Ask HN: Why use geolocation instead of browser language settings?

8 points by sleavey 7y ago ↗ HN

When I'm in Germany, I frequently find websites that display English in the UK that display text (especially cookie pop-ups) in German even though my browser and system language settings tell the website to use English. I would understand this if it were significantly easier to find a user's location from their IP address instead of use their browser settings, but it is clearly not - the language setting is there in the header of every request my browser makes to websites.

Is there some benefit to this practice from the point of view of website developers?

3 comments

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phillipseamore 7y ago ↗

I go by accept-language, if it's not set or has more than one language set, I go by IP. If it's only EN, they get english.

You might also want to go a UX route, if IP would indicate a certain language - but browser is set to EN, emphasis could be set on the option to change the language. You could even simply ask the user for his preference.

bjourne 7y ago ↗

Because the browser language setting is very often wrong. Not many users know how to configure it.