Firefox Translations
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 4 translation services by recommenders
People recommend it for translating web pages on-device, so text never leaves the browser, with decent quality. Critics say output can be wrong and that quality trails Google Translate.
People recommend it for translating web pages on-device, so text never leaves the browser, with decent quality. Critics say output can be wrong and that quality trails Google Translate.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 26
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 87%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 26 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Translates pages privately on-device
“I appreciate that I can conveniently translate things with a reasonable degree of accuracy without having to send that text to god knows where.”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Mozilla's new CEO is doubling down on an AI future for Firefox” “Being able to read foreign language pages without feeding your browsing history into Google Translate is pretty cool.”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “Mozilla shutting down Solo AI website creator” “The local translation in Firefox is quite good, and I love that I can translate pages entirely on my machine”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Mozilla's Opposition to Chrome's Prompt API” - Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements”
- Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment”
- Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “AI controls is coming to Firefox”
- Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “The Mozilla Cycle, Part III: Mozilla Dies in Ignominy”
Translation quality is good
“It's useful and it's a perfect application for local LLM to be better than the equivalent corporate services.”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Firefox Forcing LLM Features” “The local translation in Firefox is quite good, and I love that I can translate pages entirely on my machine”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Mozilla's Opposition to Chrome's Prompt API” “On device translation of websites for example is much better than the alternatives.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Firefox 148 Launches with AI Kill Switch Feature and More Enhancements” - Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Firefox Merges Support for Vulkan Video Decoding”
- Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting”
Built into the browser
“I love having built-in local natural language translation implemented by AI, which Firefox provides.”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla” “The builtin translation feature [0] is LLM-based [1], and that adds a ton to my browsing experience”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Firefox Forcing LLM Features” “the (actually innovative!) idea of baking small ML models into the browser”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing” - Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting”
- Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla”
Replaces external translation services
“I use it frequently and haven't had any reason to switch to an external offering.”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Firefox Merges Support for Vulkan Video Decoding” “I found the quality to be good enough to very rarely need an external service.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Firefox Merges Support for Vulkan Video Decoding” “Yes, Translate is the only one I want - and we already have that!”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Quality trails Google or is clumsy
“Perfectly clear and comprehensible. It's not fluent English, there are comma splices everywhere”
Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “Growing up in "404 Not Found": China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert” “Most of the time when I tried it the Firefox translations were obviously wrong or nonsense.”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting” “it's usually faster, as there is no network latency”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Firefox Merges Support for Vulkan Video Decoding” - Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “English: A vs. An”
Translate option sometimes missing or broken
“The button is there and is clickable, and there even is an animation near the address bar, but it doesn't actually do anything.”
Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Firefox Merges Support for Vulkan Video Decoding” “I've been enjoying the Firefox translate, but for some reason sometimes it doesn't show the option to engage it”
Comment from 15 Aug 2026 in “In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace”
Other translation services people recommend
The three most recommended other translation services, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Translate | 64 | 66 | 49% | 12 | 11 yrs5 owners | — |
| Kagi Translate | 50 | 26 | 66% | 6 | — | — |
| Firefox TranslationsThis page | 26 | 4 | 87% | 9 | — | Approved |
| DeepL Translator | 25 | 13 | 66% | 11 | — | — |
What people said
31 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Being able to read foreign language pages without feeding your browsing history into Google Translate is pretty cool.”
“Firefox's local translation feature is pretty decent but not amazing”
“the (actually innovative!) idea of baking small ML models into the browser”
“I've been enjoying the Firefox translate, but for some reason sometimes it doesn't show the option to engage it”
“The button is there and is clickable, and there even is an animation near the address bar, but it doesn't actually do anything.”
“It's fully local, which means the translation might not be as good as what Google can do”
“it's usually faster, as there is no network latency”
“I use it frequently and haven't had any reason to switch to an external offering.”
“I found the quality to be good enough to very rarely need an external service.”
“local-only (as in not remote-hosted) translation also does a remarkable job here”
“The local translation in Firefox is quite good, and I love that I can translate pages entirely on my machine”
“I think it's a great feature.”
“On device translation of websites for example is much better than the alternatives.”
“It's like the coolest thing they worked on recently.”
“I use firefox translations pretty often since the models are run offline.”
“That's less intrusive than Firefox Translations are by default.”
“Perfectly clear and comprehensible. It's not fluent English, there are comma splices everywhere”
“It's useful, and its value proposition is much less dubious.”
“it's chosen to do things like translate Japanese into Spanish”
“I found the local translation feature nice on a few occasions.”
“Yes, Translate is the only one I want - and we already have that!”
“I appreciate that I can conveniently translate things with a reasonable degree of accuracy without having to send that text to god knows where.”
“Most of the time when I tried it the Firefox translations were obviously wrong or nonsense.”
“Every time I want it to translate I have to manually find both languages in the insanely long dropdowns.”
“The new built-in translation in Firefox works pretty well!”
“it works fully on-device, i.e., it's as privacy-preserving as it gets”
“Some great examples are the local translation engine”
“I love having built-in local natural language translation implemented by AI, which Firefox provides.”
“The built-in translate is nice.”
“The builtin translation feature [0] is LLM-based [1], and that adds a ton to my browsing experience”
“It's useful and it's a perfect application for local LLM to be better than the equivalent corporate services.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.