<story><title>Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?</title><url>https://smaller.fish/posts/language</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jakub_g</author><text>The article talks about Microsoft, and boy, it&amp;#x27;s even more terrible in some respects: for example, language of some Office tools like Excel is &lt;i&gt;bound to the organization&lt;/i&gt;!&lt;p&gt;I worked for a French company, and I was forced to use web Excel in French, including keyboard shortcuts being FR-specific (&amp;quot;ctrl-g&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;bold&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;grossir&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;I had my language set to English everywhere in browser, OS, MS profile, Office profile etc., not important.&lt;p&gt;(FWIW native Windows Excel didn&amp;#x27;t have this issue, so I sticked with native Excel).&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;Re: location based on geoloc: 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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>southerntofu</author><text>&amp;gt; (&amp;quot;ctrl-g&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;bold&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;grossir&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;Just nitpicking, but &amp;quot;g&amp;quot; stands for &amp;quot;gras&amp;quot;, a literal translation of &amp;quot;bold&amp;quot; in the context of typography.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I remember some HN user from Switzerland saying that IIRC either his IP is being moved around in geoIP databases between Swiss regions&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s why assigning users to specific services&amp;#x2F;servers&amp;#x2F;translations depending on IP is the worst kind of evil. Please let us choose the language consciously in a menu, or respect our browser settings: whatever our shit ISPs are doing behind the scenes should not impact our browsing, and no, IP addresses don&amp;#x27;t have a &amp;quot;country&amp;quot; and the simple fact that you need to use 3rd party databases (geoIP etc) is proof of that and just how stupid the whole concept is.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?</title><url>https://smaller.fish/posts/language</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jakub_g</author><text>The article talks about Microsoft, and boy, it&amp;#x27;s even more terrible in some respects: for example, language of some Office tools like Excel is &lt;i&gt;bound to the organization&lt;/i&gt;!&lt;p&gt;I worked for a French company, and I was forced to use web Excel in French, including keyboard shortcuts being FR-specific (&amp;quot;ctrl-g&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;bold&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;grossir&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;I had my language set to English everywhere in browser, OS, MS profile, Office profile etc., not important.&lt;p&gt;(FWIW native Windows Excel didn&amp;#x27;t have this issue, so I sticked with native Excel).&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;Re: location based on geoloc: 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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tuvan</author><text>Google sheets also does this and even uses regional formatting standards. I can&amp;#x27;t copy values between programs because some are using &amp;#x27;,&amp;#x27; for decimals and some are using &amp;#x27;.&amp;#x27; its VERY annoying</text></comment>