lisfolks
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How can I stop the language from changing as I travel?
I am an American English-speaking student traveling to different countries for five terms (8 weeks each, plus some time in between) over a year.
Every time I switch countries, various search engines and Google Mail detect the new location and change the language to match - even if I have everything set to English.
So, for example, in the Netherlands, even when I entered "www.google.com", Google detected that I was there and returned "www.google.nl" - which is all in Dutch. I then had to figure out which word meant "preferences" and set my language from Dutch to English. That might seem easy enough, but the words were "voorkeuren" and "engels", respectively - not automatic to translate without looking them up. In the UK, it was easy enough, but now I am in Switzerland - and it's all in German, so "Einstellungen", and "Englisch".
Now, even when I successfully reconfigure the language to English, Google still returns primarily results from the country I'm in - so in the Netherlands, my results showed ".nl" pages; in the UK, it was ".co.uk" pages; and here in Switzerland it's ".ch" pages. Again, as a result, most of the returned pages are in the "mother tongue" of that country, so I don't get results I can read without limiting my search to English pages, which I don't necessarily want to do.
Even my Google Mail changes languages on me. Once I set the preferences there to English again, it works - except the web clips are still in the alternate language. Their support told me that to fix this, I had to turn labs off. Well, first of all, I don't have labs turned on - all of them are set to "off". Secondly, when I use the "labs=0" add-on to the URL, it fixes the web clips - but breaks all kinds of other things. For example, my mail won't refresh anymore without me having to logout and log back in. Or, it hangs when sending messages. Or, etc, etc, etc - I never know which aspect will break at any given time. Once I remove the "labs=0" part, it all works fine again - except the web clips are back to the alternate language I can't read!
With the Google home page, I've learned that I can enter the URL as "www.google.com/webhp/", and it will always come up with the US home page and give me results in primarily English-written pages. But, then I have to set a bookmark for that - Firefox and Safari's search bars will still come back with the other country results.
So, I basically have two questions:
1) How can I configure Firefox and Safari's search bars to set the URL to what I want (the "webhp" version, for example, for Google)? And,
2) How can I get the web clips in Google to show in the language I have set in my preferences (English!) without turning labs off?
Every time I switch countries, various search engines and Google Mail detect the new location and change the language to match - even if I have everything set to English.
So, for example, in the Netherlands, even when I entered "www.google.com", Google detected that I was there and returned "www.google.nl" - which is all in Dutch. I then had to figure out which word meant "preferences" and set my language from Dutch to English. That might seem easy enough, but the words were "voorkeuren" and "engels", respectively - not automatic to translate without looking them up. In the UK, it was easy enough, but now I am in Switzerland - and it's all in German, so "Einstellungen", and "Englisch".
Now, even when I successfully reconfigure the language to English, Google still returns primarily results from the country I'm in - so in the Netherlands, my results showed ".nl" pages; in the UK, it was ".co.uk" pages; and here in Switzerland it's ".ch" pages. Again, as a result, most of the returned pages are in the "mother tongue" of that country, so I don't get results I can read without limiting my search to English pages, which I don't necessarily want to do.
Even my Google Mail changes languages on me. Once I set the preferences there to English again, it works - except the web clips are still in the alternate language. Their support told me that to fix this, I had to turn labs off. Well, first of all, I don't have labs turned on - all of them are set to "off". Secondly, when I use the "labs=0" add-on to the URL, it fixes the web clips - but breaks all kinds of other things. For example, my mail won't refresh anymore without me having to logout and log back in. Or, it hangs when sending messages. Or, etc, etc, etc - I never know which aspect will break at any given time. Once I remove the "labs=0" part, it all works fine again - except the web clips are back to the alternate language I can't read!
With the Google home page, I've learned that I can enter the URL as "www.google.com/webhp/", and it will always come up with the US home page and give me results in primarily English-written pages. But, then I have to set a bookmark for that - Firefox and Safari's search bars will still come back with the other country results.
So, I basically have two questions:
1) How can I configure Firefox and Safari's search bars to set the URL to what I want (the "webhp" version, for example, for Google)? And,
2) How can I get the web clips in Google to show in the language I have set in my preferences (English!) without turning labs off?
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SOLUTION
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The "NCR" mean is "Not Change Region"
ASKER
to moorhouselondon: another excellent suggestion - and I wish I would've known before leaving the US that this would happen. I actually had an older Mac setup I was using at home the same way. Since I was limited in what I could bring, and I figured I'd get something newer when I returned after a year, I decided to give that Mac to my niece. Aaarrrgghh! It would've been PERFECT! I had no idea of the problems I would encounter - which has made this a true learning experience in more ways than one, for sure!
to Causality: the 'ncr' appears to be basically the same as the 'webhp' I'm using. It works, but I still have to have a link to it or type it in manually because I don't know any way to "fix" the Firefox and Safari search bars to use that URL instead of whatever they use by default - which is affected by region.
Hey, if I could give this one 1000 points instead of 500, it would be worth it! This issue is very difficult to solve and frustrating to have! I'm just hoping... (if only I would've known then what I know now...!)
to Causality: the 'ncr' appears to be basically the same as the 'webhp' I'm using. It works, but I still have to have a link to it or type it in manually because I don't know any way to "fix" the Firefox and Safari search bars to use that URL instead of whatever they use by default - which is affected by region.
Hey, if I could give this one 1000 points instead of 500, it would be worth it! This issue is very difficult to solve and frustrating to have! I'm just hoping... (if only I would've known then what I know now...!)
You can Hide IP address and Fake country of origin via a software.
For example http://ninjasurfing.com/
For example http://ninjasurfing.com/
ASKER
Thanks, Causality. However, IP address hiding software is based on the use of a proxy. See my first answer to moorhouselondon, above, for the issues with that.
ASKER
Thanks for your suggestions. They are all excellent suggestions, though I'm not able to use them in my situation. Others will surely find them helpful, though, and I really appreciate your effort.
ASKER
Just for reference of anyone else who may appreciate your answer as well, I have used Tor and Hotspot Shield. Tor was slow and troublesome. Hotspot Shield has been helpful, but for the Mac version, it partitions off a frame in the browser to display ads. This frame has caused problems with some sites, but otherwise it has worked well.
Any other thoughts?
(By the way, for what it's worth, it's time for me to update my T-Mobile phone, and I was thinking of getting the Google phone they're offering. But, due to the problems I've had with Google and Google Mail through this trip, and Google's reluctance to provide easily accessible support for these, I've decided to pass!)