Yes, I am in Germany. No, that does not mean that suddenly I speak German or want to go to Google.de. See those big metal things in the sky? Those things are called airplanes, and people use them to go from place to place. They do not magically turn Americans into Germans, just move them there. So when I do that, and go to google.com it does not fucking mean I want to go to google.de.
When I give up trying to go to google.com and search for something in google.de, do not fucking ask me if I want to search for English only sites. Of course I want to search for English only sites you fuckwit. I don’t fucking speak German and you should fucking know that. I’m logged into GMail and you have literally thousands of my searches recorded. Ever think to check and see, hey this fucker never searches in German, maybe he doesn’t want German pages.
And if I am using one of your products, click on help, do not, I repeat, do fucking not show me the help in German.
That’s how the firefox search is formatted, and it doesn’t matter. The only way I’ve figured out is to search through google mail. But that’s only good for one search before it reverts.
That’s how the firefox search is formatted, and it doesn’t matter. The only way I’ve figured out is to search through google mail. But that’s only good for one search before it reverts.
It works (though not always consistently for me); more frustrating are mobile browsers, who occasionally feel compelled to redirect to sites that are mobile oriented and in a language I’m not fluent in. Ads are a fun, necessary evil*; I think I’m learning most of my German from unskippable ads before YouTube videos.
I agree, though, that it’s irritating indeed to have the site take my location and presume for me — Wikipedia does it nicely, I think; if you go to wikipedia.org it gives you a list of languages, rather than trying to guess. Amazon’s model works too; it’s really not that hard to remember “amazon.de” as separate from “amazon.com.”
Wait until you try to use iTunes, treis (or really, any online store). Then you’ll discover how they require you to change your storefront to match the country indicated by your IP, and don’t offer an English localisation. Good luck with the terms of service! It’s really fun when you travel a lot on business, because then you can play the “which credit card will this company feel like taking right now?” roulette, too.
*not meant wholly in jest actually. It’s been helpful, 'cause you see it over and over, and you generally know what they’re trying to say, and it’s short so you don’t zone out.
This happens to me. I’ve managed to fix it for all Google services now via settings, preferences, bla bla bla apart from News, which is in the wrong language no matter what I do - even fucking with the default language in the URL. It’s particularly problematic as the entire interface gets delivered in a language that isn’t Latin script so I can’t even have an educated guess at what it’s saying.
What really pisses me off with google is instant search. I don’t know how many times I’ve turned that “feature” off, but a couple of days later it’s back on. I don’t want instant search. It messes up my mind that my browser screen starts showing hits before I’ve typed my search terms. Can you hear me, google? Turn it off, I don’t want it. You hear? TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!!! NOW!!! FOREVER!!! TURN… IT… OFF!!!1111!!! [Mrs. Borg]I’m calling THE POLICE! I did it! They’ll be here…shortly![/Mrs. Borg]
