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This section seeks to describe the options desktop users can use to translate text from one language on a web page or email.

Google Chrome for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

The Google Chrome browser has an built in option to translate a webpage to another language. 

However if you want  to translate part of a webpage or selected text, you can install the Google Translate extension from Google which allows you to highlight text and click on the translate icon (or right click) to translate the selected text.

Mozilla Firefox

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(Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

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For Mozilla Firefox, the several translator addons/plugins exist ; a popular one is Google Translator plugin by Andy Portmen works well for Firefox by nobzol which can be used to translate highlighted text using the Google Translate service or entire pages via the icon it installs on the menu bar. This tool can also be used by using the contextual menus via the mouse.

If you're looking for a browser plugin that uses Microsoft Translate service, Microsoft has a cross-browser plugin called "Translator bookmarklet" at http://labs.microsofttranslator.com/bookmarklet/ which translates a webpage in place without leaving the page. Works in Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.

There is also a really great plugin for Mozilla Thunderbird called Quick Translator that works really well at translating highlighted text using Google Translate. It can be found at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/quick-translator/ or if using Thunderbird by searching for it either under extensions or add-ons.

Microsoft Outlook

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Another useful one is ImTranslator for Firefox  which can translate selected portions of selected text on a webpage using Google Translate or Microsoft translate or entire webpages with Google Translate.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft has Translator for Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Outlook