Delocalization, please. :'-(

Delocalization, please. :'-(

One thing I've noticed that gets always more in the way in recent times, is automatic localization, especially of language preferences. Not always people on the internet prefer to search stuff on sites speaking what theoretically might be their mother language, e.g. Google knows I'm searching from either an Italian version of MS Windows or an Italian IP address, so it happily boosts Italian-language search results. This is already bothersome and I seem to have little or no power to prevent it: even if I tell Opera to present only EN as an accept-language option, Google presents its interface in English but still peacefully adapts search results to maybe the IT string in the request user-agent field. And what about Opera's dictionary look-ups? How can I tell Opera to send requests to EN.wiktionary.org rather than IT.wiktionary.org? If there's an option for that, then I must have missed it.

So, asideof any hacks I may not know to get the same result, here's my suggestion:
a beautiful, global, user-friendly, shiny DELOCALIZE red panic button among options.

In my idea, it'd need telling Opera to set every single option, request string, hint, dictionary search, whatever else, to reflect a user-specified language. To make it even more simple, just having a button to de-localize everything to English would be fine, as there is a large portion of English web many would like to use.

This is obviously just a suggestion; I don't pretend it to be implemented, of course, but it could be an added value as I hope I'm not the only one stumbling into this frustrating "curse of his own mother language".

PS.

I've just realized there was a specific place for feature requests.
Sorry, feel free to move the topic to its intended place.

Originally posted by axle:

automatic localization, especially of language preferences

That is done by the site(s) - using your IP address. More annoying is why they use it to override the language preference sent by Opera.
P.S. it may also be saved by a site cookie (google do this).

Yes, Google allows you to configure it if you allow cookies, but it doesn't work when searching from the search field or address bar (that is, you have to visit www.google.com to type your search).

Moved to Wish-list.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Yes, Google allows you to configure it if you allow cookies,

But it only works on the machine I set it up... switch the machine and the magic is gone. It's very simple - they should obey user language preferences...

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

but it doesn't work when searching from the search field or address bar (that is, you have to visit www.google.com to type your search).

You can add "?hl=en" to the search string (:

Originally posted by axle:

In my idea, it'd need telling Opera to set every single option, request string, hint, dictionary search, whatever else, to reflect a user-specified language. To make it even more simple, just having a button to de-localize everything to English would be fine, as there is a large portion of English web many would like to use.

Opera already sends whatever languages you specified along. The fault here lies with Google and other retardsignorant fools who don't know how to code their multilingual site properly.

Originally posted by axle:

Google knows I'm searching from either an Italian version of MS Windows or an Italian IP address, so it happily boosts Italian-language search results.

Nope. Can't confirm. I use Google.com and always get the English results as requested. My IP is German and so is my Windoze. Cookies are not involved (blocked).
Browser language is set to English and 'hl=en' is part of the search string:
.../search?hl=en&q=%s

I've tested with the http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s&go=Go search string and also get the English page with the according results.

You're overriding what Google does there with the hl=en. It should already do that simply based on your preferred languages in your browser (unless you have those set to German, then English). Wikipedia/Wiktionary/Wikiwhatever is a completely different story. If I go to google.com while I'm not logged in or have some cookies set, it'll redirect me to google.be in Dutch based on my IP regardless of the language settings my browser sends through HTTP.

Originally posted by Frenzie:

You're overriding what Google does there with the hl=en.

IMHO I'm just explicitly stating the language I would like to get the research result served by Google. As long as Google complies it's OK for me.

I do that too. The point is that I'm already explicitly stating the language through something along the lines of Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5

Specifying it with hl=whatever should only be a means to override the Accept-Language rather than the way to get what you're saying you want in the first place.

essentially setting your prefered language should do the trick.
go to Preferences -> General -> "Details ..." (Language section) and set English to the top in the "Preferred languages for web pages" list. Eg. mine contains in that order: English, German (AT), German
you can check if this is working right here in the forums. if your main language is not set to english you get a sort of banner that reads "Visit the [Language] forums".

@up
we are aware of that... the only problem is that google happily ignores this :|