Link for a localised version of Firefox

[F Wolff]

Hallo everybody

I'm trying to work out the best way to send a link for the recipient to
download a localised version of Firefox in my language. Ideally the link
alone would be enough to have high chances of a successful download without
additional instructions. It seems to be much harder than I hoped it would
be.

If they were already using a localised browser, I could point them to any
of these:
https://mozilla.org/af/
https://www.mozilla.org/af/firefox/new/
https://www.mozilla.org/af/firefox/products/

Even without the language code ('af' in my case) in the URL, they would be
pointed to the localised pages, and be served the localised version for
their platform when they try to download it.

Using browsers with the correct language settings are unfortunately pretty
rare around here. All of those links will currently serve the en-US version
of Firefox in a browser set to prefer English content, since the button in
the second URL goes to:
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?scene=2
... which is not specific to the locale, and will therefore show the
English version of the page, and offer the English version of Firefox.
Clicking on "Download" in the first link above (the front page) goes to the
English version of the download page for the same reason.
The link for "Firefox for Other Platforms & Languages" at the bottom of the
download page is incredibly well hidden. It is below the fold, in a small
font, and obviously regarded as relevant as the privacy policy and release
notes, and I'm pretty sure that basically nobody would be able to find it
unless they are instructed to look for it specifically. Even then, it is
confusing, since there is a language switcher right above it which might
look attractive, but which won't help, because of the issue just mentioned
above.

I could send the download link directly, which is something like this:
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-50.0-SSL&os=win64&lang=af
... but I'm not sure if that is a stable URL, and this doesn't show a
visual page, only immediately starts downloading the installer. I feel it
provides a less then ideal user experience, but also looses the opportunity
to have a page on the mozilla.org site open in their browser pointing to
extra material about the browser/project. It also leaves me with having to
guess that they are using Windows 64, which is probable, but if I'm wrong,
then they have no way of recovering (if they want to download for OS X, or
whatever). In some cases I can maybe send instructions and multiple links,
which solves the last issue.

Another alternative is
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#af
which highlights the relevant row in the table of all locales, but then the
table headers are not visible, and it is not obvious which of the 5
"Download" links is the right one. The tooltips are great, but might still
create confusion for Windows vs. Windows 64-bit, although this almost seems
like the best option for me at the moment if I additionally send some
instructions. After downloading, this also leaves the user with an
unlocalised page with a list of languages instead of additional information
about Mozilla or Firefox, which is not ideal.

I guess the website was never designed for the use case I have in mind,
which is unfortunate. I guess this is pretty common for anybody trying to
download a localised version of Firefox in any of the locales where
localised software is not the norm, or they use a browser in another
language for some reason.

Did I overlook another solution? Can we somehow get this kind of usecase
into the design of the website for the future?

Keep well
Friedel

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

At the moment I think the best link for this scenario is to /firefox/all
(with its limits)
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#af

I'm going to file a bug for the behavior on firefox/new, I don't think
it's reasonable to redirect a user on /af/firefox/new to
/something-else/firefox/new when clicking the button.

The link to "Other platforms and languages" is far from visible,
especially considering that it used to be right below the download button.

Francesco

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[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Sorry for the double email, forgot to add a link to a bug that was filed
a while ago
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1217691

[F Wolff]

Another possibility I just found:

The search on the "all" download page can be driven with a GET parameter
like this:
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/?q=Afrikaans

This way the table shows, and only the one language is shown. Maybe this is
the best option at the moment.

Am I correct that that page is not currently translatable?

Keep well
Friedel

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Il 22/11/16 12.57, F Wolff ha scritto:

> Am I correct that that page is not currently translatable?

Yes, currently it's not exposed to localization (that might change).

Francesco