 "Automated translation of web content is now available to Firefox users! Unlike cloud-based alternatives, translation is done locally in Firefox, so that the text being translated does not leave your machine." I got to see the early demos of this and it is jaws-on-the-floor bonkers wizard magic. Entirely local - and good - translation with no cloud service and like 6MB of storage per language. 61 comments
 @mhoye Oh, cool! I have been watching the repo since you told me about this project.   @mhoye one great aspect of this is that it's zero-cost for Mozilla, vs the running costs of server-based approaches. I'd still like to see some UI improvements but overall it's fantastic @gabrielesvelto The least appreciated part of on-device, surveillance-free technologies is how much cheaper they are for everyone involved. @mhoye @gabrielesvelto it's pretty ridiculous that we wound up in a situation where we all have pocket supercomputers but they send all of our data to be processed elsewhere. @gabrielesvelto @tedmielczarek Service dependencies are profitable. It's a solvable problem, though.  @tedmielczarek @mhoye @gabrielesvelto "we have to shutdown our server that we made your device require because it's unsustainable. Of course these servers were not required in the first place. Please recycle" @tedmielczarek @mhoye @gabrielesvelto If only a company didn't shutdown a project that could have put that in everyone's pocket, we could be living in the future  You mean you wouldn't rather have chatgpt tell you sweet lies while it assimilates all of your personal data? ....that sounds about right actually. Resumes are the new SEO nowadays aren't they? (I met someone in some hacker context who said they put a shitload of keywords in tiny font, white text on white background, in the bottom margin of their digital resumes just to appease The Bots)  @JiSe @mhoye It's a feature of the extension they created as a way to develop this. I believe you can still use it fine and not have any conflicts: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-translations/ The translation module is the labour of a number of European universities in partnership with the Mozilla foundation and the funding for it came from the EU. You can read about it here: https://browser.mt/ It's a real shame this information didn't make it to the release notes. @Xapajiamnu @mhoye release notes are always short and direct. I will see if we can improve this. Sorry about that. We are very grateful for the work of the consortium.  @sylvestre @Xapajiamnu @mhoye any chance this will get into the next release of firefox-esr? @marjolica @Xapajiamnu @mhoye next major esr, yes. The current esr branch, unfortunately no. Too risky to backport the work @sylvestre @Xapajiamnu @mhoye agree, I was not expecting it to be backported to 102, but we (Debian/Devuan) are now on 102.14 so was wondering what whether the next annual bump (obviously due soon) would be based on 118 or higher.  @Xapajiamnu @mhoye American organisation ignores public funding outside USofA and decides to promote itself. Film at 11. @Xapajiamnu @mhoye Live here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/118.0/releasenotes/ Thanks Nikolay!   @mhoye @bitcrush_io Thisnis how it should be done. We have supercomputers on our desktops and in our pockets. Btw, iOS had on-device translations (including in Safari) for three years now iirc, since iOS 14 (you need to download languages in the Translate app). It’s good to see Firefox offering this now as well. I have had 4 or 5 toots about this in my timeline, but not one about the fingerprint protection which for me is way more important, but that is just me @mhoye Automated translation has actually been the #1 reason why I've been using Chrome for the past decade. I can't wait to give this a go and maybe I'll be able to switch back to the Fox. @mhoye @janneoksanen There are several plugins in Firefox that do that already. No need to use Chrome for that.
@mhoye Been a Firefox main browser user basically since it came out. @mhoye This is the last non-work-compatibility reason I ever pulled out Google services on web browsing and I'm very glad I have it. Going to be using this plenty...  @mhoye Aw it doesn't do Romanian yet :( Actually it's pretty weird cause it doesn't have some much more widely spoken languages but then it has Bulgarian? o.o @mhoye Proof that doing stuff "the classic way" still works and we don't really need Big Tech's cloud platforms  @mhoye @sylvestre @mhoye The translation icon isn't showing. @fabienmarry @mhoye try to do on leroymerlin.es @mhoye 6MB? How can that possibly work? Storing only vectors? Even if so, 6MB seems tiny…? @deafferret When I say it is bonkers wizard magic I am not kidding. When we saw the demo people were yelling. "That's four floppy disks! How is that possible?!? How is any of this happening?!?!?"  That actually sounds fantastic. See, THIS is what I meant when I said "compete on features". Very cool!👍 EDIT: annnnd it failed. On their example page, no less. Welp. There's that. :hes_sigh: @flaki @mhoye Well, on Desktop you can go to `about:translations` for Firefox's built-in one. Alas, it doesn't work on Firefox for Android and I'm not sure why. @sylvestre probably has an idea of why.  @flaki@flaki.social @mhoye@mastodon.social For web, https://mozilla.github.io/translate/  This was the main reason for me to have a Chrome browser beside FF. I guess I'll ditch Chrome after a little trial period. @mhoye This actually feels like magic! How is it doing this with only 6MB per language?!? @mhoye That’s huge. Let’s hope this is good enough to bridge the gap with Chrome and so people don’t feel like they’re compromising choosing Firefox. Also I’m not at home currently, so could you please check if Latvian is supported (and if it is send a screenshot of the translated text)? I wish to slowly convert my parents, but they don’t speak English that well, so some translator is necessary :) |
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@mhoye
Super cool. I have been amazed with LibreTranslate.com - a #selfhost #translation #AI you can also 'teach' to improve its accuracy.
(Also used by some #mastodon sites to provide private translation services.)