293904 - Firefox start page in dutch with the french localization of the installer when in Belgium

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 269062

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Thomas Bertels]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

With the french localisation of the installer, the Firefox start page is set to
http://www.google.be/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:FR-fr:official,
which is the dutch version of the start page.
It's exactly like when a Belgian goes to www.google.com or .be, but with the
Firefox start page, the language can't be changed so this start page is just a
trouble which will be immediately changed by the user...if he knows how.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Be in Belgium
2.Install Firefox (with the option to use the Firefox start page)(be sure to
wipe any google cookie)
3.Start Firefox

Actual Results:  
The Firefox start page is shown in dutch

Expected Results:  
The Firefox start page is shown in french

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

That's because of Google - it determines your language based on your ipaddress.
Countries with more than 1 language are a difficult problem ofcourse. Google
could have used their own cookie (used on their searchengine), but that doesn't
seem to have worked either.

Note that Google doesn't include a normal language switcher on the Firefozx
start page, that is displayed on http://www.google.be/

I'm Belgian too, and I often get a French page on the Google search-engine,
while I'd like to have a Dutch one. I'm not using a language pack, and my Google
cookie is set to English. And I don't even live in B-H-V either (that's an
insider joke). 

The solution would be the Google repects this order :
- the language in the URL first (if a language pack is used)
- then a possible cookie (set by the search engine)
- and only then it might try to determine your country and language from the
ipaddress.

There will always be people that have an incorrect result, but they can switch
with the language-selector at the bottom.

Bart Decrem and Peter V. : do you agree ? I'm just CC'ing you guys, b/c you
would understand it better than most of the volunteers here.

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

dupe of bug 269062, like bug 272586

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 269062 ***

Comment 3

[David Brodeur]

FireFox versions 1.5.0.2 and 1.5.0.3 - start page has opened up in Russian, Chinese, German, Dutch and french.  When selecting options to set language in the preferences to English in the interface language and the search language, then selcting the number of results to 30 doesn't appear to save after saving.  After this the German version offers Google.com and then opens up an english version of the German Google.  After a while, I can finally get to the USA version of the Google Start Page.

I have also saved the USA start page as a bookmark, http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official, and I still get these other variations, even though the URL box shows it to be the USA start page.

I am not as interested in the Asian and European web stuff as much as North American or USA stuff.

I am using the latest TOR Bundle, tor-0.1.1.18-torcp-0.0.4-bundle.exe and the Stealther extension.  I get this whether the Stealther extension is active (restricts cookies) or inactive (cookies enabled).