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Short description
Real time translation tool for android.
Why I think this tool should be added
Most people currently do not know what privacy preserving tools to use for:
Accessibility Requirements like TTS and STT.
Language Translations
Adding tools like the above and others will help widen the audience for Privacy Guides and make privacy more accessible. The tool specifically works well, and is not bad on resources, especially with the newer pixels which are the current phone recommendation. The privacy policy is clear, and all processing happens on device and offline.
Great app, but there are bugs/issues that doesn’t allow you to install models when setting up the app, so it won’t work.
The initial download will get the models from GitHub, however in some regions GitHub is very slow, those who have problems of this kind can download the models separately from a computer (or in general in whatever way they prefer) and insert them manually into the app following this guide.
Seems like problems similar to some other projects that use Github Europe or OVH servers. Not sure why, but some Asian ISPs throttle OVH and Hetzner and other European providers. Is it enough to not list it? Not sure tbh. Just wanted to add this here since I couldn’t find a similar tool on the website or the forum.
To be clear, I was responsible for moving the language tools recommended on the site to a separate page (the section was previously on the Productivity Tools page). The only thing I authored was the introduction that you quoted in your post.
If RTranslator is approved for addition to the site, then it would certainly belong on the page you linked since it does work offline after downloading the models. On GrapheneOS, I revoked the Network permission after the app finished the downloads, and it works fine.
I tested only the text translation mode since it was, for me, the only mode I would conceivably use. From the few times I used it, the non-English to English translations are pretty accurate. The English to non-English translations are sometimes rough though… I’ll continue to test it in the following days to get a better gauge of the accuracy.
N.B.—For my testing, I only inputted single words or simple phrases. My inputs did not exceed a sentence.
I have been using this app lately and I fully recommend it, works amazingly with SherpaTTS as well! Its much better than options like SimplyTranslate which is merely a frontend, its great to get an instant translation without requiring any internet connection.
They have also discussed adding camera support in the future once their current app is developed enough.
I wouldn’t trust them to communicate wih someone else to show/send them the output. I have gotten some very weird hallucinations with RTranslate, so I think there’s a non-zero chance of unknowingly telling something offensive
You don’t need a specific translation app, any LLM can translate languages. You can use PocketPal to run local models.
Qwen models are generally quite good, I would avoid Gemma models or Microsoft models, as those have huge variation in reliability. Llama is also great if you don’t want a chinese model.