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>as if people are walking around using a browser in a language they don't speak. (or, an operating system configured for a language they don't speak Well, yes,

>as if people are walking around using a browser in a language they don't speak. (or, an operating system configured for a language they don't speak Well, yes, they are! Computers translated in my native language sound dumb. That's how a whole generation of my world learned better English than native speakers, ffs! Half of the time it's just translated wrong. You think anyone has any incentive to translate any technology to a language with a couple million speakers, all of whom are obligate pirates? And it seems like you might be surprised to hear that people speak more than one language. Then where's my global setting to tell the browser what languages I speak, so it'd know what header to send? Same place that lets me configure what ads I'm actually interested in. Nowhere. >I think people don't care to imagine the computer doing as little as possible to get the job done, and instead use the near unlimited computing power to just avoid thinking about consequences. This, friend, is what computers are for in the XXI century. "Bicycle for the mind", ha...

dijit 2y ago
Accept-Language is an array, not a string. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Accept-Language https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...
- balamatom 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 3np 2y ago
    You really don't need to have Accept-Language overlap with language of browser. I'm sorry but reading-comprehension department seems out today. I suggest you try reading without assistance. Also would you please tune it down and stop having such a confrontative and aggressive tone in your comments?
    - balamatom 2y ago
      Would you please show me where that fact was pointed out prior to invoking the reading comprehension department?
  - dijit 2y ago
    Just so you're aware, the way in which you've chosen to conduct this conversation is not in-keeping with the desired environment. I'm not entirely sure why you are coming across as deeply emotional about this topic, but it's really not worth getting angry over. However, you made a specific point: > And it seems like you might be surprised to hear that people speak more than one language. And I was mentioning that, actually, the header has support for multiple languages and the point is to fall back to the one you actually support; so if a site is translated in Spanish, but not Catalonian, then a person living in Barcelona might have ["ca_ES", "es_ES"], and actually only be served "es_ES" Spanish despite requesting the former as a preference. Also, there are mechanisms for changing this locale away from the Operating Systems choice, but, I would wager a sane default is to use the localisation of the operating system, as that is largely going to be localised for the person already- moreso than browser fingerprinting(?) or GEOIP lookups, as computers move just like humans do throughout our world.
    - balamatom 2y ago
      > I would wager a sane default is to use the localisation of the operating system, as that is largely going to be localised for the person already I already explained why in many parts of the world this would not be the good wager you think it is. >moreso than browser fingerprinting(?) I'm not saying browser fingerprinting is a good way to determine what language to serve to the user. I'm saying setting the headers to non-default values (and especially ones that represent actual facts about the user, such as what languages they can be expected to understand) can be used for fingerprinting, and that's probably the most sensible reason to avoid making use of such features that otherwise would have been, as you say, benign and quite convenient. >I'm not entirely sure why you are coming across as deeply emotional about this topic, but it's really not worth getting angry over. I'm not getting angry! I am having fun fun FUN! Your culture requires me to be having fun fun FUN in order to not be gradually destroyed from the inside! Or from the outside!
      - dijit 2y ago
        I live in Sweden, our culture does not require anyone to be having fun. Lagom; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom
Tijdreiziger 2y ago
> Then where's my global setting to tell the browser what languages I speak, so it'd know what header to send? Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-languages-multilingual-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-language... Chrome insists that the first language be the UI language, and Safari insists that the first language be the _system_ language.
- kalleboo 2y ago
  You can set a per-app language for Safari in macOS/iOS System Settings instead of using the system language
  - Tijdreiziger 2y ago
    Oh yeah, you’re right. But that just gets you Chrome’s behaviour (the first preferred language has to equal the browser UI language). So I suppose GGP is mostly right, in the sense that most browsers get this wrong (except Firefox).
    - kalleboo 2y ago
      Yeah it's still not ideal. As someone who lives between 3 languages what I'd really like is a browser setting for language per-site. E.g. I want my Swedish bank's site in Swedish, not the English translation, I want Google Maps in Japanese so I can see the Kanji for the station names, but I want the AWS console in English. Each of these sites have their own toggles but they are very inconsistent and keep resetting, the browser would have done a much better job. I wonder if this can be done with a browser extension.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Yes, and this is the actual issue: user agent configuration for preferred language is poor, users blame sites when they can't read the site, so it's in the site's best interest to ignore the broken thing and use a heuristic.
  - 2y ago
trurl42 2y ago
> Then where's my global setting to tell the browser what languages I speak, so it'd know what header to send? In Chrome: chrome://settings/languages In Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-languages-multilingual-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-language...
- balamatom 2y ago
  Cool! I didn't know that. I tried it out then reverted to the default. Because I keep forgetting it's not the 90s and "we" have also invented such brilliant things as browser fingerprinting.
3np 2y ago
> Then where's my global setting to tell the browser what languages I speak, so it'd know what header to send? ...Nowhere Look again. Or switch browser. It is a basic feature and the issue is indeed websites ignoring it.

