Annoying Google translate bar in Firefox

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I have been using the Google tool bar in Firefox since it first became available years ago. But I have now disabled it because I cannot figure out how to turn off the new translate bar that shows up at the top of the web page. This bar offers to translate English pages in English, of all things. If I click the Never Translate English button, the bar doesn’t show up again until I restart Firefox. Turning the translate bar off in options (uncheck Translate under Tools in the Google Toolbar Options dialog) and clicking Save doesn’t save my settings – when I restart Firefox the translate bar shows up again.

Has anyone out there figured out how to turn this @#$%^&* feature off? Until I can turn it off, I will leave Google toolbar disabled.

By the way, I also use Chrome (but I dislike it for many reasons) and it also has translate functionality but it doesn’t display this annoying behavior. I guess this is one way that the Google developers are trying to drive Firefox users to Chrome – give people broke functionality in Firefox so that they will switch to Chrome where the functionality is not broken.

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Peter, Is this a seperate Google tool bar or the normal search bar with Google selected as default search engine? I do not get any king of translation bar at all. Is there an extra add on you downloaded that may have put this in? I have found in all cases I do not need any extra toolbar. The default search bar works fine for me.

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More info on translate page feature of Google Toolbar: Translation bar : Web-browsing tools – Toolbar Help. I don’t use it myself.

It doesn’t make sense that the bar suggests an English-to-English translation… do you know whether your preferences are stored locally or whether you need to be logged in to Google for the toolbar to retrieve them?

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The steps to turn off translation as mentioned in the link you post do not work (of course since that is what I have already tried). Translate stays off until I completely exit Firefox and then start it up again, at which point the translate bar shows up again.

I checked my languages in Firefox and only English/US [en-us] and English [en] show up. I checked my language in Google and it is also set to English.

I was logged into Google, so I logged out. Turned translate off, restarted Firefox and hey, no translate bar! Finally! Now the question is how long I am willing to stay logged out of Google…

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The steps to turn off translation as mentioned in the link you post do not work (of course since that is what I have already tried). Translate stays off until I completely exit Firefox and then start it up again, at which point the translate bar shows up again.

I checked my languages in Firefox and only English/US [en-us] and English [en] show up. I checked my language in Google and it is also set to English.

I was logged into Google, so I logged out. Turned translate off, restarted Firefox and hey, no translate bar! Finally! Now the question is how long I am willing to stay logged out of Google…

It looks like you have American English and UK English dictionaries installed. Check to see which one is default. If the UK English is set as default; the translate bar likely is offering to translate it to US English (which is likely your OS’s default language).

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Here is the bar I see:

By the way, it appears that as long as you are signed into Google, you cannot save your Google tool bar options. I had to sign out of Google before the translate option would stay on between Firefox restarts. This means that I can sign out of Google, turn of the translate feature, and then sign back in, and no longer get the translate bar. Not perfect, but it works.

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Peter, I have one question and one suggestion. The question: why do you want to continue to use Google Toolbar? I try to avoid adding toolbars, since they take up valuable space that I’d rather devote to the web page I’m viewing. Sometimes, I find I have to include a toolbar in order to have functionality that I want–e.g., the RoboForm toolbar. But I’ve always avoided the Google Toolbar, since I couldn’t see anything it provided that I needed. For me, the search box in Firefox is all I need to use Google. Anyway, if you don’t really need the Google Toolbar, you could just get rid of it and save all the headaches you’ve been having.

If you want to keep the Google Toolbar but don’t want the translate feature starting each time you re-start your computer, you might want to use a program like WinPatrol (available in both a free version and a modestly priced Plus version). WinPatrol will help you disable or remove programs from your startup menu. I find it a very useful program in many ways, and especially for its help in keeping my startup menu under control. For more information: http://www.winpatrol.com/.

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I guess I have gotten used to using the Google toolbar, when it’s gone I miss it. And it gives me quick access to my gmail and other things.

WinPatrol will not help. The translate feature is part of the Google Toolbar (not a separate app or plugin), and I also stated that I restarted Firefox, not my PC. (As an aside, I use AutoRuns from sysinternals – the price is right (free) and it helps me manage my startup tasks. I usually run it once a month to see what new stuff has installed itself in one of a multitude of startup locations.)

Also, as I have mentioned, my problem is fixed – I simply had to sign out of my Google account at which point my Google Toolbar options get saved across Firefox runs. After I save the options (with the translate option unchecked) I can log back into Google.

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I had the same problem after the recent Google Toolbar update. After several days of frustration I uninstalled and reinstalled the toolbar, which fixed the problem.

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After several days of frustration I uninstalled and reinstalled the toolbar, which fixed the problem.

I tried his also, but it didn’t work. But then you probably did not log back into Google after reinstalling the toolbar.

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Just click on “Never translate English” and you should be home free.

>

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Just click on “Never translate English” and you should be home free.

If you read my post, you will know that this does not work unless you are logged out of Google.

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It looks like you have American English and UK English dictionaries installed

I have only the American English dictionary installed. (By the way, “[en]” is the identifier for English in general, not for British English, whose identifier is “[en-gb]”.)

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Wow, being mentioned in the weekly newsletter really bumped the posts in this thread. A big shout out to new Loungers Val and Andre!

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Peter,

Try using the GoogleBar Lite 4.7.4 add-on for Firefox. It doesn’t have a translation option. Find it using Firefox’s Tools>Add-Ons>Get Add-Ons.

Good luck!

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I do wonder if the Google toolbar does indeed hold back some of the functionality now that Chrome is out. Like some of you guys mentioned it, I had no use for it since Firefox gave me all I needed (quick gmail access can be gained by simply dragging the gmail tab to the quick bookmarks tab). But, the one thing FF lacks is good site-wide translation, which don’t work from the Google bar as far as I can tell. Are there any apps out there that will let me do with FF what Chrome does? Cause I really like FF better, and it’s a pain having to switch between browsers just to see a translation…

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I had the Firefox add-on Foxlingo 2.6.5 enabled. I disabled it and that stopped Google translate. Don’t ask me why, but if you have Foxlingo enabled, give it a try.

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