The "can not turn off" part is the most jarring. Seriously, did none of Californian PMs hear about the concept of "being multilingual" and not needing to translate non-English content?
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By the way, this reminds me also of another stupid Google thing related to languages:
Say your Chrome is set to English. When encountering another language page, Chrome will (since a decade ago or so) helpfully ask you to auto-translate by default. When you click a button "Never translate <language>", it will add language to the list which is sent out to every HTTP request the browser makes via `Accept-Language` header (it's not obvious this happens unless you're the kind of person who lives in DevTools and inspects outgoing traffic).
Fast-forward N years, Chrome privacy team realizes this increases fingerprinting surface, making every user less unique, so they propose this: "Reduce fingerprinting in Accept-Language header information" (https://chromestatus.com/feature/5188040623390720)
So basically they compensate for one "feature" with another, instead of not doing the first thing in the first place.
> Seriously, did none of Californian PMs hear about the concept of "being multilingual" and not needing to translate non-English content?
Sometimes it feels like Google keeps anyone with any kind of executive power hermetically sealed a some house borrowed from a reality TV show where they're not allowed any contact with the outside world.
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By the way, this reminds me also of another stupid Google thing related to languages:
Say your Chrome is set to English. When encountering another language page, Chrome will (since a decade ago or so) helpfully ask you to auto-translate by default. When you click a button "Never translate <language>", it will add language to the list which is sent out to every HTTP request the browser makes via `Accept-Language` header (it's not obvious this happens unless you're the kind of person who lives in DevTools and inspects outgoing traffic).
Fast-forward N years, Chrome privacy team realizes this increases fingerprinting surface, making every user less unique, so they propose this: "Reduce fingerprinting in Accept-Language header information" (https://chromestatus.com/feature/5188040623390720)
So basically they compensate for one "feature" with another, instead of not doing the first thing in the first place.