Web Profiles
Browser locale and time zone
The language the browser asks for and the clock it runs on. Left alone they inherit the renderer's own settings, which is rarely what your audience has.
The two settings
Both are under Fine-tuning › How the browser introduces itself, next to the user agent. Browser language and Time zone each have two buttons:
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
Follow the location | Nothing is set explicitly, and the page gets the browser's own language and clock. The site still sees the country of your Location from the network route. This is how a new profile starts. |
Choose one | Set it explicitly, and pick the value from the list beside the buttons. |
What the locale changes
The locale is what the browser sends in its language header and what the page reads when it formats anything for a human. Setting it changes:
- Which translation a multilingual site serves.
- Date order — 03/04 meaning the third of April or the fourth of March.
- Decimal separators, thousands separators and currency placement.
- Sorting, in lists the page orders alphabetically.
Locale is a request, not a guarantee
What the time zone changes
Anything the page renders as a local time: published dates, countdowns, delivery estimates, opening hours, “last updated” lines, session expiry.
It is worth setting whenever a capture is evidence. A support page that reads “updated 2 hours ago” means very little; the same page with a correct local timestamp is something you can point at.
This is not your account time zone
Using them with Location
These two and Location make one coherent picture of a visitor. Set them together and keep them consistent:
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
A visitor in Berlin | Location DE, locale de-DE, time zone Europe/Berlin. |
A visitor in Tokyo | Location JP, locale ja-JP, time zone Asia/Tokyo. |
An English speaker in France | Location FR, locale en-GB, time zone Europe/Paris — a real and common combination worth testing. |
Mismatches are a test in themselves
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