I'm a frequent traveler and it's really frustrating that I have to keep changing the language and currency on every website. It's so annoying to deal with automatic detection that doesn't align with my preferences. I just want everything set to English and Euros, but every time I visit websites—even ones I use often, like Google—they seem to switch according to my current location. I feel like it would be easy for browsers to just let you choose your preferred language and currency settings so that websites could serve you the right versions right away. I've set my language preference in Chrome, but it doesn't seem to help. Am I missing something here?
2 Answers
Have you thought about using a VPN? As someone who travels a lot, it can be really handy. It allows you to set your location to your home country, which should help you get consistent language and currency settings, no matter where you are.
Browsers actually do send language preferences to websites using the Accept-Language header. The issue is that many sites ignore this and decide to use your geographical location instead. You can check out more about this on MDN's documentation. It's a common problem, unfortunately.
That explains a lot! It's surprising that popular platforms like Shopify or even Google haven't built a better solution for this.
I wouldn't jump on that train too quickly. Some VPN companies really push the idea that public Wi-Fi is super unsafe, but most reputable sites use HTTPS these days, so a VPN isn't strictly necessary unless you're trying to access geo-restricted content.