391831 - google search should use regional google depending on locale [Gentoo]

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[Chris Bainbridge]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070803 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070803 Firefox/2.0.0.6

The google and ebay options in the search toolbar send the search request to google.com or ebay.com. Since I'm using the en-GB locale, it would be better to forward the request to google.co.uk/ebay.co.uk, which return different results. In particular, ebay shows me products from UK with prices in £;the same thing happens if I do a google search and click products. Google also returns more appropriate search results when the regional site is used.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
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Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

We mostly leave the job of redirecting users to the appropriate localized version to the search providers, as far as I know (makes things a whole lot easier to manage for us). They can use a combination of Accept-Lang headers, UA string detection, and possibly IP geolocation to forward you to the right place.

Comment 2

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

For Google, you might have en-GB results first if you set en-GB as your first preferred language for page display, [en] as a first option is probably considered as [en-US] by Google. You can check and change these values from firefox preferences.

Comment 3

[Chris Bainbridge]

My preferred language is already en-gb. Google recognises that I'm from the UK - the google.com has a "go to google uk" button. But it seems in some cases Google defaults to en-us locale anyway (e.g. searching for "27 hkd" on google.co.uk or google.de gives me a US$ conversion, but the same search on google.fr gives a Euros conversion. Weird).

I know in theory it's possible for google/ebay to forward users to the right place, but given that they don't actually do that, wouldn't it be more useful for the search bar in firefox to just use the correct national site?

Comment 4

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

So, the google problem seems to be just a google problem. It might be that geo-locating Chris is funky, that happens with some ISPs. If you're using en-GB and it geo-locates you to GB, google should actually redirect you to google.co.uk. At least that is what's happening to me from Germany.

As for ebay, Firefox 2.0.0.x actually ships with an ebay.co.uk plugin, so I wouldn't know why you wouldn't get that.

Did you install en-GB over an en-US version, or are you using a language pack? That might have some influence here.

Comment 5

[Chris Bainbridge]

I deleted all cookies and google.com now redirects. Thanks for letting me know it was supposed to do that. "27 hkd" on google.co.uk still gets me US$ conversion, not UK£. I just tried under Windows/IE and get the same, so I guess that's Google's bug.

I had a look at firefox on a Windows PC and the default search bar has entries for ebay.co.uk, yahoo.co.uk, chambers (uk) and amazon.co.uk. I'm running Gentoo linux, have tried firefox from source and binaries, have en_GB locale, and don't get this, only the .com searches. Maybe this is linux, or Gentoo, specific. What exactly determines whether the UK versions of the searches come up in the search bar? Can anyone confirm this does or doesn't happen on other linux distributions?

Comment 6

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

If you're using a third-party build, all bets are off. Building a localized Firefox is almost certainly more complicated than just setting your OS locale to en_GB.

Comment 7

[Chris Bainbridge]

Just checked the official en-gb build. Search bar links to UK versions of sites as expected. I'll file a bug report with Gentoo.

Thanks for your help.