They proclaim "privacy-respecting" but all your keystrokes go to OpenAI. Horrific and genuinely upsetting.
Edit: The author replied to another comment that there is an intent to add local AI. If that is the plan, then fix the wording until it can actually be considered privacy-respecting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41579144
Lol, this was my second thought immediately after my first, which was one of excitement. Hope the author does add a option for local. Wonder how that would work as a Chrome extension. Doesn't seem like a good idea for extensions to be accessing local resources though.
> Doesn't seem like a good idea for extensions to be accessing local resources though.
To the best of my knowledge all localhost connections are exempt from CORS and that's in fact how the 1Password extension communicates with the desktop app. I'd bet Bitwarden and KeePassXC behave similarly
You can self-host Languagetool and use it as a Chrome/Firefox extension. The extension talks to a Languagetool server via HTTP, and takes its address as a configurable option. So you just run the local server, and pass localhost:8080 as the server address.
There are several free alternatives to OpenAI that use the same API; which would make it possible to substitute OpenAI for one of those models in this extension. At least on paper. There is an open issue on the github repository requesting something like that.
So, it's not as clear cut. The general approach of using LLMs for this is not a bad one; LLMs are pretty good at this stuff.
Yes, but the API at the end is providing the core functionality. Simply swapping out one LLM model for another - let alone by a different company altogether - will completely change the effectiveness and usefulness of the application.
I have been using LanguageTool[1] for years as "an open source alternative to [old school] Grammarly". It doesn't do that fancy "make this text more professional" AI stuff like this or Grammarly can now do, but they offer a self-hosted version so you don't need to send everything you write to OpenAI. If all you want is a better spelling/grammar checker, I highly recommend it.
You can also run your own local instance for the in-browser checking, which is handy for me as I need to be careful about sending text off to another company in another country (due to both client security requirements and personal paranoia!).
You don't get the AI based extras like paraphrasing, and the other bits listed in as premium only (https://languagetool.org/premium_new), but if you install the n-gram DB for your language (https://languagetool.org/download/ngram-data/) I found it at least as good as, for some examples better than, Grammarly's free offering last time I did a comparison.
It's great. I had a subscription for Grammarly for a couple of years and used both tools in parallel, but found myself mostly using languagetool increasingly. It is strictly better, I'd say even for English but certainly if you need other languages or deal with multilingual documents. So I canceled Grammarly and didn't miss it since.
You also can self-host and we do that at my workplace, because we deal with sensitive documents.
For VSCode users who want to try out LanguageTool, I cannot recommend the LTeX extension [1] highly enough. Setting up a self-hosted configuration is really easy and it integrates very neatly with the editor. It was originally built for LaTeX but also supports Markdown now.
And you can write your own custom rules. It's great as a reward for spotting an error in your writing you get to write a tiny little bit of code to spot it automatically next time. I've collected hundreds.
Absolutely plus one on this. LanguageTool is great and I’m also very happy on the free tier. With the app installed on macOS it also checks mails in the Apple Mail app, for example.
This explains why I was confused by this. I moved to LT many, many years ago, and didn’t know about those new Grammarly features. So I really wasn’t clear how rewriting a specific text had anything to do with Grammarly.
And if you are in a regulatory environment (or elsewhere where data exfiltration paranoia is part of your daily work life), you can install your own instance of the service (sans premium features) and not send your text anywhere outside infrastructure you control.
After years with Grammarly, I wanted a simpler, cheaper way to improve my writing. So I built Scramble, a Chrome extension that uses an LLM for writing enhancements.
Key features:
- Uses your OpenAI API key (100% local)
- Pre-defined prompts for various improvements
- Highlight text and wait for suggestions
- Currently fixed to GPT-4-turbo
> Key features: - Uses your OpenAI API key (100% local)
Sorry, but we have a fundamental disagreement on terms here. Sending requests to OpenAI is not 100% local.
The OpenAI API is not free or open source. By your definition, if you used the Grammarly API for this extension it would be a 100% local, open source alternative to Grammarly too.
Without marketing speak can I ask why anyone would have a need for a service like grammerly, I always thought it was odd trying to sell a subscription based spell checker (AI is just a REALLY good spell checker).
