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In my hotel Google and other websites select persistently the Polish version, while in the office it goes for Spain. However, I want English! I tried all and went through many blogs, including Mozilla help, but in vain so far.

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  • Last reply by fddunhill

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I m Dutch, but most of my software including Firefox is English. At the moment I am based in South Sudan. Windows and Firefox regional and language settings are either English or Dutch. Recently some websites persistently switch to Polish when I work in my hotel, but to Spanish in my office. If I type "www.google.com" in the address, it changes to "www.google.com/pl" or "www.google.com/es". With "www.sony.com", tab shows "Sony.com GEO-filter PL" Quite annoying to have to change to Explorer now after 18 yrs Netscape and Firefox.

I m Dutch, but most of my software including Firefox is English. At the moment I am based in South Sudan. Windows and Firefox regional and language settings are either English or Dutch. Recently some websites persistently switch to Polish when I work in my hotel, but to Spanish in my office. If I type "www.google.com" in the address, it changes to "www.google.com/pl" or "www.google.com/es". With "www.sony.com", tab shows "Sony.com GEO-filter PL" Quite annoying to have to change to Explorer now after 18 yrs Netscape and Firefox.

All Replies (7)

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First of all, a couple of links.

For Google American English, use http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0&hl=en

For Google UK, use http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?complete=0&hl=en


To reset the location bar search, do the following.



The URL to add in "keyword.URL" becomes a link in this post, so right click it and choose "Copy Link Location" to copy it to the Windows clipboard. Then hit CTRL+V to paste it. Saves you having to type the whole thing.


To reset your home page, do the following.


  • Go to the site you want to set as your homepage.
  • Click the orange Firefox button and go to Options | Options | General (Firefox 4.0.x and above).
  • Go to Tools | Options | General (Previous version of Firefox).
  • Make sure it says "Show My Homepage" in the first dropdown menu.
  • Click the button called "Use Current Pages" to set the homepage to the one you have on the screen.

After you complete the above steps, install this add-on to prevent another search engine from modifying your preferences: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/browserprotect/


You also asked about disabling Plugins. To accomplish that task, click the Firefox button, go to Add-ons | Plugins and then disable those you don't want.

In FF 3.6.x, go to Tools | Add-ons | Plugins.


Please check to make sure your plugins are up to date via the Plugins Check page.

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Thank, you. I did all you asked. I also changed "geo.enabled" to "false", and "geo.wifi.uri" to "localhost" as was suggested by someone else. No improvement however. In the mean time installed Opera which appears not to have this problem. Anyway, I would be happy if Firefox works.

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Where does your IP locates you?

Do you need to use a proxy in the hotel?

You can find the connection settings in Tools > Options > Advanced : Network : Connection
See "Firefox connection settings":

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Hi and thanks Co-rel. (1) My hotel IP locates me in Poland, while my office IP locates me in Argentina. I discovered now that more of my colleagues here have this problem. May be (South)Sudan is not on the IP-map yet and addresses are taken from other region using an unknown selection role? (2) I switched proxi settings to no proxi.

Firefox is still behaving the same: everything in Polish (as I am in the hotel now). I tend to conclude that swiching of geo-location is not properly working.

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If that hotel gives you an IP that locates you in Poland then that will explain it.

Did you try to ask the IP department if it is possible to get an IP that locates you elsewhere?


For Google there is a solution via a Google PREF cookie. If the Google (Firefox) or Yahoo! home page is in the wrong language then see:

Other sites may allow to store the language choice in a local cookie as well. You need to create a allow exception to keep such cookies.

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Thanks, Co-rel. However, I think it is easier to use Opera for now. I can switch back to Firefox when I am back home. Hopefully Firefox makes this issue more simple in the near future as I am not the only one struggling. Actually this geo-locating is annoying for internationally oriented people. Thanks again