The site that tests whether it’s “just not with you”: now also in broken Hebrew
The excellent Downdetector website collects information from surfers and social networks so that you know if the problem is just you or the whole world, and now it also has a Hebrew interface. Well, kind of.
You’re trying to get into a site or service you like, but it doesn’t show up. You start to wonder: Is your router disabled? Another resource or infrastructure error (spoiler: never who you connect to)? Then you come to the million dollar question: “Only me”? But anyone who really wants to know if any service is malfunctioning always goes to the same place, Downdetector. Now more Israelis will be able to tell if the error is with them or with the service itself – because it receives an update in Hebrew.
Israeli services are also at home
Downdetector is a service provided by OOKLA. Yes Yes, the same company through which you check whether your internet is fast or not with the help SpeedTest. The service, at least according to its operator, relies not only on server reports, but also on a set of information from social networks and search engines that allows it to determine if a particular service has a general problem, and not just one that affects a small number of users.
Mistakes don’t end here
The service has been used by many around The massive collapse of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram Last month, it ironically crashed as a result of a number of surfers trying to check if the bug was just in them. Downdetector tracks Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook services, but also specific services like Call Of Duty, In Us, airbnb and more. In Israel specifically, it also monitors local businesses such as banks, Bezeq, municipal websites, local councils, and others.
The translations were not very successful and there are not many translations
ולמרות החדשות המשמחות על גירסה ישראלית שאולי תחסוך לכולנו שיחות מודאגות מההורים, יש ב- Downdetector העברי גם תרגומים די משעשעים שנראה שמקורם מ- Google Translate כמו “לממן” במקום “Finance”, “מפעל” במקום “Enterprise” ו”איזה שירות יש לך Problems?” This along with startling sentences such as “One person reporting a problem does not constitute a widespread pause. To ensure downtimes are represented correctly, we calculate a base of typical problem reports for each company we monitor,” and “Downdetector provides real-time status and cut-off information for all types of services that users consider essential to their daily life and work” – as written on the “About” page.
Another problem with the Hebrew interface is in the search engine. While tech users have known Downdetector for years and used it in English without any problem, our expectation in at least the Hebrew version was that the search engine would also be updated to support Hebrew. A search for “Tel Aviv municipality” yielded no results, but a Tel Aviv municipal search yielded exactly the result we wanted. In short – there is more work here.
For the Israeli version of Downdetector
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He was born with a joystick in his hand. He has a lot of tools and very little free time to play with them all. Unexplained hammer holder for calibrating device batteries. When he’s not busy writing about technology, he likes to talk about it a lot
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