Non-native speakers find it useful since it doesn't just fix spelling but also fixes correctness, directness, tone and tense. It gives you an indication of how your writing comes across, e.g. friendly, aggressive, assertive, polite.
English can be a very nuanced language - easy to learn, difficult to master. Grammarly helps with that.
I'm a big fan of Grammarly and have been using it, and paying for it, for years.
The advantage is not spell checking. It is grammar and style improvements. It tells you things like "this language is informal", or "this is a better word for that".
The "grammar" part, at least in a professional setting. You might be shocked at how many people will write an email pretty much like they would talk to friends at a club or send a text message (complete with emojis!) or just generally butcher professional correspondence.
It is widely used in countries where the professional language is English, but the native language of the speakers is not.
For example, most Slavic languages don't have the same definite/indefinite article system English does, which means that whilst someone could speak and write excellent English, the correct usage of "a" and "the" is a constant conscious struggle, where having a tool to check and correct your working is really useful. In Greek, word order is not so important. And so on.
Spell check usually just doesn't cut it, and when it does (say, in Word), it usually isn't universally available.
Personally, I have long wanted such a system for German, which I am not native in. Lucky for me DeepL launched a similar product with German support.
A recent example for me was that I was universally using "bekommen" as a literal translation of "receive" in all sentences where I needed that word. Through DeepL I learned that the more appropriate word in a bunch of contexts is "erhalten", which is the sort of thing that I would never have got from a spell check.
Grammarly is a lifesaver for my day-to-day writing. All it does is correct spelling and punctuation or give rephrase suggestions. But Grammarly does it so unreasonably well that nothing else compares.
Grammarly's core functionality is not even LLM-based; it's older than that. Recently, they've crammed in some LLM features that I don't care a snoot about compared to its core functionality.
This tool, like any other "Grammarly alternative," is just another GPT wrapper to rewrite my text in an overly verbose and soulless way. I was hoping for a halfway-decent spelling corrector.
I installed the extensio on vivaldi and added an openAI api key, which registered as "saved". But when I click on the extension it still says "API key not set. Please set it in the options."
Nice job—I'm always a fan of 'bring your own key' (BYOK) approaches. I think there's a lot of potential in using LLMs as virtual copy editors.
I do a fair amount of writing and have actually put together several custom GPTs, each with varying degrees of freedom to rewrite the text.
The first one acts strictly as a professional editor—it's allowed to fix spelling errors, grammatical issues, word repetition, etc., but it has to preserve the original writing style.
I do a lot of dictation while I walk my husky, so when I get back home, I can run whisper, convert the audio to text, and throw it at the GPT. It cleans it up, structures it into paragraphs, etc. Between whisper/GPT, it saves me hours of busy work.
The other one is allowed to restructure the text, fix continuity errors, replace words to ensure a more professional tone, and improve the overall flow. This one is more reserved for public communique such as business related emails.
If your point is that BYOK is a useless acronym since it has the same number* of syllables, I disagree. Acronyms aren't just for reducing syllable count; they also reduce visual clutter and are easier to read for people who scan text.
I do something similar. I have a custom Gemini Gem that critiques my writing and points out how I can better my paragraphs, but I do the bulk of the rewriting myself.
I'm not a native speaker, and the nice thing about this approach is that I seem to be learning to write better instead of just delegating the task to the machine.
Very cool! I'd be interested in reading more about your dictation-to-text process if you documented it somewhere, thanks.
My partner and I were just talking about how useful that would be, especially driving in the car when all of the "we should..." thoughts come out of hiding. Capturing those action
items more organically without destroying the flow of the conversation would be heavenly.
Readit News
Edit: The author replied to another comment that there is an intent to add local AI. If that is the plan, then fix the wording until it can actually be considered privacy-respecting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41579144
To the best of my knowledge all localhost connections are exempt from CORS and that's in fact how the 1Password extension communicates with the desktop app. I'd bet Bitwarden and KeePassXC behave similarly
Edit the 'background.js' file in the extension and replace the openAI endpoint with
'http://your.local.ip.addr:5001/v1/chat/completions'
Set anything you want as an API key. Now you have a truly local version.
