[jillesvangurp]

It's a mistake a lot of companies make. They are so proud of their ability to lookup a country from an ip address that they forget that there are hundreds of millions of migrants living on this planet who probably speak something else. Not to mention tourists, business travelers, etc. I'm a non German living in Germany, I have to deal with this all the time. It's a combination of corporate stupidity, rookie & clueless product management, and just indifference. It's wrong every time. No buts. No ifs. No exceptions.

Use browser and OS settings, always. Anything else is a mistake that will cost you users and business.

[alexdumitru]

And they're wrong. I'm in Romania, but I use everything in English. Google is mostly in English, but sometimes decides to switch back to Romanian. Pretty decent , right? Until it decides to switch to Hungarian or German for whatever reason, two languages I have nothing do to with.

[overkalix]

There are also plenty of countries with multiple official languages.

[CaptainZapp]

Well configured web sites in such countries usually offer a choice of (major) languages on the landing page.

See https://www.apple.com/ch/ (you can also type apple.ch) for an example.

[tut-urut-utut]

It gives me a choice to choose between French and German. Where’s Italian?

Apple is rarely a good example of giving user a choice.