Review: Yandex 1.5 browser offers a lot of Cyrillic, but not much else
Yandex is to Russia what Google is here in the States—a homegrown favorite search engine. Now, like Google, it’s gotten into the Web browsing business with Yandex Browser, built mostly from the open-source version of Google’s Chrome. Judged by itself, the resulting browser is amply fast, if considerably quirky. But when ranked among the broader browser lineup, it seems like a pale imitation of its bigger, better inspiration.
Brush up on your Cyrillic
Yandex practically announces its biggest problem on the very page where you download it: “Yandex.Browser with a full set of features designed specifically for the English-speaking users will be released soon.” As it stands now, the browser caters by default to those who speak Russian.
Lost Translation: Until you find this dialog box buried in Yandex’s preferences, be prepared to see a whole bunch of Cyrillic.
Automatic searches via the URL bar default to Yandex’s all-Cyrillic results pages. Even when you dive into the settings to switch to Google, you’ll get its Russian-language service. And by default, the program’s only set to translate pages into Russian from any other language. You have to burrow down into the advanced settings to make English or another language your first preference.
Even then, Yandex Browser’s online help files initially appear in Russian—you’ve got to change them to English via a tiny, tough-to-spot link at the bottom of the page. (My initial attempt to translate this page into English via Google Translate, thwarted when that page also showed up in Cyrillic, was admittedly pretty amusing.)
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