bubufuImmersive Bilingual Translation
SelfTranslate
A self-hosted, privacy-first immersive bilingual translation Chrome extension (Manifest V3). Bring your own API keys or connect directly to local LLMs with zero telemetry, preserving beautiful typography across web pages and documents.
✦ Product preview & status
SelfTranslate core architecture, translation pipelines and local encryption vault are fully verified in our test suite. In accordance with current project milestones, public Chrome Web Store and store listing links are temporarily withheld. Offline CRX packages and developer builds will be published in upcoming platform updates.
Zero login required · 100% Client-Side BYOK · No cloud subscription lock-in
Core Experiences01 / INTERACTIONS
Bilingual & Replace Modes
DOM TreeWalker text node extraction preserves headers, styling, code snippets and layouts intact. Switch between side-by-side bilingual blocks or seamless in-place translation.
Smart Hover Popup
Hover over any paragraph or sentence to trigger a floating translation card without disrupting your reading flow. Optional Shift key activation prevents accidental triggers.
Selection Translation
Highlight any unfamiliar phrase to summon instant definitions, grammatical breakdowns and pronunciation guides across chosen model endpoints.
Input Box Translation
Type your message in Chinese inside any input box, press triple-space or click the inline trigger to translate into foreign languages with safe confirmation.
Document & PDF Reader
Integrated with Mozilla Readability and PDF.js. Drag in local PDF files or articles for clean, reader-mode bilingual layout alignment.
Screenshot OCR Translation
Capture charts, infographics, diagrams or image-embedded text on the web, delegating to vision models for accurate visual text extraction and translation.
Translation Engines & Local LLMs02 / ENGINES & MODELS
Local Model Inference
Run entirely on your machine. No internet required, no API cost, total confidentiality.
Cloud APIs & LLMs
Bring your own API key directly stored and encrypted on your local device.
Hardware-Grade Security & Privacy03 / ARCHITECTURE & SECURITY
Zero Telemetry · Client-Side Cryptography
SelfTranslate is engineered around a strict zero-trust boundary. It will never upload your browsing history, translation content or tokens to any centralized platform server.
- AES-GCM Local Vault: API keys are encrypted in chrome.storage.local using Web Crypto AES-GCM, derived from a master password via PBKDF2 (210,000 iterations of SHA-256 + 16-byte random salt).
- Zero Telemetry: No analytics SDKs, no Google Analytics, no error reporting beacons, no user activity tracking.
- MV3 Strict Sandbox: Content scripts communicate strictly with the background service worker via discriminated IPC messages. Web page scripts can never access your keys or configuration.
Keyboard Shortcuts04 / SHORTCUTS
| Shortcut | Action | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Alt + T | Translate current page | Any web page |
| Alt + Shift + T | Restore original content | Translated page |
| Alt + S | Translate current selection | When text is selected |
| Triple-Space | Trigger input box translation | Focused input / textarea |
| Right-click | Translate page or selection | Context menu |
Related Reading & Design Notes
Discover more about how we structure client-side encryption and model pipelines in our design journal.