OK so this is an issue I’ve had for a very long time now (since Firefox 4 beta) whereby Google keeps defaulting to a strange language and seemingly completely ignoring my preference for English:

The reason for this is a bad language string in Firefox’s settings. You can fix it by doing the following:

Edit - Preferences
Content -
Choose... (under Languages)

You’ll see the following language:

chrome://global/locale/intl.properties

Delete it. It’s wrong and it’s causing you problems. Once deleted, time to add your language of choice:

Select Language to add... -
<pick your desired language>

You should now be greeted with a much easier to read google index page!

Here’s hoping this post will make it out in time to save the flood of Ubuntu Natty users on their shiney new Firefox 4 installs 🙂