Local Translate in the Browser
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- Best Answerset by Vlad
We are waiting for Apple to allow us access to the built in Translation API in the macOS. This is the most privacy respecting and the most efficient way to get translations in the browser.
In the meantime there is a new project which does local translations in the browser
They have a firefox extensions and it works great in Orion. No 3rd party services are used for translation and it works even offline.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/translatelocally-for-firefox/
nevermind, got it to work now on some sites
Vlad Initial testing with this is quite good, thank you. With this, I am going to swap back to Orion full time. The reason I went back to Safari was for native translation. I have noticed that Microsoft Outlook for Mac can use the Apple native translation now, so I am hoping Orion can use this soon? I genuinely have no idea how Apple and their API's work in relation to software development, but in the last of 18 months of Apple updates in iOS and MacOS, the native translation functions have both improved and are available more often when using them.
I should not assume it is I suppose, but if I right mouse click the same German text in my Outlook for Mac app v16.80 23121017, and then also in Apple's Notes, the UI elements are identical and translations are identical. In Outlook, if I select the language dropdown, then "more languages", it opens up my MacOS settings General>Language&Region>Translation Languages. I'm on Sonoma 14.2.1.
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I would like to propose as a test-case reddit.com or old.reddit.com . Afaik on iOS there’s no translation extension that works for this website on Orion, but Firefox on the desktop can do it with TWP. Safari on iOS has no control for target language if the user has picked multiple languages as understood: if Reddit itself shows some UI in English because that’s how the user account is configured, but comments are in a different language, Safari picks as target language the second in the list of user languages.
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Note that Orion already has "Translate ..." available in the right click menu when you select some text on the page. This is inherited natively from WebKit/system.
Vlad This is a great extension, but unfortunately it doesn't work on the mobile version of orion.
From WWDC 24, Apple now provides a translation API.
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/10117/
It would be cool if Orion had something similar to Chrome's Google Translate.
If it's implemented as part of the browser then it can be much more powerful than an extension.
In future iterations maybe it would be possible to leverage local LLMs or bring your own key LLM services instead of Kagi Translate, although I think people would just pay for Kagi + Orion.
[https://immersivetranslate.com/en](https://)
It is recommended to refer to this one. This translation project is very well done.