
Ask HN: Why use geolocation instead of browser language settings? - sleavey
When I&#x27;m in Germany, I frequently find websites that display English in the UK that display text (especially cookie pop-ups) in German even though my browser and system language settings tell the website to use English. I would understand this if it were significantly easier to find a user&#x27;s location from their IP address instead of use their browser settings, but it is clearly not - the language setting is there in the header of every request my browser makes to websites.<p>Is there some benefit to this practice from the point of view of website developers?
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bjourne
Because the browser language setting is very often wrong. Not many users know
how to configure it.

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phillipseamore
I go by accept-language, if it's not set or has more than one language set, I
go by IP. If it's only EN, they get english.

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phillipseamore
You might also want to go a UX route, if IP would indicate a certain language
- but browser is set to EN, emphasis could be set on the option to change the
language. You could even simply ask the user for his preference.

