Privacy

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How safe are grammar editing tools? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by oxjox@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Without naming names, there's a well advertised grammar editing tool that's available either as an app download or browser extension. This is something I'd value for a number of reasons (good grammar is important!) but I'm super cautious about anything I'm giving permission to watch what I'm typing.

Ideally, I'd prefer to select text and have it analyzed on-demand using on-device intelligence. I'm on a Mac and it seems like Pages isn't cut out to check grammar. Also, there's no way in heck I'm paying $30 a month for a subscription.

Edit: I just want to acknowledge my request for something I'd value and then saying I don't want to pay for it. I would certainly pay for something if it met my needs but this function isn't something I'd personally value at $30 a month or any monthly subscription ($30 a year sounds reasonable). Moreover, if there's any suspicion of an application using my data for their own profit, they are not getting my money. So, in this case, for the sake of data privacy, I would prefer to pay for something (preferably once - grammar shouldn't need updating).

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This one is recommended by Mozilla

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/languagetool/

It DOES still need to send data somewhere to check

Your privacy is important to us: By default, this extension will check your text by sending it to languagetool.org over a securely encrypted connection. No account is needed to use this extension. We don't store your IP address. See https://languagetool.org/privacy/ for our privacy policy.

I don't want to confirm details I don't know, so someone else should probably explain more on if this is good/bad

[–] CodeGameEat@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

It's on my to-do list, but you can also spin up your own language tool instance so that your data never leaves your house, since it is open source: https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool

If you have a homeserver it can go there, otherwise you can also run it on your computer although I am not sure how much RAM it will use.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

deleted

[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

You can run LanguageTool locally. While it isn't as great as the paid version, I use this to check nearly everything I write for work in my native language, and in the other languages I speak

https://caderek.github.io/gramma/ is a cli spellchecker that has the option of installing a LT server locally. Not ideal if you are writing things with Pages/Word/etc., but a possible backup.