306553 - Google startpage automatically in Dutch

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 269062

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Ben Branders]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; nl-NL; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; nl-NL; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

Some users from the United Kingdom get a Dutch Google startpage after updating
Firefox to 1.0.6 with the built-in updater. 

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Use an older Firefox version (1.0 < x < 1.0.4) with language en-GB
2.Update to a newer version (also language en-GB)
3.Start Firefox -> Dutch startpage

Actual Results:  
The Google startpage shows up in Dutch. The locale settings seem to be wrong.

Expected Results:  
Open the English Google startpage (en-GB).

Comment 1

[u63580]

I think Google use your IP address to decide which site to send you to.  Which
ISP are you on?

Comment 2

[Ben Branders]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I think Google use your IP address to decide which site to send you to.  Which
> ISP are you on?

I filed this bug because I got a lot of questions about it via the Mozilla
Europe helpdesk. The only thing I noticed was that they all had .co.uk domains... .
Next time I'll ask for their IP address.

Comment 3

[u63580]

A bit of playing around with my language string reveals that it is not purely IP
based.  If I set up as just en or en-US (i.e. US english) or with en-GB (UK),
and type www.google.com, I'm sent to www.google.co.uk (my IP address is a UK
one).  But if I set nl (Dutch) in Firefox, I get redirected to the Dutch google
site.  Not quite sure what is going on here - some kind of mixed IP and
agent-string thing?

Possibly related is bug 269062.  

Comment 4

[Jason Barnabe (np)]

http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=873&query=redirect&topic=0&type=f

Comment 5

[Jean-Michel Reghem]

Just an info from a belgian punct of view:
www.google.be use a cookie named PREF
(for example for me:
ID=3bc5fd97419394d6:LD=fr:NR=10:TM=1093964276:LM=1120742185:S=bPzNQ2g6XN317SVe)
Google.fr and google.com has the same

--> info: LD=fr which is the language...

By default, www.google.be, without cookie set, display the page in dutch...
To set the cookie, you have to click to "Frans" (is is so stupid as french
speaking belgian seek for "Français", and not Frans ... :-)

So, the problem, when you install firefox for the first time in belgium is that
the start firefox/google page is in Dutch ... and there is no way to change the
language on this page ...

a french speaking belgian with basic knowledge of internet (call him Marcel
Dupont instead if John Doe :-) ) don't know it has to go to www.google.be to
change the language

Comment 6

[Jean-Michel Reghem]

sorry ... this last comment was for bug 269062 ...

Comment 7

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc]

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