With Version 117, Firefox Finally Speaks Chrome's Translation Language (theregister.com) 18
The latest version of the flagship FOSS browser is out, and it's picked up one of the main features for which we keep Chrome around. From a report: The Firefox version 117 feature list might not look all that impressive, but it does have a big-ticket feature that may tempt people back: automatic translation. The snag is it's disabled by default in the release version, and you'll have to manually enable it. Although it was enabled in the betas, Mozilla has decided to go for a staged rollout and not enable it for everyone until Firefox 118 in six weeks or so.
The new feature is integrated, privacy-respecting machine translation between multiple languages. This was already possible in older versions, but it needed an extension, and that had two side effects. One is that the extension hooked deep into the core of the browser in ways that Mozilla wasn't comfortable about, and the other is that once your text had been sent out to a third-party website, it could be snooped upon -- but the victims of any snooping would blame the browser, even if it wasn't the browser's fault. To enable it, go to the configuration page (enter about:config in the address bar), and search for a setting called browser.translations.enable.
The new feature is integrated, privacy-respecting machine translation between multiple languages. This was already possible in older versions, but it needed an extension, and that had two side effects. One is that the extension hooked deep into the core of the browser in ways that Mozilla wasn't comfortable about, and the other is that once your text had been sent out to a third-party website, it could be snooped upon -- but the victims of any snooping would blame the browser, even if it wasn't the browser's fault. To enable it, go to the configuration page (enter about:config in the address bar), and search for a setting called browser.translations.enable.
comfort (Score:1)
"One is that the extension hooked deep into the core of the browser in ways that Mozilla wasn't comfortable about"
Yeah, god forbid extensions do powerful things that users want.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I still remember the rage about that extension that implemented in page comment sections on sites that blocked them because their users had a bad case of wrongthink and wrongspeak according to site owners.
That was both sad and hilarious. Especially considering that mod was pretty meh.
I guess you mean Dissenter (Score:2, Interesting)
Dissenter allowed users to overlay social commentary atop any webpage, regardless of what the website owners wishes were, completely ignoring the website presentation layer. Of course, Mozilla only cares about the goo
Re: (Score:2)
In this particular case, it's a happy end.
in 2019 Mozilla started developing the Bergamot ML translation engine https://www.zdnet.com/article/... [zdnet.com] T was release as an add-on in June 2022 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mo... [mozilla.org] and has even grown in languages in the meantime. It has been so useful that they decided to bundle it with the browser for everyone.
Though the interface is different, I can guess it's based on the same engine because of certain oddities in the translations.
Re: comfort (Score:2)
It is not a happy end. We are talking about a browser which was not only imagined as a platform with only crucial functionality baked into the executable, but actually conceived that way. Over time they have systematically destroyed that aspect of the software, and now it is bloated with all manner of bullshit which does not belong in it. Now they make excuses about how they don't want extensions to be able to do real things. You are enabling abuse of the user base with your evangelism.
Konqueror (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in 2008, Konqueror already did that, although it sent the text to a third party, Babelfish.com.
Translation (Score:2)
my hovercraft is full of eels
Re: (Score:1)
These people need to learn to write code before they implement any new features.
Re: The primary reason I keep Chrome around (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Please Mozilla explain (Score:3)
TFA implies that previous addon in Firefox sent the contents to the cloud. But the Firefox Translation add-on already did local translations (claimed so): "Unlike cloud-based alternatives, translation is done locally, on the client-side, so that the text being translated does not leave your machine." https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org] Also the separate plug-in offers 6 more languages than the 9 offered by the now built-in interface.
Since both were authored by Mozilla, I would have expected Mozilla to publish an explicit comparison, update the download page of the add-on to mention it's not needed anymore for FF 117, or rewrite the add-on to only offer the languages that are not built-in; also, to offer seamless integration e.g. if you have the add-on then the additional languages should appear in the same interface as the now built-in interface.
The new interface is nicer, so I don't complain about the feature, but I'd enjoy better communication.
Re: (Score:3)
> But the Firefox Translation add-on already did local translations (claimed so): "Unlike cloud-based alternatives, translation is done locally, on the client-side, so that the text being translated does not leave your machine."
How the fuck could that work? That add-on should be HUGE, like including full dictionaries, text corpus and whatever AI crap they use. But it's only 3Mb, and at least 2Mb is telemetry and boilerplate cruft.
Re:Please Mozilla explain (Score:5, Informative)
It fetches the dataset upon first use of a language, or manual request install in the configuration. As example I installed German, it added 81.3 Mb of files to ~/.mozilla/firefox/${MYPROFILE}/storage/permanent/chrome/idb/3870112724rsegmnoittet-es.files/
How to actually turn it on (Score:3)
To enable it, go to the configuration page (enter about:config in the address bar), and search for a setting called browser.translations.enable. Change that to True and restart the browser, and the new feature should start working. If you go to a page that's not in your configured system language, a new button should appear next to the address box, offering machine translation.
firefox version (Score:2)
Just wondering... What is Firefox going to do when the version number no longer fits into a 32 bit word?