The notion of instant on-the-go translation is nothing new for most of us, thanks to the now-ubiquitous Google Translate service.
But a scrappy Google competitor thinks it can do better.
➜ This week, a company called Kagi is officially launching its Kagi Translate app for both Android and iOS.
💡 The app mirrors most of the same features Google Translate offers, with a few interesting new touches and one key point of distinction: It is all about protecting your privacy—with no ads, no trackers, and no data being monetized or repurposed in any way.
Oh—and it’s free, too.
⌚ You’ll need all of two minutes to take it out for a test-drive.
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Instant translations—plus privacy
Once you’ve got the Kagi Translate app on your device, it’s really quite intuitive to use. At its core:
- You can type or paste any text into its main translation box to have the text translated from and to any language you like.
- You can tap the camera icon in that same box to take a photo of text in the real world—on a document, a menu, a whiteboard, you name it—and then have the language auto-detected and translated into your native tongue from there.
- A document icon in that same area lets you upload a file from your phone (or any connected cloud storage) for speedy on-the-fly translation.
- And a microphone icon lets you speak aloud—or have someone else speak aloud—for real-time translations of the words as they’re uttered.
Beyond that, Kagi Translate offers some interesting extras—for instance:
- If you tap the three-line settings icon within the main translation box, you can change between a “natural” and “literal” translation style, a formal or informal voice (for languages where that’s relevant), and also any available gender preference (again, where relevant for a dialect).
- In that same area, you can also add your own custom context to help guide the translation—telling the app, in your own words, what type of conversation you’re having, and with whom, so it can adjust its approach accordingly.
- In the app’s bottom-of-screen Dictionary tab, you can simply get an on-demand, instantly translated definition of a word or phrase in another language.
- The app’s Proofread tab will review any text you type or paste into it and offer suggestions to make it work better in your chosen language.
- And with any translation the app provides you, you have the ability to play the text out loud or copy it onto your system clipboard—as well as request alternate translations for different ways to say the same basic thing.
🕶️ Again, though: It’s Kagi’s commitment to privacy that really sets this app apart. You don’t have to sign in or create an account to use it, and nothing you do or say within the app is ever shared or used for any type of ad targeting.
If that sounds familiar, it should: I’ve written about Kagi and its similarly privacy-centric approach to regular ol’ search before, and that same mindset applies to pretty much everything else the company has offered—including, too, the excellent Android summarizing app I mentioned in these same quarters a few months ago. Kagi makes its money entirely from user subscriptions, which are required for its core search service but not for the assorted stand-alone apps like Translate and Summarize.
Whether you’re using Kagi for any other purposes or not, though, this new tool is an interesting option to keep around and a welcome alternative to Google’s de facto default—and maybe, just maybe, it’s exactly the je ne sais quoi you’ve been waiting for.
- Kagi Translate is available for both Android and iOS. There’s also a web version for desktop computer access.
- The app is completely free to use, though a paid Kagi membership will allow you to access some additional options.
- The app doesn’t have any ads or trackers and doesn’t require any sort of sign-in—and even if you do opt to create an account, Kagi’s core promise is that it never shares any of your data with anyone, in any way, or uses it for any profitable purposes.
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