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I feel called out
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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I actually hate it when a website does that, especially when it doesn't let you download the application you want because your OS is not compatible. For example you wanna download some windows software to run it with Wine/Proton and the website detects you are running linux and does not let you download. I always need to spoof my User-Agent string to get access.
The correct solution (as with languages on websites) is to auto-detect but then make it super easy and obvious how to change if the auto detected version is not what the user wants.
Also if any web developers out there are reading - don't use the user's location to determine the language/region they want, and especially don't force it. I have no idea why so many websites do this but those responsible deserve to permanently have small amounts of sand in all their socks.
How do websites choose a language by location? What about countries that have more than one official language?
Yeah, I'm saying they shouldn't, but plenty of them do. They use geoip or location services to work out where you are and then use that to send you to the local site or the site in the language that they feel is appropriate for that location.
If you're really lucky they then make it difficult (and sometimes practically impossible) to switch.
Besides the problem you've highlighted for countries with multiple languages, you also have immigrants, people on holiday, multilingual people, VPN users... And it's not great for your SEO either.
I hated when Spotify forced me dutch language, glad I got my account deleted.
yeah it's really annoying all my devices are in english but my native language is german so sometimes it's in english and sometimes in german