The Ukrainian Chrome extension Lantern has not yet been integrated into social networks such as X (Twitter) due to the complexity of their layout and the developers' concerns about whether users would perceive this as an "invasion of personal space." The project's co-founder Den Massalitin told dev.ua in a comment, sharing plans for Netflix support, expanding the list of languages, and future monetization.
Previously, dev.ua reported on the launch of this tool, which the developers worked on for eight months. The service is designed to integrate foreign language learning into everyday web browsing by highlighting words on pages and translating subtitles in videos.
According to the developer, the lack of social media support is due to the complexity of dynamic layouts and security concerns. The team was unsure whether users would perceive Lantern's work in their social networks as an invasion of personal space, so they postponed this task.
"Also, by default Lantern does not work on banking sites, email, etc. For the same security reasons. But we will soon add the ability to enable the app manually," said Den Massalitin.
In addition, the developers are preparing integration with the streaming platform Netflix by analogy with YouTube, where hovering over video subtitles pauses the video and displays a translation.
Within a month, translations into major European languages (Spanish, German, French, Italian, etc.) will be added to the service, and later new languages for learning will appear, the first of which will be Spanish.
For users from Ukraine, Lantern will continue to remain completely free. Monetization is planned in the future for other languages and additional functionality.
"These are difficult times, and we thought that free access for Ukrainians would be the right decision," noted Den Massalitin.
Currently, Lantern is in beta. In the future, the team also plans to release mobile applications for iOS and Android, create an LMS system for teachers, and implement a personalized AI tutor.