Spanish purely based on the IP address causes worse problems for people. For example: I'm English, and live in Berlin. If I use a VPN to set my IP address to the UK, I get an English version of <site>. But if I then set my German address, <site> complains that I'm not on the German version of the site. If I change to the German version, then there's no option to set English. I have no control over this - there's no option available for "I speak English, but have a German address".

goto11 6y ago

The problem is most users doesn't even know that you can set language preferences at the browser level.

gambiting 6y ago
What do you mean? I don't think we're talking about language preference, simply about...language of the browser itself.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  There's a setting for language preference that is set in the browser, and transmitted in every request header. This is the thing that we're talking about.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Right, I have no idea how it works(and I guess like was said, 99% of people don't), but as a user I'd reasonably expect that if I have my browser in English, my operating system in English, then I want to see websites in English.
    - jobigoud 6y ago
      We don't need to know how it works, it asks the web pages to serve content in that language, it's made explicitly for this use case. It should be the first choice. Second choice could be browser language.
self_awareness 6y ago
If a user doesn't know about it, he probably has the browser set to his native language, which resolves the issue before it's an issue.
- juliushuijnk 6y ago
  I might be outlier, but I like my software interfaces to be in English. Keeps them all the same ('save all', etc) But I would rather consume content of a website in my native language. While I'm not complaining if it it will serve me English.
  - macintux 6y ago
    Having your software interface in English also makes it easier to find help when you’re confused by something.
  - account42 6y ago
    Firefox has two separate settings for "Choose the languages used to display menus, messages, and notifications from Firefox." and "Choose your preferred language for displaying pages" so your use case should be covered by not second-guessing the user settings.
- innocenat 6y ago
  Maybe true in the West. Not totally true in a lot of countries where the OS is almost always in English despite the fact that user may not be able to comprehend English (they can read lone word just fine to operate menu and such)
dwheeler 6y ago
By default browsers get that from the OS, and that was typically set on first boot. It's a very reliable signal.
Symbiote 6y ago
This seems well within Google's (especially) ability to fix. They seem to rely on similar settings for knowing whether to bring up a "This page is in Polish. Do you want to translate it?" popup.

gambiting 6y ago

Absolutely agreed. The language of the browser is the only thing that should matter. I constantly have issues with this as I want to browse everything in English, my operating system is in English, my browser is in English, but because I have my region set to Polish in the operating system(to get things like comma as a decimal point for numbers and sensible date format) but of course websites assume that I want to see websites in Polish thanks to this region. Just like....stop doing that.

Symbiote 6y ago
For sensible date and time formats in English, you can use en_GB. I don't think there's any standard English locale with comma as the decimal separator, although my Android phone and Ubuntu installation offer en_DK for some reason. Linux's locale allows more granular settings, but that's not possible over HTTP.
- jobigoud 6y ago
  For the date you can customize it in Windows as well. I've been using YYYY-MM-DD as my default for years.

self_awareness 6y ago

This is so true and so irritating. The problem with "appropriate translations" is that a fair number of them is horrible and broken. Sometimes they're plain wrong. It's not about small companies; but giants like Microsoft also gets this wrong -- for example, Polish localization of Visual Studio development tools is often not understandable for a native speaker of Poland, also sometimes it's plain wrong because it lists options that aren't there now, maybe there were used at some point in the past. This is the reason why I consciously select English as my main Internet language, and the language of my OS, because I don't really want to be annoyed with poor quality translations. I just wish Internet pages would just use my browser's setting and stop trying to be intelligent, because it only produces problems and nothing more.

shannongreen 6y ago

You must have stopped reading at that point because the comment went on to talk about using the location to select a regional dialect only. Your browser's language is set to English. Do you serve UK, US, Australian or Canadian English?

flipchart 6y ago
South African English! :)
marcus_holmes 6y ago
Then we should have browser settings for regional dialect, because the same thing holds true. I don't stop being a British English speaker just because my IP address is in Toronto. Language is a property of people, not place. edit: Also, I'm an English speaker living in Berlin. This shit happens to me all the time, and it's a trigger. Apologies for blowing my cool. And I'm used to reading any flavour of English. The regional dialects really don't matter. Colour can be color and I'll still understand. I won't understand "Farbe".
- bonestamp2 6y ago
  > Then we should have browser settings for regional dialect We do, and that's what I'm using. Sorry if my example was confusing, I should have worded it better. I am using the regional setting from the browser to determine the correct region for your language, I'm not using your physical location in any way. My comment was an outline for the right way to do it and I blew it when my example had the person with their region set to mexico actually in mexico (which is true most of the time, and true in my example, but is not how the app logic works because it's not true for everyone all the time). Either way, I think the actual logic agrees with what you would expect -- you get the language your browser is set to regardless of where you're connecting from. Additionally, if you have your region selected, we'll also tune your desired language for the right region of that language too regardless of where you are physically.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago

sgt 6y ago

But couldn't it be possible that Spanish people might use an English installation of the browser (because of some other reason), yet they obviously still want their local websites in the native Spanish, not some questionable translation of it?

marcus_holmes 6y ago
It could be entirely possible. But at least the user controls this and makes this choice - they choose to set their language preference to English (because of some other reason). If they want to view a Spanish website in Spanish, they can set their language to Spanish and re-request the site, and they should get the Spanish version. It's inconvenient, sure, but setting the site to show Spanish purely based on the IP address causes worse problems for people. For example: I'm English, and live in Berlin. If I use a VPN to set my IP address to the UK, I get an English version of <site>. But if I then set my German address, <site> complains that I'm not on the German version of the site. If I change to the German version, then there's no option to set English. I have no control over this - there's no option available for "I speak English, but have a German address".