This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

context menu search engine per selected text's langauge?

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Stoneage

Stoneage
Stoneage
more options

when you select text and right click popup "Search google for 'text marked'" , here google is your FF's default search engine, but for people in multi-lingual region would prefer to search e.g. web in the language of the selected text, which makes more sense for the results.

I wonder if FF could add this function, auto detect the text's language and search in e.g. google.de, google.cn or google.fr?

Which is like the macOS lookup, it detect the text language and point to that dictionary?

FF could be a little more intelligent, right?

/BR

when you select text and right click popup "Search google for 'text marked'" , here google is your FF's default search engine, but for people in multi-lingual region would prefer to search e.g. web in the language of the selected text, which makes more sense for the results. I wonder if FF could add this function, auto detect the text's language and search in e.g. google.de, google.cn or google.fr? Which is like the macOS lookup, it detect the text language and point to that dictionary? FF could be a little more intelligent, right? /BR

Chosen solution

Hi, the URL of the built-in Google search engine is decided in a contract with Google.

Of course you can add on other Google search engines under specific country code TLDs, but there isn't a way to get Firefox to switch among those based on the language of the page (much less the language of the text, which... how would Firefox know?).

Maybe there is an add-on that can do it?

If not, Mozilla has an "Ideas" site at https://connect.mozilla.org/ to gather feature suggestions. You can go into the Ideas section and start a new thread.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (2)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

Chosen Solution

Hi, the URL of the built-in Google search engine is decided in a contract with Google.

Of course you can add on other Google search engines under specific country code TLDs, but there isn't a way to get Firefox to switch among those based on the language of the page (much less the language of the text, which... how would Firefox know?).

Maybe there is an add-on that can do it?

If not, Mozilla has an "Ideas" site at https://connect.mozilla.org/ to gather feature suggestions. You can go into the Ideas section and start a new thread.

Stoneage
Stoneage Question owner
more options

thanks @Jscher2000 for understanding and explanation.

yes I have multiple search google engines for local languages. I could manually change that language based google, which results in using context menu/search for that language/region.

As AI/chatGPT is already so advanced, while couldn't Firefox be a little more intelligent? esp. such auto detect language and lookup exists already e.g. for macOS safari lookup in dictionaries not only in its language(s) but also recognized its grammatical conjugations. Further more, Apple's innovations are not huge re-creation at all, just use present techniques for transplantation then multiplication.

yes there're Addons can do as well, but it can surely be a built-in FF capability.

thanks for pointing to FF ideas, I just submitted there. Yet, marked as spam (LOL)

Modified by Stoneage