* https://github.com/LostRuins/koboldcpp/releases
* https://huggingface.co/bartowski/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-...
* https://github.com/LostRuins/koboldcpp/blob/concedo/kcpp_ada...
https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7730893-data-controls-fa...
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So, it's not as clear cut. The general approach of using LLMs for this is not a bad one; LLMs are pretty good at this stuff.
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[1] - https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool
You don't get the AI based extras like paraphrasing, and the other bits listed in as premium only (https://languagetool.org/premium_new), but if you install the n-gram DB for your language (https://languagetool.org/download/ngram-data/) I found it at least as good as, for some examples better than, Grammarly's free offering last time I did a comparison.
Thanks.
You also can self-host and we do that at my workplace, because we deal with sensitive documents.
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[1]: https://github.com/valentjn/vscode-ltex
I looked into the Scramble code[0] and it seems there are few pre-defined prompts(const DEFAULT_PROMPTS).
[0] https://github.com/zlwaterfield/scramble/blob/main/backgroun...
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Key features: - Uses your OpenAI API key (100% local) - Pre-defined prompts for various improvements - Highlight text and wait for suggestions - Currently fixed to GPT-4-turbo
Future plans: add LLM provider/model choice, custom prompts, bug fixes, and improve default prompts.
It's probably buggy, but I'll keep improving it. Feedback welcome.
GitHub: https://github.com/zlwaterfield/scramble
Sorry, but we have a fundamental disagreement on terms here. Sending requests to OpenAI is not 100% local.
The OpenAI API is not free or open source. By your definition, if you used the Grammarly API for this extension it would be a 100% local, open source alternative to Grammarly too.
English can be a very nuanced language - easy to learn, difficult to master. Grammarly helps with that.
The advantage is not spell checking. It is grammar and style improvements. It tells you things like "this language is informal", or "this is a better word for that".
For example, most Slavic languages don't have the same definite/indefinite article system English does, which means that whilst someone could speak and write excellent English, the correct usage of "a" and "the" is a constant conscious struggle, where having a tool to check and correct your working is really useful. In Greek, word order is not so important. And so on.
Spell check usually just doesn't cut it, and when it does (say, in Word), it usually isn't universally available.
Personally, I have long wanted such a system for German, which I am not native in. Lucky for me DeepL launched a similar product with German support.
A recent example for me was that I was universally using "bekommen" as a literal translation of "receive" in all sentences where I needed that word. Through DeepL I learned that the more appropriate word in a bunch of contexts is "erhalten", which is the sort of thing that I would never have got from a spell check.
Grammarly is notably a Ukrainian founded company.
https://vale.sh
I like this approach so much better than leaning on AI because it’s more my “voice”.
https://github.com/loughnane/style
Grammarly's core functionality is not even LLM-based; it's older than that. Recently, they've crammed in some LLM features that I don't care a snoot about compared to its core functionality.
This tool, like any other "Grammarly alternative," is just another GPT wrapper to rewrite my text in an overly verbose and soulless way. I was hoping for a halfway-decent spelling corrector.
Can anyone help
I do a fair amount of writing and have actually put together several custom GPTs, each with varying degrees of freedom to rewrite the text.
The first one acts strictly as a professional editor—it's allowed to fix spelling errors, grammatical issues, word repetition, etc., but it has to preserve the original writing style.
I do a lot of dictation while I walk my husky, so when I get back home, I can run whisper, convert the audio to text, and throw it at the GPT. It cleans it up, structures it into paragraphs, etc. Between whisper/GPT, it saves me hours of busy work.
The other one is allowed to restructure the text, fix continuity errors, replace words to ensure a more professional tone, and improve the overall flow. This one is more reserved for public communique such as business related emails.
"Bring your own key" has the same amount of syllables as "BYOK"
I'm not a native speaker, and the nice thing about this approach is that I seem to be learning to write better instead of just delegating the task to the machine.
My partner and I were just talking about how useful that would be, especially driving in the car when all of the "we should..." thoughts come out of hiding. Capturing those action items more organically without destroying the flow of the conversation would be heavenly.