First-run setup
When Ukti is installed, Chrome opens a setup page. It has three steps. The first two matter; the third is only there so you can try it. Altogether it takes two or three minutes, and you only do it once.
1. Turn on the microphone
Press Turn on the microphone. Chrome asks whether Ukti may use the microphone. Choose Allow.
One thing worth knowing here: turning your speech into text is Chrome’s own work, and Chrome sends the audio to Google’s servers to do it. Ukti itself keeps none of your words and sends them nowhere. The details are in the privacy policy.
2. Download the two language packs
Translation needs two of Chrome’s language packs: Bangla → English and English → Bangla. Press Download beside each.
- Once a pack is downloaded you never download it again.
- After that, translation happens on your own computer and your text goes nowhere.
- Downloading needs the internet. Chrome fetches the pack from Google; none of your text goes with it.
Without the packs, dictation and Banglish to Bangla still work. Only the EN button and English output do not.
3. Try it
In the box at the bottom of the page, press the button and say something in Bangla, such as “আমি আজকে খুব খুশি”. The words appear right there. Nothing said here is kept, and closing the page turns the microphone off.
Two things to remember
Press F5 on tabs that were already open. Tabs that were open before you installed Ukti do not know about it yet. Refresh each one once with F5. Every page you open after that works by itself.
It can stop after a long stretch of talking. Google’s free voice service has a limit, so after you have been speaking for a long time it can stop responding. Press the mic to stop, then press it again, and it clears. Speaking a paragraph at a time makes this rarer.
Opening setup again
If you need to download a pack or allow the microphone later, press Ukti’s icon in Chrome’s toolbar, then Open setup.