dijit 2y ago

Accept-Language is an array, not a string. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Accept-Language https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...

balamatom 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 3np 2y ago
  You really don't need to have Accept-Language overlap with language of browser. I'm sorry but reading-comprehension department seems out today. I suggest you try reading without assistance. Also would you please tune it down and stop having such a confrontative and aggressive tone in your comments?
  - balamatom 2y ago
    Would you please show me where that fact was pointed out prior to invoking the reading comprehension department?
- dijit 2y ago
  Just so you're aware, the way in which you've chosen to conduct this conversation is not in-keeping with the desired environment. I'm not entirely sure why you are coming across as deeply emotional about this topic, but it's really not worth getting angry over. However, you made a specific point: > And it seems like you might be surprised to hear that people speak more than one language. And I was mentioning that, actually, the header has support for multiple languages and the point is to fall back to the one you actually support; so if a site is translated in Spanish, but not Catalonian, then a person living in Barcelona might have ["ca_ES", "es_ES"], and actually only be served "es_ES" Spanish despite requesting the former as a preference. Also, there are mechanisms for changing this locale away from the Operating Systems choice, but, I would wager a sane default is to use the localisation of the operating system, as that is largely going to be localised for the person already- moreso than browser fingerprinting(?) or GEOIP lookups, as computers move just like humans do throughout our world.
  - balamatom 2y ago
    > I would wager a sane default is to use the localisation of the operating system, as that is largely going to be localised for the person already I already explained why in many parts of the world this would not be the good wager you think it is. >moreso than browser fingerprinting(?) I'm not saying browser fingerprinting is a good way to determine what language to serve to the user. I'm saying setting the headers to non-default values (and especially ones that represent actual facts about the user, such as what languages they can be expected to understand) can be used for fingerprinting, and that's probably the most sensible reason to avoid making use of such features that otherwise would have been, as you say, benign and quite convenient. >I'm not entirely sure why you are coming across as deeply emotional about this topic, but it's really not worth getting angry over. I'm not getting angry! I am having fun fun FUN! Your culture requires me to be having fun fun FUN in order to not be gradually destroyed from the inside! Or from the outside!
    - dijit 2y ago
      I live in Sweden, our culture does not require anyone to be having fun. Lagom; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom

Tijdreiziger 2y ago

> Then where's my global setting to tell the browser what languages I speak, so it'd know what header to send? Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-languages-multilingual-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-language... Chrome insists that the first language be the UI language, and Safari insists that the first language be the _system_ language.

kalleboo 2y ago
You can set a per-app language for Safari in macOS/iOS System Settings instead of using the system language
- Tijdreiziger 2y ago
  Oh yeah, you’re right. But that just gets you Chrome’s behaviour (the first preferred language has to equal the browser UI language). So I suppose GGP is mostly right, in the sense that most browsers get this wrong (except Firefox).
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    Yeah it's still not ideal. As someone who lives between 3 languages what I'd really like is a browser setting for language per-site. E.g. I want my Swedish bank's site in Swedish, not the English translation, I want Google Maps in Japanese so I can see the Kanji for the station names, but I want the AWS console in English. Each of these sites have their own toggles but they are very inconsistent and keep resetting, the browser would have done a much better job. I wonder if this can be done with a browser extension.
shadowgovt 2y ago
Yes, and this is the actual issue: user agent configuration for preferred language is poor, users blame sites when they can't read the site, so it's in the site's best interest to ignore the broken thing and use a heuristic.
- 2y ago

trurl42 2y ago

> Then where's my global setting to tell the browser what languages I speak, so it'd know what header to send? In Chrome: chrome://settings/languages In Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-languages-multilingual-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choose-display-language...

balamatom 2y ago
Cool! I didn't know that. I tried it out then reverted to the default. Because I keep forgetting it's not the 90s and "we" have also invented such brilliant things as browser fingerprinting.

3np 2y ago

> Then where's my global setting to tell the browser what languages I speak, so it'd know what header to send? ...Nowhere Look again. Or switch browser. It is a basic feature and the issue is indeed websites ignoring it.