Firefox adds a free offline translator
Mozilla has been working on a translator that can work offline for a while now and it’s now available with Firefox. It’s a way to not depend on Google Translate or other online tools.
“Translate websites in your browser without using the cloud”, indicates Mozilla concerning its translation tool for Firefox. Just download this expansion for it to install on the browser. Then comes the moment when you have to download the language packs that interest you and that’s it. All you have to do is click on the dedicated icon at the top right to translate the page you are on.
This is the result of the European Union-funded Bergamot project, in which Mozilla collaborated with several universities to develop a set of machine learning tools that enable offline translation. Normally, this type of work is done on servers, where large language models (several GB long and with an impressive amount of parameters) are deployed to translate a user’s query. Here, your computer does the work directly.
The advantage of using the Mozilla system is none other than respect for privacy. Using, for example, Google Translate can technically help Google profile you based on your queries. This could then help it show you targeted ads. In the present scenario, this is not possible.
The problem as it stands is the number of languages supported. That’s well over 100 languages on Google Translate. With Mozilla’s translator on Firefox, it’s only 12 languages at the moment. There are English, Spanish, Estonian, Czech, Bulgarian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian (Nynorsk), Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Persian (Farsi) and ‘Icelandic. Soon French? It is to be hoped.
