How to translate anything instantly in Firefox (with Translate Man)

Translate Man is an add-on for the Firefox web browser that you may use to translate anything that is displayed on a webpage.

While Mozilla has been working on integrating a translation service into the Firefox web browser, nothing has come out of that up until now. Extensions introduced support for Google Chrome's translate functionality in Firefox. One of the first, gTranslator for Firefox, replicated Google Chrome's translate feature but with the difference that users had to take manual action. The extension, as well as others such as Translate This, are no longer available.

Mozilla started to work on a translation feature in 2014 and integrated some functionality in Nightly versions of Firefox. Mozilla revived the project in late 2018 after years of inactivity targeting Firefox 63 as the stable release for the translate feature. Firefox 63 came but the feature did not make it.

Translate anything in Firefox

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Translate Man is a translation extension for Firefox that you may use to translate anything on-the-fly. The extension works a bit different to how Chrome's translation feature works, but it uses the Google Translate API for its translations.

It supports the translation of individual words, phrases, paragraphs and longer text structures. First thing you may want to do is click on the extension's icon in the Firefox address bar to make sure the desired output language is correct.

You may use the extension in different ways afterwards:

• Double-click on any word to translate it instantly. An option to have it pronounced is available as well.
• Highlight any text to have it translated. Just use the mouse to select text and you get a translation in an overlay next to the selection.
• Use the Ctrl-key modifier to translate text.
• Translate on hover automatically. The option is disabled by default.
• Enable automatic pronunciation of the selected text.

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You may enable or disable any of these options individually. If you don't want translations when you highlight words, maybe because it is getting into the way of your copy operations, you can disable that option but keep the Ctrl-key modifier one available to use it whenever you need to translate something.

Translations pop up nearly instantly on the screen when you use one of the available methods provided by Translate Man. It works really well and there is little to criticize. An option to blacklist languages might be useful to some users but the extension does not get into the way of the user that much anyway.

Closing Words

Translate Man is a great browser add-on for the Firefox web browser. Firefox users who use translation services at times may find it useful the most, obviously.