Web browsers have had tools that let you translate websites for years. But they typically rely on cloud-based translation services like Google Translate or Microsoft’s Bing Translator.
The latest version of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser does things differently. Firefox 118 brings support for Fullpage Translation, which can translate websites entirely in your browser. In other words, everything happens locally on your computer without any data sent to Microsoft, Google, or other companies.
Here’s how it works. Firefox will notice when you visit a website in a supported language that’s different from your default language, and a translate icon will show up in the address bar.
Tap that icon and you’ll see a pop-up window that asks what languages you’d like to translate from and to. If the browser doesn’t automatically detect the language of the website you’re visiting, you can set these manually.
Then click the “Translate” button, and a moment later the text on the page should be visible in your target language. If you’d prefer to go back to the original language, just tap the translate icon again and choose the option that says “show original.”
You can also tap the settings icon in the translation menu and choose to “always translate” or “never translate” a specific language so that you won’t have to manually invoke the translation every time you visit sites in that language.
Now for the bad news: Firefox Fullpage Translation only supports 9 languages so far:
- Bulgarian
- Dutch
- English
- French
- German
- Italian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Spanish
[…]
Robin Edgar
Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft