I just received an email from them with many stats about my writing over the last week. It's pretty scary to see how much tracking they are doing.
Do you trust Grammarly? Are there any good alternatives?
Their cookie consent form already breaks a bunch of rules by being very much opt-out first instead of opt-in for alle the marketing and tracking cookies.
This doesn't give me a good feeling that they are focused on privacy.
Just before you fall into the same trap I did of setting a self hosted version be aware:
The free self-hosted version you can download from https://languagetool.org/download/ lacks all the premium rules (several thousand rules for English, German, French, Spanish and Dutch) and AI-based rules.[1]
My suspicion is the basic self-hosted version may no better then what you would already get in something like LibreOffice.
>https://languagetool.org for sure. Europe-based, can host your own server. Plus, it's the only one that doesn't seem to eat my Mac's battery.
>Some (might be all, actually?) parts are open source as well.
I was pretty impressed with languagetool and set up my own server (as I'm not interested in sharing with random strangers).
I used it for a while (local server, Firefox addon), but haven't used it for a while.
Yesterday I noted that the Firefox addon was chewing a goodly portion of CPU (perhaps because the local server is down?).
As such, I removed the addon and won't be going back -- not because languagetool is bad, it works quite well actually -- but because it didn't add enough value to me (note that only applies to me) to make the CPU load worthwhile.
That said, I heartily recommend self-hosted implementations of languagetool!
LanguageTool is useful, I self-host it in Docker and use the VS Code extension to integrate with it, since I do most of my writing in markdown (including Dendron for my note-taking).
Even with a degree in technical writing, I still find it helps. I overuse passive voice and unnecessary words, and LanguageTool flagging them as I write is useful.
All automated "writing & style" tools are for people who can't write and have no style. If that's you, great -- better to use the tool than not.
Otherwise, everything -- from Word's style tips, to these online tools are the death of authorial voice.
I mean to write precisely what I say. Not "to write what I say" because that's "more concise and easier for the reader". Precisely what I say, because that's more evocative of my frustration.
Even if you are a native speaker, these style and grammar tools can be educational and and improve your writing confidence (and catch small mistakes we all make).
Of course, accepting all the suggestions isn’t the right way to use language tools. The rules are applied mechanically, without taking intent into account.
I am not a native speaker, and I use Grammarly to ensure what I want to say is at least grammatically correct to the reader that I want to impress.
And I would say even for native speaker, not only a tool like this is for educational and improve one's own confident, but also demonstrated you care about your reader. I have lost counts on how many typo/grammartical mistakes I noticed when I read company internal wiki written by native speakers.
just put this sentence through a few grammar apps for comparison.
grammarly:
> And I would say even for a native speaker, not only a tool like this is for education and to improve one's confidence, but also demonstrated you care about your reader.
languagetool (didn't recommend any changes)
> And I would say even for native speaker, not only a tool like this is for educational and improve one's own confident, but also demonstrated you care about your reader.
quillbot:
> And I would say even for native speakers, a tool like this is for educational and improving one's own confidence, but it also demonstrates you care about your reader.
gramara (an app I made):
> And I would say even for a native speaker, a tool like this is not only meant to educate and improve one's own confidence, but also demonstrate that you care about your readers.
> All automated "writing & style" tools are for people who can't write and have no style.
The target market for these tools is professionals writing english as a second language.
A tool that can spot and let you fix minor 'it sounds wrong' issues ("big orange cat" vs "orange big cat") can be a confidence-booster if you're e.g. working at Google's Poland office, but doing all your professional work in english.
That's not the only market for Grammarly. Their incessant Youtube adverts are targeted at native speakers who just want to write tighter prose. I definitely think it could help with that, though I agree it would be more useful for non-native speakers.
I'm not sure exactly what you're implying with this rhetorical question but, for the record, I wouldn't expect a well-educated native speaker to use a thesaurus.
Really? I am a native speaker of French, well educated, with top marks in French and Philosophy (our "advanced French courses"), taught French abroad, member of a jury in the French Language Olympics, ... what have I forgotten, ah yes, father of two who was forcing them under torture to write, read and speak proper and varied French.
And yet I do use a thesaurus from time to time, as well as a dictionary of antonyms.
And a simple dictionary as well.
Maybe your language is simpler, or you have a better memory/education.
That's a very strange opinion. This sure sounds like "I'm smart enough to do it without any assistance!" ego wanking.
I see it all the time on here about IDE features like autocompletion. "Why would I need that? I'm smart. I just memorise the entire codebase, don't you? Your intellect is laughable."
It's not an opinion; I'm simply stating a fact about the cultural background from which I come (British middle class). It will sound snobbish/arrogant. I make no apologies for that - I'm just offering it as a data point in case it's helpful to the conversation.
In British middle class society, where people have attended "good" universities, you don't use a thesaurus. It would be looked-down upon.
Incidentally, what do you use a thesaurus for? Is it when you've forgotten a word, or when you want to discover new words that might be apt?
Something of a nit, but wouldn't it be both more accurate and "precise" to say:
I write what I mean to say
Rather than:
I mean to write what I say
The former implies that one is expressing themselves as they wish, while the latter implies that one wishes to do so but may or may not be doing that.
As I said, it's something of a nit I'm picking, but the meanings are pretty different IMHO, even if most folks would assume that both mean the same thing.
You're assuming a oot about the people who use these programs. If you wanna hate on the program itself, sure, be my guest. But, please, don't insult their users. It achieves absolutely nothing, and only makes you come off as rude and presumptuous.
A large audience for these types of tools is people for whome English is not their first language (this includes me, so please forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes you may find). This audience may be very eloquent and stylistic in their native language, but learning languages (especially when you have passed your teens) is hard, and sounding professional and sleek requires a lot more effort than you might think.
Here's where Grammarly comes in. It reformats your sentences to be more consistent with your projected attitude, removing a ton of work for some people.
I'm sorry but I agree with the essence of the TP on this. The best way to learn grammar and style is to develop your own. Regardless if you're writing in your first language or not, getting a good command of a language is going to come from personal effort, not relying on some piece of software to correct you.
It really depends on how one uses the software. If it's used as a learning aid to reinforce certain patterns (eg. "I went to office" -> "I went to the office"), it's fine in my opinion. After all, everyone started as a beginner.
If it's used to fix whatever ESL word salad one writes, without using the corrections as a hint to improve one's command of the language, then I agree with you.
I found the comment slightly witty, not insulting. I mean, you have to be able to take (or get) a joke!
I know plenty of people for whom the tool is really useful -- my foreign-born wife for example. But were she to limit her native expression with the same kind of "simplifying" that the tool offers, I am sure she would not be perceived as having any kind of personality at all.
For me, when I write -- and I like to write -- I choose to break convention often. The tool frustrates me and wastes my time. Sure there is an audience for this, but I don't want to sound like everybody else. That's MY attitude.
...and reading the comments does make it sound like a key-logger ... so no, I can't say I trust the extension.
Someone who is a very good speller benefits from a spell checker, because he or she isn't necessarily a perfect typist. Even if you make one typo in 20,000 words, and the spell checker finds it, there is value in that.
Grammer checking is just extended spell checking. You could have great style, but gaffe something; use some combination of words because you were tired or distracted, or you made some bad edit, half of which was scrolled off the screen or whatever.
You could ignore most of the tips, but once in a while it could be that the suggestion you get from the software is exactly the words you wanted to write, but somehow fumbled. That's clearly valuable, and in a way that isn't dictating style to you.
Sometimes spelling errors cause grammar errors. So unless you're a perfect speller and typist, a grammar checking tool might be the one which actually catches your typo. This is because a typo can produce a dictionary word, or words.
It's Free-mium, not just free, just like Github. They actually have a business model, and that includes a stripped-down version that they let anyone use for free to tempt them into paying for better stuff.
So it's also in their best interest not to anger their paying customers.
Edit: That doesn't mean they won't, or that they should be trusted, just that they have similar motivations to Github.
The best alternative is a copy of Strunk & White and/or a colleague who has one. It is really quick to read cover-to-cover and understand, and it will make you a much better writer of everything.
No, I don't trust grammarly. On top of the surveillance, it often makes grammar mistakes!
I feel like a good alternative is regular old spell check and some humility in understanding we all make grammar mistakes and are here to learn. We were fine without a network connected snooping “grammar” bot. Consider not using stuff like this.
I'm not entirely sure I can eloquently put it into words, but I cannot see how Grammarly could possibly be trustable or even how trust should play a role in the decision to use it.
I mean it's a service that basically tracks every word you write, and does so for what I consider a very small benefit. Even if you can trust Grammarly to be completely ethical today and in the future, no service can claim that it's completely secure from hacking.
All OSes have what is essentially the same service as Grammarly, without having to stream every word you type to a third-party service.
Maybe for you, I am dyslexic and my writing sucks. Even in my mother tongue, let alone English. If I need to give a good impression, I rely heavily on Grammarly because it can reformulate sentences in a way I never could.
Yet for sure, I do not use it for anything sensitive or for work purposes. I do not really trust them.
Can you not use a desktop software to correct your spellings, fix your grammar and reformulate sentences? I think even something like Microsoft Word is going to be a good bargain for this. If you want a free tooling Emacs with some plugins can be great. A quick search gave me https://simpleit.rocks/lisp/emacs/writing-in-emacs-checking-... Exploring this space may give more results for free tooling that runs your desktop and sends your data to noone.
>All OSes have what is essentially the same service as Grammarly
Not all of them! Excluding Ubuntu, and stuff like package management management and heartbeat is-the-internet-up pings, Linux doesn't phone home about anything, let alo--
>without having to stream every word you type to a third-party service
Oh, you mean the spellcheck part. Right, right, yeah.
Came here to say exactly that. No reputation could be stirling enough and no security practices tight enough to convince me that ANY entity should be receiving EVERY SINGLE KEY STROKE that I make in my browser.
I would not send all that data to the Red Cross, much less a fucking fly-by-night browser extension company that has no choice but to monetize it.
> All OSes have what is essentially the same service as Grammarly, without having to stream every word you type to a third-party service.
Starting with Windows 10 Microsoft has been keylogging for the same reason and saving the data for themselves to use for whatever they want. I'd consider that a 3rd party personally.
Absolutely not. There was a point in my career where I was paid (pretty well) to be a writer. Grammarly was routinely off the mark, often hilariously so.
Grammarly has difficulty correcting even basic grammar mistakes. I would never trust for anything beyond being a basic spellcheck and last minute hygiene check before you hit publish.
Think of an adversary government (e.g China), and then ask your self that same question if Grammarly were headquartered there.
... then ask yourself why you think country of origin even matters when it comes to your privacy given the past 20 years of both government and corporate surveillance.
You could almost view it as something close to a keylogger for one's own consciousness. I wouldn't trust them with my half collected thoughts, doesn't matter where their intentions lie with regards to selling said thoughts to advertisers. That's not even the worst thing that could happen with such a trove of data.
Are you absolutely sure that it would not 'spell check' your master password and send it over to their servers without someone else looking at them and what website, field you were typing it on?
No, I don't trust Grammarly one bit. I think there was even a question in their FAQ asking "are you a keylogger?". The answer went along the lines of "No! Absolutely not! But also yes."
My team still uses it despite my attempts to get them to do otherwise.
We permit use of Grammarly only using the stand-alone app or website, and only for content that doesn't contain any personal data & isn't security critical, e.g. blog posts, etc.
As others have said, the browser extension is an unmanageable security risk and we prevent its use and installation.
We're mandating use of Google Chrome across the org and use the Chrome Enterprise features to force installing (ad blocker, 1Password) and block (Grammarly amongst others) extensions: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9296680?hl=en
I'm not entirely sure if it's a feature that only comes with Google Workplace, but as part of the Workplace admin interface we get a nice UI for managing all of this.
The way IT security has been (mis)handled by firms large and small, it’s just a matter of time till Grammarly announces a system breach and uses corporatese to hide the true impact and what was lost. When companies in highly regulated industries (like finance) get away with hardly any punishment, I’m not sure what kind of actions or threats of actions would even be effective against an unregulated company. Yes, reputation matters, but I’ve seen that cost is the main concern for many companies.
I wouldn’t trust any company with sending every keystroke (almost) to the company’s servers. That’s why on iOS I don’t use any custom keyboards, and even if I try any, I don’t give them “Full Access” (which means it can send the keystrokes over the network).
I have no experience with the company beyond the by now likely 1000 highly irritating ad videos they have thrown at me, making it unlikely I ever would want to have anything to do with them. I also fail to see how a glorified spell checker adds anything of substance or real style to ones writing, so I'm happy sticking to my locally installed spell checker.
105 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] threadI wish this were true.
Some (might be all, actually?) parts are open source as well.
A big bonus that LanguageTool has, is the seamless language switching. I can mix Czech and English texts and get right corrections for both.
This doesn't give me a good feeling that they are focused on privacy.
The free self-hosted version you can download from https://languagetool.org/download/ lacks all the premium rules (several thousand rules for English, German, French, Spanish and Dutch) and AI-based rules.[1]
My suspicion is the basic self-hosted version may no better then what you would already get in something like LibreOffice.
[1]: https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool/issues/6750
The free rules are pretty good IMO, I never used Premium and free was already on Grammarly’s level when I switched many years ago.
Safes effort with maintaining an installation and keeping the background process running. Plus, it also works when network connectivity drops.
https://github.com/Erikvl87/docker-languagetool/blob/master/...
>Some (might be all, actually?) parts are open source as well.
I was pretty impressed with languagetool and set up my own server (as I'm not interested in sharing with random strangers).
I used it for a while (local server, Firefox addon), but haven't used it for a while.
Yesterday I noted that the Firefox addon was chewing a goodly portion of CPU (perhaps because the local server is down?).
As such, I removed the addon and won't be going back -- not because languagetool is bad, it works quite well actually -- but because it didn't add enough value to me (note that only applies to me) to make the CPU load worthwhile.
That said, I heartily recommend self-hosted implementations of languagetool!
Even with a degree in technical writing, I still find it helps. I overuse passive voice and unnecessary words, and LanguageTool flagging them as I write is useful.
Otherwise, everything -- from Word's style tips, to these online tools are the death of authorial voice.
I mean to write precisely what I say. Not "to write what I say" because that's "more concise and easier for the reader". Precisely what I say, because that's more evocative of my frustration.
Even if you are a native speaker, these style and grammar tools can be educational and and improve your writing confidence (and catch small mistakes we all make).
Of course, accepting all the suggestions isn’t the right way to use language tools. The rules are applied mechanically, without taking intent into account.
And I would say even for native speaker, not only a tool like this is for educational and improve one's own confident, but also demonstrated you care about your reader. I have lost counts on how many typo/grammartical mistakes I noticed when I read company internal wiki written by native speakers.
grammarly:
> And I would say even for a native speaker, not only a tool like this is for education and to improve one's confidence, but also demonstrated you care about your reader.
languagetool (didn't recommend any changes)
> And I would say even for native speaker, not only a tool like this is for educational and improve one's own confident, but also demonstrated you care about your reader.
quillbot:
> And I would say even for native speakers, a tool like this is for educational and improving one's own confidence, but it also demonstrates you care about your reader.
gramara (an app I made):
> And I would say even for a native speaker, a tool like this is not only meant to educate and improve one's own confidence, but also demonstrate that you care about your readers.
The target market for these tools is professionals writing english as a second language.
A tool that can spot and let you fix minor 'it sounds wrong' issues ("big orange cat" vs "orange big cat") can be a confidence-booster if you're e.g. working at Google's Poland office, but doing all your professional work in english.
I don’t just want my voice to be communicated, I want it to be understood. Sometimes that means automated grammar checkers.
I haven't used Grammarly but this strikes me as class HN "I don't make mistakes" hubris. Have you never used a thesaurus?
> I mean to write precisely what I say.
I assume you were making up that suggestion but "I mean to write what I say." is would be a good improvement, and it's only a suggestion anyway.
I'm not sure exactly what you're implying with this rhetorical question but, for the record, I wouldn't expect a well-educated native speaker to use a thesaurus.
And yet I do use a thesaurus from time to time, as well as a dictionary of antonyms.
And a simple dictionary as well.
Maybe your language is simpler, or you have a better memory/education.
I see it all the time on here about IDE features like autocompletion. "Why would I need that? I'm smart. I just memorise the entire codebase, don't you? Your intellect is laughable."
In British middle class society, where people have attended "good" universities, you don't use a thesaurus. It would be looked-down upon.
Incidentally, what do you use a thesaurus for? Is it when you've forgotten a word, or when you want to discover new words that might be apt?
