Local Translate in the Browser

ViktorVoronin

I've tried many different web page translating extensions from Chrome and Firefox but haven't get to a place when I can right-click and translate a web page to English with no issues.

It might be a problem of extension compatibility, but I'd argue that translation should be implemented natively as it is an essential part of the "window" to the multilingual internet.

Vlad

ViktorVoronin I agree. Unfortunately macOS does not provide a translation API, so we can not implement it 'natively'.

The only way to do it is to use an external API which has two problems:

Privacy implications as you are sending data to external service
All external translations APIs are paid

Edit: It seems that Monterey added a native translation feature, we can definitely use that.

ViktorVoronin

Actually because of the privacy implications I'd prefer the browser I trust to have control of what is sent out when I translate a web page.

I'm probably asking too much, but I'd suggest to implement and build in your own set of extensions (assuming the translation could be free as in other extensions) that work alike that people can chose as for the search.

Vlad

ViktorVoronin Translation can not be free unless it is built in into the OS so we would need to wait for this.

ViktorVoronin

Can you please share the source about such limitation?

Vlad

ViktorVoronin There are no free translation APIs available.

ViktorVoronin

How do the free translation extensions work then?

Vlad

ViktorVoronin You would have to check with those extensions. Maybe same as 'free' browsers and 'free' search engines? I am not sure.

ViktorVoronin

I did a brief research into how the translation extensions work.

Google (and likely others) has open translation endpoints that don't require a captcha or API token but have basic content and rate limiting in order to make their own translation extensions to work. The translation extensions I was referring to work by just mimicking the HTTP requests to the endpoints.

De facto, there are free translation APIs but I'm not sure it's legal to use in a commercial project (is Orion one?) and there are no guarantees for the API stability.

Could it be an opt-in experimental feature for people who can tolerate content/rate limiting and/or failures?

Vlad

ViktorVoronin

Thank you for doing this work.

We could hit the rate limit quickly (in the future)
We would be sending user's private information to Google

ViktorVoronin

Vlad

We could hit the rate limit quickly (in the future)

No. It's up for a user to hit it or not. Assuming we're talking the client side implementation.

We would be sending user's private information to Google

It doesn't make difference for the use case I have in mind. If Orion translate a webpage or I go to https://translate.google.com and paste a URL to translate, Google gets the same information from me if not more.

If it's an opt-in functionality when a user picks a provider and there is a warning that this feature shares IP and the translating text with the provider and it has to be triggered by the user (not automatically), I find it a great deal.

😇

Vlad

ViktorVoronin Google Translation API requires a token that you use in your application. All usage beyond the free tier would be charged to the owner of the token, which would be us.

https://cloud.google.com/translate/

What does make sense is to simply use a translation extension. We will be happy to include a native translation feature, once it is available in macOS.

ViktorVoronin

Vlad I'm not sure if you don't read my posts or I'm a terrible communicator. 😬

There are endpoints that don't require an API token. Here is a demo for you:

const googleTranslate = (text, langTo, langFrom = "auto") => {
  return fetch(
      `https://translate.googleapis.com/translate_a/single?` +
      `client=gtx&dt=t&sl=${langFrom}&tl=${langTo}&q=${encodeURIComponent(text)}`
    )
    .then(res => res.json())
    .then(data => data[0][0][0])
}

const input = window.prompt("Enter text to translate to Russian:")

googleTranslate(input, langTo = "ru").then(translated =>
  alert(`"${input}"\nin Russian would be:\n"${translated}".`)
)

Vlad

ViktorVoronin Hm.. can you point out this API in the Google translate official API doc? We wouldn't want to implement an official API theat can be shut down ant any moment.

optuma

Have you seen https://vivaldi.com/features/translate/ I believe it uses https://lingvanex.com/products/macos-translator/

????

They offer private translation. Maybe this is possible for Orion 🙂

Vlad

optuma Thanks for this. I tried Vivaldi translation and it is not native nor private. You can easily test this by disabling your wifi and trying to translate a page - it will not work. It requires to send data to Vivaldi servers for translation (where is then processed by hosted Lingvanex software). So when Vivaldi says that it is "private by design", take it with a grain of salt.

We will include translation when one is available on macOS (so that it is truly native and private). Until then translation can be achieved using one of the many web extensions.

CucumberJam

Safari has a built in translation of webpages feature. It works well but it can not remember you were there and will not translate automatically. I would like to see Orion browser have one and be better than Safari. Otherwise your browser is awesome.

Thanks,

CucumberJam

Vlad

It seems that Monterey added a native translation feature, we can definitely use that.