This alternative to Google Translate works offline and uses local computer resources to perform translations rather than sending them to a remote server.
Mozilla wants to protect your privacy at all costs, even when you want to translate web page content. The Firefox publisher has just launched an extension for its browser capable of translating web pages without the need to pass said pages through a third-party server.
To create Firefox Translations, Mozilla relied on work done by the University of Edinburgh, Charles University in Prague, the University of Sheffield and the University of Tartu as part of the Bergamot Project. This initiative, funded by the European Union, aimed to create a set of automatic translation tools using a neural network on which the Mozilla Foundation could rely to develop a translation extension working without connection. Firefox Translations thus uses only the local resources of the user’s machine to translate content. The translation obtained is thus produced while scrupulously respecting the confidentiality and privacy of the user, no request being sent to third-party servers.
A still limited expansion
On first use, Firefox Translations nevertheless downloads the files necessary for its proper functioning, in particular the language packs. However, the functioning of this extension is still very limited. It is indeed only able to translate into English content in a dozen languages, including German, Bulgarian, Spanish, Estonian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Persian , Portuguese, Russian and Czech.
The extension being open-sourceyou can, if you wish, contribute to its development by joining the many volunteers who are working on the creation of new translation models to support new languages.
As it stands, Firefox Translations is still in its infancy and does not risk, at least for now, being able to compete with the market leaders. For example, Google Translate, the translation platform of the Mountain View giant, supports some more than a hundred languages with for each of them several functionalities ranging from the translation of typed or handwritten text, to the translation of voice conversations or content displayed on images.
Source :
Engadget