Firefox Community Forum

Is there a setting to always show the translation icon in the Firefox desktop address bar?

1. Scenario

I'm visiting a website that is not in my native language. For example, I natively speak English, and the website contains Spanish text.

The Spanish website incorrectly sets lang="en" in the HTML. Here's an example: https://animalessinhogar.com.uy/

My browser's default language is set to US English. When Firefox sees the Spanish webpage declaring the lang="en" tag, it assumes the webpage is in English, and hides the translation icon from the address bar.

1. Issue

The end result is I see this website in Spanish, there's no translation icon in the address bar, and also no way to force a full page translation. The best I can do is select parts of the text, right click, and ask for "Translation Selection to English". This gets very tedious, especially when I have automatic translations for Spanish websites already turned on (browser.translations.alwaysTranslateLanguages = es).

1. Proposed solution

To work around these websites which mis-declare their language, is there a way to always show the translation icon in the address bar?

I had also thought of removing my browser's default language, so that the translation icon would always appear on every webpage. However, that would mean that websites that present different versions based on browser language wouldn't display my native language at first, or might not work at all? So this seems like a less good solution.

1. Firefox details

140.4.0esr (64-bit) running on Debian Linux 13 (Trixie)

Here's some related Firefox config options for translations, and their settings on my browser. I think I've only changed the configuration option to always translate Spanish webpages.

browser.translation.neverForLanguages browser.translations.alwaysTranslateLanguages es browser.translations.automaticallyPopup true browser.translations.chaos.errors false browser.translations.chaos.timeoutMS 0 browser.translations.enable true browser.translations.logLevel Error browser.translations.mostRecentTargetLanguages en browser.translations.neverTranslateLanguages browser.translations.newSettingsUI.enable false browser.translations.panelShown true browser.translations.select.enable true browser.translations.simulateUnsupportedEngine false browser.translations.useHTML false browser.translations.useLexicalShortlist false gfx.canvas.remote.use-canvas-translator-event true services.settings.main.translations-models.last_check 1773722950 services.settings.main.translations-wasm.last_check 1773722950 toolkit.telemetry.translations.logLevel Error

Firefox fait ses recherches en allemand sur mon ordinateur, alors que j'ai déjà plusieurs fois indiqué dans les paramètres que je voulais des recherches en français. Et rien ne change. Comment dois-je procéder pour changer ça?

I really appreciate Firefox's built in translator; it is extremely helpful. However there is one thing that bugs me, when translating a page that has multiple language options. For example, when translating a page from German to English, the word "Deutsch" (often listed in the website's built in language settings) is translated not to "German", but to "English". While technically correct in that the page is now displaying English thanks to the Firefox translation, it would probably be better to show "German" so that it is easier to switch the website language and not have a duplicate "English" option in the website's dropdown menu. I have noticed this on multiple websites, specifically with German, but it might be with other languages as well. Hopefully this explanation of the issue makes sense, and see my attached screenshot which shows this issue. Please let me know if there is somewhere else I should submit this too.

Since the last update (V. 148.0 ) the translation button in the search bar has gone. I have checked settings there is nothing and there is no translation option in thew hamburger menu. What have you done !!!

I don't have that translate icon in the address bar, never did, not on a single page. Can i get that somehow? And, when attempting to access the firefox translation settings through;

about:translations

I receive the following error message;

"Your device does not meet the minimum requirements to use this feature. Try on another device" Please check the screenshot i uploaded as well.

Even though i do see several language & translation settings in the regular preferences menu, and even though i see a page full of settings containing the string "transla", Firefox inline website translations are only accessible through the context menus using a right mouse-click. There, i can select a source and target language and all the options seem to be there and functioning well. I just don't have anything related to translation in the address bar, the regular alt-key menus, or the hamburger menu. Also not when customising the buttons etc.

I also have to say that the quality of the translations is nowhere near that of the ones on the Google Translate page, which surprises me somewhat, since it should have access to the same bucket of linguistic data as the website (i assume it works through an API), or am i incorrect in my assumptions ?

F.Y.I. My device is a PC running Devuan (Linux) with FF v140.8, my gpu is outdated so GL (hardware rendering) hasn't worked in a while, i'm using that shoddy Nouveau driver, but that hasn't caused any problems, i bought a 2nd hand supported GPU about 2 years ago, but i just can't be bothered to install it...eheh).

hi guys . how are you i need change to english my browser mozilla . I am install in my mobile phone mozilla firefox focus because its less 81mg. its look like a lite browser.

I have downloaded downloaded language packs English UK and French France, but when I spell check in Mozilla the only option in the open menu for language there is only English US to use even though the other two preferred languages have been downloaded. Am I missing a trick to activate the languages so that they show in my language menu when spell checking?

Very frustrating that I only have a default of US considering I am in France and use French and UK English.

Hi

I cannot reactivate spell check as I type, with English dictionary and the thick box ticked. Previously I could not get rid of spell check in my 2nd language (Turkish) but as I have managed, now I cannot restore spell check in English.

Can anyone help please?

Should I delete and reinstall Firefox? If I do will I lose my bookmarks?

Thanks in adance to all.

It only happens on some websites (Wikipedia for one) and doesn't happen anywhere else in my system. I was unable to root out the reason for this and all solutions seem to be for when there are boxes instead. I don't see boxes, only Russian letters for some reason.

Right now when I right-click to translate a word or a full page, it automatically picks one of my country’s regional languages as the default. I only want translations to go to English, but I can’t find any setting in Firefox to change that. How do I make English the default (and only) translation language?

Hello!

I recently switched back to Mozilla Firefox as my primary browser, and I have been very happy with the switch. I was pleased (but not surprised) to see the new option to block AI enhancements. The first feature this blocks seems to be web page translations, which did surprise me. Web translation certainly predates LLMs. Is there a possibility an older translation feature might be made available for users opting out of AI? I know language is the specialty of these programs, so if you have not continued support for other translation options, I would understand.

Thanks! Elizabeth