Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#61

Post by jeanlucas » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:21 PM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #16

toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

Try https://kagi.com/

I would never pay for search. The obvious solution here to browse behind Tor or a VPN, or to physically move to an English speaking country if you want to live in a 100% English environment.

Of those options, paying for search seems like the cheapest.

A VPN might win on price (sometimes? kagi is just $5/mo), but relocating countries to get better results when searching for code related stuff feels a bit over-optimized. And as we know, premature optimization is the root of all evil.

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#62

Post by esseph » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

Disabled Google search page location permissions.

Should fix your localized results problem.

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#63

Post by drnick1 » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #27

drnick1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never pay for search. The obvious solution here to browse behind Tor or a VPN, or to physically move to an English speaking country if you want to live in a 100% English environment.

The obvious solution here is actually to pay for search. Then the company actually cares about keeping you happy, because you are their source of revenue.

In principle, yes, but in practice the privacy claims are unverifiable. A for-pay search provider may stick track you and serve you ads (in the ranking of results) and will probably do an even better job than Google at it since they can verify your identity through payment and profile you accurately no matter what device you use.

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#64

Post by SyrupThinker » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:34 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #35

SyrupThinker wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW the decision-makers at Google (and some other companies) should just learn what the Accept-Language header is for.

They know. They also know that almost no regular users know what it is, what it's for, or how to configure it. The search fails where the accept-language was wrong far dominate the numbers over the search fails where the accept-language was ignored.

> The search fails where the accept-language was wrong far dominate the numbers over the search fails where the accept-language was ignored.

Wouldn't this imply that "regular" users are running their OS and/or browser in a language they do not want to use for search? This seems unlikely to me, or is there some systematic reason that results in this being the case?

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#65

Post by burnt-resistor » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:47 PM UTC

Workaround: a VPN.

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#66

Post by burnt-resistor » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:51 PM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #18

llamaboy wrote: post #4

It’s a pain in the ass when you travel a lot…

Set up a VPN to your own home/office.

WireGuard, especially if home ISP has a public IPv4 that serves ports. (Don't outsource control and access to TailScale.)

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#67

Post by out_of_protocol » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:52 PM UTC

tambourine_man wrote: post #37

Google is institutionally incapable of understanding that some people can speak multiple languages. Only reliable solution I found is to create one account for each language and restrict the number of available languages to just that one in: https://www.google.com/preferences?lang=1 YouTube is the worst offender these days. I get Portuguese videos auto-dubbed to English and vice-versa even though I can understand bot…

You also need a VPN, otherwise you'll get results in local language anyway

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#68

Post by burnt-resistor » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:53 PM UTC

esseph wrote: post #62

Disabled Google search page location permissions. Should fix your localized results problem.

That's not how it works at all. It uses geo IP guessing that override user preferences, that's the whole point.

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#69

Post by benhurmarcel » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 8:56 PM UTC

In my experience it’s been the case for years. I’ve been paying for Kagi instead to solve this.

Re: Tell HN: Google ignores English searches and forces localized results

#70

Post by petre » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 9:01 PM UTC

estebarb wrote: post #40

Not only search: titles and description of Youtube videos are being translated. Colab UI is now in Spanish (using technical terms that make no sense). Some people may want translation, mostly people that only speak a single language. But for most bilingual people, being forced a translation (a lower quality one), is a worse experience. I'm surprised that no one at Google has pushed back this anti-user behavior. It is…

> The worst part is when traveling.

They are trying so hard to be smart that the Chrome locale is determined from your GPS location, which creates obvious problems. I tried to change it once using the Sensors in dev tools in order to get rid of the AM/PM in time input fields, to no avail. You do not simply get the 24h time format.