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With the Google Translate app you have the option to download languages for offline use, and it's not hidden behind 10 menus or anything.

Scoundreller 4y ago
But does Google upload what you translate later? And hard to stop it from using wifi when it's available. Google Translate has its uses, but nice to have an offline (as in... uhhh free speech?) translator as an option. Would be cool to have Firefox Translations integrated into TOR.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  > But does Google upload what you translate later? If you use Google Translate, of course it does because everything is done on their servers > Would be cool to have Firefox Translations integrated into TOR. Tor Browser is just a forked firefox so this should not be too difficult. I believe they disable addons by default because they can leak data and they can't check all addons for this. Not sure if you can switch it back on though. I suppose they could validate this one as it's so important. I would recommend submitting a feature request to the tor project.
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    >> But does Google upload what you translate later? > If you use Google Translate, of course it does because everything is done on their servers As mentioned by GGP, the Google Translate app for Android (at least) allows you to download the model for a given language (pair?), after which you no longer need any kind of Internet connection to translate. That implies everything is done locally, not on Google’s servers. GP’s question was whether the app will still save your queries and submit them once a connection becomes available just to scratch that data collection itch.
    - Scoundreller 4y ago
      this
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Ah ok I missed the app part, I was still thinking about web.
    - darren_ 4y ago
      > GP’s question was whether the app will still save your queries and submit them once a connection becomes available just to scratch that data collection itch. disclaimer: googler This can be tested. Translate shows up in your Google 'My Activity' page, so you can do some offline translations, then switch the network back on, and see if the translations show up in My Activity. Assuming you can trust the My Activity page to be complete and accurate (my opinion is you can, but i would say that) and FTR: I've actually just tried it and offline translations do not show up in my activity so I highly doubt they're being surreptitiously uploaded.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      >As mentioned by GGP, the Google Translate app for Android (at least) allows you to download the model for a given language (pair?), after which you no longer need any kind of Internet connection to translate. This isn't true. Google claims this, but it just doesn't work that way: I've had many, many cases of trying to translate stuff with a bad cellular data connection and it doesn't work, even though I have the language pack downloaded.
      - em500 4y ago
        I don't think offline translation kicks in automatically when you have a bad (as opposed to no) connection. You can easily verify that it can translate without any connection (both on iOS and Android) by downloading the language and putting the phone in airplane mode. (At least, the basic text translation works fine. The more advanced features, such as speech and image translation, don't.) Also, Microsoft's Translator app can do the same (offline translation for text) and IME is about on par with Google).
ale42 4y ago
So they can definitely do it. But they don't it for Chrome. Guess why?

Scoundreller 4y ago

But does Google upload what you translate later? And hard to stop it from using wifi when it's available. Google Translate has its uses, but nice to have an offline (as in... uhhh free speech?) translator as an option. Would be cool to have Firefox Translations integrated into TOR.

GekkePrutser 4y ago
> But does Google upload what you translate later? If you use Google Translate, of course it does because everything is done on their servers > Would be cool to have Firefox Translations integrated into TOR. Tor Browser is just a forked firefox so this should not be too difficult. I believe they disable addons by default because they can leak data and they can't check all addons for this. Not sure if you can switch it back on though. I suppose they could validate this one as it's so important. I would recommend submitting a feature request to the tor project.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  >> But does Google upload what you translate later? > If you use Google Translate, of course it does because everything is done on their servers As mentioned by GGP, the Google Translate app for Android (at least) allows you to download the model for a given language (pair?), after which you no longer need any kind of Internet connection to translate. That implies everything is done locally, not on Google’s servers. GP’s question was whether the app will still save your queries and submit them once a connection becomes available just to scratch that data collection itch.
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    this
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      Ah ok I missed the app part, I was still thinking about web.
  - darren_ 4y ago
    > GP’s question was whether the app will still save your queries and submit them once a connection becomes available just to scratch that data collection itch. disclaimer: googler This can be tested. Translate shows up in your Google 'My Activity' page, so you can do some offline translations, then switch the network back on, and see if the translations show up in My Activity. Assuming you can trust the My Activity page to be complete and accurate (my opinion is you can, but i would say that) and FTR: I've actually just tried it and offline translations do not show up in my activity so I highly doubt they're being surreptitiously uploaded.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >As mentioned by GGP, the Google Translate app for Android (at least) allows you to download the model for a given language (pair?), after which you no longer need any kind of Internet connection to translate. This isn't true. Google claims this, but it just doesn't work that way: I've had many, many cases of trying to translate stuff with a bad cellular data connection and it doesn't work, even though I have the language pack downloaded.
    - em500 4y ago
      I don't think offline translation kicks in automatically when you have a bad (as opposed to no) connection. You can easily verify that it can translate without any connection (both on iOS and Android) by downloading the language and putting the phone in airplane mode. (At least, the basic text translation works fine. The more advanced features, such as speech and image translation, don't.) Also, Microsoft's Translator app can do the same (offline translation for text) and IME is about on par with Google).

ale42 4y ago

So they can definitely do it. But they don't it for Chrome. Guess why?