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Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

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Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#161

Post by scbrg »

Arnt wrote: post #150
makeitdouble wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, Google is famous for data collected and data-driven decisions. Remember that "41 shades of blue" story? Data (metrics really) isn’t the end all be all, and in particular the decisions resulting from the data is not bound to be good. As you say, Google is famous for data-driven decisions, and for instance android couldn’t become the top rated smartphone OS. Their shopping property couldn’t overcome compet…

At an individual level, we should IMNSHO moderate our hubris and at least consider the possibility that other people are right, and that includes people at Google. Data isn't bound to be good, but it's not bound to be bad either. Posting "why Google is wrong" is (still IMNSHO) an overdose of hubris, and because of that hubris it's wrong even if Google happens to be wrong in the matter at hand.

They are - objectively - wrong. There's a spec, and they're violating it.

This gets even more absurd given that they most likely produce the user agent as well, so they can't really blame "it's too hard for users to configure the user agent". Put the effin' language selector in the toolbar if configured language doesn't match your wildly inaccurate guesses then.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#162

Post by Symbiote »

silvestrov wrote: post #84
justinmayer wrote: post #70

I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…

Better explanation: monolingual people thinks that computers will always be configured to the local language and any other setup is a "misconfiguration". In real life a large number of corporations (and developers) have their computers configured with English as this is the main language of the coorporation and makes IT-support much easier. (we don't even need to talk about how badly botched many language translation…

"The local language" is already a problem. There are countries where there are multiple local/national languages! What does Google's homepage look like in Belgium?

> Mac running with English and 24-hour clocks

The UK locale (probably Ireland too) has provided a 24 hour clock in Windows for decades. Although thinking about it, little-endian dates (11 March, 11/03/2022) would probably annoy Americans as much as mixed-endian dates annoy me.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#163

Post by i80and »

justinmayer wrote: post #99
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My theory has always been that in any given country, there are far more native speakers with misconfigured computing environments than there are visitors and nomadic folks like me. But then why doesn't Google just make it easier to set that setting? Honestly, when I'm in another country, I don't get too upset that Google results are in another language, I just get upset that I can't seem to find a simple way to cha…

Google's answer to this problem is, "Just log in! Then we will always know what language you prefer." So Google doesn't make it easier to change that setting because they want you to be logged in all the time so they can track you better.

I had a fascinating issue with Google.

I am a monolingual English speaker. I visited Iceland, and as happens, Google started serving UIs in Icelandic even while I was logged in.

What was interesting was this continued for weeks after returning to my home country. There was no setting I could find to go back to English; I got good at the specific Icelandic keywords I needed to navigate the UI. Then without any ceremony, things suddenly reverted back to English.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#164

Post by Semaphor »

silvestrov wrote: post #104
silvestrov wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better explanation: monolingual people thinks that computers will always be configured to the local language and any other setup is a "misconfiguration". In real life a large number of corporations (and developers) have their computers configured with English as this is the main language of the coorporation and makes IT-support much easier. (we don't even need to talk about how badly botched many language translation…

The problem with monolingual is the thought that there is One True Language. It isn't so. I write half my emails in one email, the other half in another. Often emails will have sections in one language (e.g. quote from another email) and other sections in a different language. Spelling tools must be able to detect language automatically to be of any value and be able to handle multiple languages within a single sente…

I use LanguageTool [0] as an extension, it never has issues detecting if I’m currently writing in English or German. I sadly have yet to find a solution that works as well on my Android.

[0]: https://languagetool.org/

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#165

Post by leejo »

jakub_g wrote: post #4

The article talks about Microsoft, and boy, it's even more terrible in some respects: for example, language of some Office tools like Excel is bound to the organization ! I worked for a French company, and I was forced to use web Excel in French, including keyboard shortcuts being FR-specific ("ctrl-g" for "bold" - "grossir"). I had my language set to English everywhere in browser, OS, MS profile, Office profile etc.…

> I remember some HN user from Switzerland saying that IIRC either his IP is being moved around in geoIP databases between Swiss regions, or getting slightly distinct IP each time; as a result, he randomly gets all kinds of websites in French, and sometimes in German. Imagine this.

Sometimes my IP resolves close enough to the Röstigraben[^1] that I will get sites in German despite having my browser set to English (GB) and OS set to French.

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Röstigraben

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#166

Post by InvaderFizz »

jewel wrote: post #138

A workaround: To force search results in English when not signed in, go to https://www.google.com/en . This adds a hl=en parameter to your queries. You can change the search provider URL in the browser to add the hl parameter.

The irony is that I clicked that URL on my iPhone, signed in to Safari with everything set to US/English. About half the entries below the search bar(they now add news below) are in Spanish.

My current location is Unknown if I scroll all the way to the bottom. Probably Google unsure of what to make of my whole house VPN where the desktop browsers use a fake location extension to automatically say yes to location requests but provide them with a static location in SoCal that matches the area of my IP block, but whenever I use google apps on my devices, they end up with GPS coordinates that place me deep within Mexico.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#167

Post by Semaphor »

marcosdumay wrote: post #142
justinmayer wrote: post #70

I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…

Trying to guess the user's language is ok as long as the user has some way to override your guess. DDG does the same, and adds a switcher so you can change between your local language and English. That's great, because depending on the search you want, it may be better done on either language. The Microsoft site uses your language header on their .Net documentation. That is very bad because no matter what your browse…

> DDG does the same, and adds a switcher so you can change between your local language and English. That's great, because depending on the search you want, it may be better done on either language.

DDG also has local and global search that you can switch, without switching the language of the site (so if I do a search with !ddgde I get German results but the DDG interface is still in English). Kagi does the same thing with !reg (for regional)

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#168

Post by pxue »

Been traveling in Mexico/Latin Am since the pandemic and this is so much more painful than I expected. I work on multiple projects as a consultant and so I often create a new browser profile for new clients (keep sessions, sign-ins etc separate). Every time i boot up a new profile, everything gets switched to Spanish, mexican results.

Please Google, stahp.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#169

Post by bhrgunatha »

justinmayer wrote: post #70

I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…

I wrote a script for ViolentMonkey to force "hl=en" to appear in the query string for all google services which has been the most reliable way for me to overcome the problem.

It doesn't work for some services though but aside from signing in to google there's nothing else I can do.

I suspect they'll shut that down at some point too.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#170

Post by wutbrodo »

mcv wrote: post #137
silvestrov wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better explanation: monolingual people thinks that computers will always be configured to the local language and any other setup is a "misconfiguration". In real life a large number of corporations (and developers) have their computers configured with English as this is the main language of the coorporation and makes IT-support much easier. (we don't even need to talk about how badly botched many language translation…

> These users will still want Google to return results in their native language. Says who? This is a baseless assumption. Just listen to the settings that specify what language the user wants. That's what it's for. And the browser should ask the OS or the user for their language preference. And if IT-support wants one language for the interface in order to facilitate support, they can still set the other language for…

Google has literally billions of users. There are people who are worse at using computers than anyone you've ever met.

I'm as irritated as anyone when something doesn't cater to "power users". But if we're trying to understand the reason behind the decision instead of just venting, then it's instructive to consider just how computer-illiterate the non-power-user is for a product as massive as Google Search, and how annoying characteristics may be a consequence of trying to satisfy both you and them.

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