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- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (3-day trial); $99.00 to buy (Buy it now)
- Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Date added: September 24, 2009
- Total Downloads: 5,657,312
- Downloads last week: 1,233
- See full specifications
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 138 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on May 25, 2009
The ancient city of Babylon was a crossroads of cultures and languages, and the program Babylon makes good on its linguistic heritage. It can translate 31 languages from your desktop, offers a huge gallery of glossary add-ons, and gives direct access to Wikipedia results in 20 languages. In addition to deeper language libraries, the latest version introduces a new, streamlined interface, single-click document and Web site translation, and a new language detection-feature that recognizes languages without user input.
Babylon translates individual words and phrases on the fly by highlighting and right-clicking or using a hot-key combination that can be adjusted in the Settings menu. Babylon 8 also introduces a "globe" option that keeps the program running in the background and available on your desktop. You can listen to a computerized voice pronounce words in English, but you'll need to add more text-to-speech engines to hear words in other languages. Another helpful feature lets you quickly convert currency, measurements, or time zones, and you can create your own personalized glossaries with links and embedded images.
If you regularly need translations across all your programs and Web surfing, Babylon's default setting to load at start-up will probably seem like a boon. If that's not what you're looking for, you can adjust it under the Miscellaneous tab in Settings. Resource usage spiked when translating full documents, but not overly so--it worked rapidly and didn't interfere with a simultaneously running media player. The full-featured 30-day trial offers plenty of time to decide whether Babylon is valuable to you. The wide array of features and impressive options for adding custom content help this reference tool earn a top rating.
Publisher's description
From Babylon :Babylon 8 is the ultimate all-in-one translation solution operated by a single click on your mouse. Simply click on a word or text in any desktop application and get instant translation results into 75 languages. Translation of full texts, Web pages and comprehensive documents is supported by 31 languages. All these features and more, like the integration into Microsoft Office Speller menu, contextual access, language detection, currencies and units conversion, are accessible without interrupting your work flow. Babylon 8 comes with a new dictionary pack, including updated Babylon dictionaries and 17 new Wikipedia titles. You may enhance your translation experience with premium content dictionaries from acclaimed publishing houses such as Oxford, Britannica, Merriam-Webster, Larousse, Vox, Langenscheidt, Pons, and Duden. With Babylon 8, understanding, reading and writing in all languages is easier, faster, and more efficient than ever before.
What's new in this version:
Version 8.0 r38 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 138 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 8 user reviewsSee all 8 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
Version: Babylon 8.0 r38
Pros: it works - but so are other products out there
Cons: when you need it most it doesn't work and then you can't get any support. My legally purchased license suddenly stopped working - I've sent 3-4 emails to their helpdesk but got no response.
I tried the competition and found out it's damn good...Summary: Will never install this one again
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Version: Babylon 8.0 r38
"Ver. 7 was an "XP". This one is the horrible "Vista"."
Pros: The good thing in ver. 8, is that it's beeing a wake up call for Babylon not to do the same mistakes in ver. 9. Or they are going to be in big troubles.
Cons: The online spelling checker disturbs typing. 8 version is too heavy and less stable then 7 ver. Default instalation puts a Babylon toolbar, change your search engine, change your home page. No normal support. Upgrade costs are too exaggerated.
Summary: The online spelling checker takes all keyboard resource, and some of your typed letters will lost when typing a bit fast. That's is a ridiculous huge bug! When you are in a text field, and pressing the spelling button on the glob, Babylon opens more... read more >>
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Version: Babylon 8.0 r38
"Licensing, Copy Protection, Customer Support Horrible"
Pros: Good Software. Use it for over 14 years.
Cons: The licensing model is stupid, the enforcement of it ridicules and intrusive. Coupled with horrible customer support and not working support pages on their web site and you will find yourself in a lot of trouble, if you PAID for their software.
Summary: Don't think that buying a stand-alone version or life-time license (if they still have that) saves you troubles. You still need to be connected to the internet and your license that you purchased might becomes invalid over night for no apparant reas... read more >>
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Version: Babylon 8.0 r38
"MALWARE ALERT - INSTALLS CRAP IN YOUR BROWSER"
Pros: It does do a decent job of translation, has some good convenient features for quick access.
Cons: A horribly invasive software that installs toolbars in your browser, changes all your search defaults to use their babylon pages for search engines (probably to generate additional revenue for them) and took me a while to remove this junk.
Summary: It does the job for what it does but the installation of all this malware (and other stuff unless you be careful and uncheck) is just completely unacceptable. And it's not like we needed Babylon search home pages instead of Google, Bing or Yahoo and... read more >>
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Version: Babylon 8.0 r38
Pros: it was so easy to install and use
Cons: nothing in percicular
- See all 8 user reviews Write review
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