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by toast0 1279 days ago
You can't use browser or OS settings are english as an indicator that people want english, because english is usually the default and a lot of people end up with english based computing without meaning to or without english literacy.

It would be different if there were a different accept-language set for user intentionally picked english vs default though. But approximately 3 people set the browser language settings ever; and nobody respects them so there's no incentive for anyone else to start, either.
3 comments
lxgr 1279 days ago
> approximately 3 people set the browser language settings ever

But I'd guess most people select their preferred language when initially setting up their device, which usually informs their browser language, no?

> and nobody respects them

In my experience, many most multilingual sites do respect them! (This sometimes throws me off when the non-English version of a site is automatically/badly translated and I have to manually switch to English, but I can see how it makes sense for most users.)

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marginalia_nu 1279 days ago
To make matters worse, it's not uncommon for the language to be hard coded via the OEM version of the OS.
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lxgr 1279 days ago
This used to be true for Windows, but I don't think it is anymore. At least on the last version I used, I was able to change the UI language (but that was also marketed as an "Ultimate Edition perk" or something similar, so I'm not sure if OEM versions are still language-locked).

Where it probably gets tricky is for languages that operating systems are not commonly available in – users presumably have less of an incentive to set the correct locale if it does not make an immediate difference (assuming it is even offered in the setup dialog).

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harrydehal 1279 days ago
We run a high-traffic (millions per day) website and found that for certain cohorts, we saw up to 25% of users in Canada and Australia identifying themselves a "en-us" (English United States) from their default browser language... The number is shockingly high.
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netsharc 1279 days ago
Why is it shocking? Those users presumably understand American English...
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carlosjobim 1279 days ago
English hasn't been the default for OS or browsers since 1995.
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