As I said, it's something of a nit I'm picking, but the meanings are pretty different IMHO, even if most folks would assume that both mean the same thing.
> I mean to write what I say
is an improvement over,
> I mean to write precisely what I say
Then you haven't understood everything I meant to say. The mood in which I write is part of what I write. To remove it is to communicate less.
A large audience for these types of tools is people for whome English is not their first language (this includes me, so please forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes you may find). This audience may be very eloquent and stylistic in their native language, but learning languages (especially when you have passed your teens) is hard, and sounding professional and sleek requires a lot more effort than you might think.
Here's where Grammarly comes in. It reformats your sentences to be more consistent with your projected attitude, removing a ton of work for some people.
If it's used to fix whatever ESL word salad one writes, without using the corrections as a hint to improve one's command of the language, then I agree with you.
I know plenty of people for whom the tool is really useful -- my foreign-born wife for example. But were she to limit her native expression with the same kind of "simplifying" that the tool offers, I am sure she would not be perceived as having any kind of personality at all.
For me, when I write -- and I like to write -- I choose to break convention often. The tool frustrates me and wastes my time. Sure there is an audience for this, but I don't want to sound like everybody else. That's MY attitude.
...and reading the comments does make it sound like a key-logger ... so no, I can't say I trust the extension.
Grammer checking is just extended spell checking. You could have great style, but gaffe something; use some combination of words because you were tired or distracted, or you made some bad edit, half of which was scrolled off the screen or whatever.
You could ignore most of the tips, but once in a while it could be that the suggestion you get from the software is exactly the words you wanted to write, but somehow fumbled. That's clearly valuable, and in a way that isn't dictating style to you.
Sometimes spelling errors cause grammar errors. So unless you're a perfect speller and typist, a grammar checking tool might be the one which actually catches your typo. This is because a typo can produce a dictionary word, or words.
It’s in the interest of GitHub’s business not to leak private repositories. People give them money for the product.
Grammarly is a keylogger masquerading as a free writing aid. Fundamentally fishy.
So it's also in their best interest not to anger their paying customers.
Edit: That doesn't mean they won't, or that they should be trusted, just that they have similar motivations to Github.
No, I don't trust grammarly. On top of the surveillance, it often makes grammar mistakes!
But I am not sure of the correctness in the advanced stages.
I mean it's a service that basically tracks every word you write, and does so for what I consider a very small benefit. Even if you can trust Grammarly to be completely ethical today and in the future, no service can claim that it's completely secure from hacking.
All OSes have what is essentially the same service as Grammarly, without having to stream every word you type to a third-party service.
Yet for sure, I do not use it for anything sensitive or for work purposes. I do not really trust them.
Not all of them! Excluding Ubuntu, and stuff like package management management and heartbeat is-the-internet-up pings, Linux doesn't phone home about anything, let alo--
>without having to stream every word you type to a third-party service
Oh, you mean the spellcheck part. Right, right, yeah.
I would not send all that data to the Red Cross, much less a fucking fly-by-night browser extension company that has no choice but to monetize it.
Starting with Windows 10 Microsoft has been keylogging for the same reason and saving the data for themselves to use for whatever they want. I'd consider that a 3rd party personally.
http://www.renegadetribune.com/windows-10-quietly-logging-ev...
Grammarly has difficulty correcting even basic grammar mistakes. I would never trust for anything beyond being a basic spellcheck and last minute hygiene check before you hit publish.
... then ask yourself why you think country of origin even matters when it comes to your privacy given the past 20 years of both government and corporate surveillance.
Replace 'Grammarly' with 'a keylogger'.
Would you trust it now?
Are you absolutely sure that it would not 'spell check' your master password and send it over to their servers without someone else looking at them and what website, field you were typing it on?
Now would you trust it even more?
My team still uses it despite my attempts to get them to do otherwise.
As others have said, the browser extension is an unmanageable security risk and we prevent its use and installation.
I'm not entirely sure if it's a feature that only comes with Google Workplace, but as part of the Workplace admin interface we get a nice UI for managing all of this.
I wouldn’t trust any company with sending every keystroke (almost) to the company’s servers. That’s why on iOS I don’t use any custom keyboards, and even if I try any, I don’t give them “Full Access” (which means it can send the keystrokes over the network).