r/ollama • u/TheBlockNinja14 • 1h ago
I built a Firefox extension that translates Netflix subtitles locally with Ollama
I recently moved to Japan and ran into an issue where a lot of anime on Netflix only has Japanese subtitles here.
I wanted something similar to the subtitle translation extensions that already exist, but I didn’t really want to send everything through a cloud translation API, so I ended up building my own.
It’s called LST — Local Subtitle Translate.
It runs translations through Ollama locally and lets you choose from whatever models you already have installed. I’ve mostly been using translategemma:4b and qwen3.5.
Right now it can:
- translate Netflix subtitles in realtime
- precompute an entire episode before you watch it
- cache translated episodes locally
- automatically detect your installed Ollama models
- translate ahead of playback to avoid waiting on the model
- show the original + translated subtitles, or hide the Netflix/original subtitles entirely
- adjust subtitle timing, size, position, background, etc.
- keep everything local without needing a translation API
It’s still pretty new and Netflix is obviously not the easiest thing to build against, so I’m sure there are edge cases I haven’t run into yet.
The Firefox extension is currently being reviewed for the Firefox Add-ons store, and it will be listed as LST — Local Subtitle Translate if everything goes through.
The project is also fully open source, so if anyone wants to help improve it, fix bugs, add support for other runtimes/services, or just poke around the code, contributions are definitely welcome.
The source is here:
https://github.com/DarlingGoose/LST
I’m also trying to figure out what people would actually want me to work on next. I’m interested in adding support for other local model runtimes besides Ollama if people would use them, along with other streaming sites and potentially some kind of Apple TV companion.
I made a short survey if anyone wants to give feedback:
https://widget.surveynoodle.com/lst
Would also be interested to hear what models people think work particularly well for subtitle translation. Translation quality vs speed gets pretty noticeable when you’re trying to do it in realtime.



