Offline text translation with Firefox
Foreign Language Skills
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While all popular web browsers offer an online translation function, Mozilla Firefox lets you translate your texts offline while protecting your privacy.
Having foreign language text automatically translated in your web browser at the push of a button is an indispensable function that many users rely on every day. Virtually nobody seems to think about the fact that a service provider is translating the foreign language content into the desired target language. Although this does not incur any direct costs, this translation feature still comes at a price: The service providers analyze the translated data and then use the information for commercial purposes and profiling. Native Linux translation programs such as LibreTranslate [1] work in an offline mode, which means that they do not spy on your personal data. However, you have to install them and in some cases compile them from the source code.
Starting with version 118 released in September 2023, the free Firefox web browser and its derivatives include a translation function that can also be used offline. You can enable this translation function with just a few mouse clicks. Developed as part of the Bergamot project funded by the European Union at a cost just south of EUR3 million, Firefox Translations is based on various language models and is constantly being improved.
The developers have implemented the Firefox Translations function in Firefox in a similar way to the popular search engine operators. Two framed text segments appear next to each other in a separate tab in the browser window. You insert the text to be translated on the left, and the translated text appears on the right. Appropriate selection fields let users define the source and target languages.
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