Google search switches to arabic on all browsers and profiles even when not logged on to Google

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Level 1

13 points

Google search switches to arabic on all browsers and profiles even when not logged on to Google

Hi,

A few months ago, when I used the search from the toolbar (which is set for Google), the search switched to Arabic.

I tried Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Chrome. I even created a new user profile, and I'm not logged on to Google on any of the browsers, and it still switches to Arabic.

Region on OS is set to "United Arab Emirates" and the default Preferred Language is "English - Primary".

I switched that to the USA, but the behavior remains the same.

Other search engines (DuckDuckGo, Bing) work fine, but when I switched back to Google, it's back to Arabic.

This is super annoying.

Any idea what I can do?

Mac mini (M1, 2020)

Posted on Aug 22, 2025 09:37 AM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

57,873 points

Aug 22, 2025 10:34 AM in response to Osama S.

Are you actually in the UAE? or another Arabic-speaking country?

If so, you may need to log into Google.

If you're not logged in, Google doesn't know your preferences (e.g. English) and so it uses location heuristics to determine where you are, and therefore what language to display.

I had a similar problem recently when traveling using an international SIM for data - Google kept assuming I was in Poland (presumably that's where the SIM provider was from?), and kept showing me Polish search results, which were next to useless for me. Once I logged in it started showing me English results.

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Answer 2

Osama S. Author

Level 1

13 points

Aug 22, 2025 11:44 AM in response to Camelot

Yes I'm in the UAE and I'm logged on to google but same behaviour also if I'm not logged on to google.

This started a few months ago and I kept ignoring it, now it's very annoying.

Now I tried my wife's laptop, same behaviour.

When I use a VPN it doesn't happen! Seems something on the network level, maybe from the ISP?

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