Users who have installed the developer release of Google Chrome might already have noticed that Google has integrated Google Translate into the web browser.

This only becomes apparent when a user visit a website that is displayed in a different language than the computer system’s default language (or the web browser’s language, not sure).

Google Chrome will automatically display a small toolbar below the address bar that offers to translate the website into the default language.

It is possible to change the detected language to another one in case Google Translate detected the wrong language. A click on translate will translate the website to the default system language. If that option is selected the translation toolbar will change telling the user that the website has been translated from the original language into the default system language. Here it is possible to make changes to either the detected language or the language the website has been translated to.

The options button displays different options on the first and second screen. Options on the first screen are provided to either never translate into that language or to never translate that site. Options on the second screen are to set the web browser to always translate the language whenever it is encountered.

The build in translation service is a great addition to the Google Chrome web browser. It is unobtrusive and comfortable. Only an option to disable it completely or to configure it in an initial setup would have been nice.

Bubble Translate is a translation plugin for the Google Chrome browser. It uses the Google Translate service to provide on-page translations of selected text. It is recommended to configure the plugin after its installation. A click on the T icon in the Chrome status bar will open the settings where the language of the user needs to be set (default is Afrikaans). Other options in that menu include changing the translation hotkey and the color scheme of the translated text.

The default hotkey to translate items on a website is Ctrl. All that it takes to translate part of a website is to press the Ctrl key and select the text that should be translated with the computer mouse. It takes a moment before the translated version of the text (translated into the language selected in the configuration of the extension) shows up in a bubble next to the selected text.

The extension is an early development stage. This could explain that it sometimes took more than one try to get the translation of a selected text in the browser. Bubble Translate for Google Chrome is available at its Google Code project website.