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Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

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Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#71
For me the huge part of Grammarly's magic is that it's not just in the browser, but in any text input on desktop with their desktop app (with some exceptions). Having it only in only in one application just doesn't cut it, especially since it's not my browser of choice. Are there any plans regarding desktop integration. Linux is woefully underserved in this space with all major offerings (Grammarly, Languagetool) having only macOS/Windows versions.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#73
post #4

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 Future plans: add LLM provider/model choice, custom prompts, bug fixes, and im…

how much does it cost in a normal day?

What is a normal day?

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My older brother who got me into coding learned to code in Assembly. He doesn't really consider most of my work writing in high level languages to be "coding". So maybe there's something here. But if I had to get into the underlying structure, I could . I do wonder whether the same can be said for people who just kludge together a bunch of APIs that produce magical result sets.

> But if I had to get into the underlying structure, I could. How do you propose to get into the underlying structure of the OpenAPI API? Breach their network and steal their code and models? I don't understand what you're arguing.

> How do you propose to get into the underlying structure of the OpenAPI API?

The fact that you can’t is the point of the comment. You could get into the underlying structure of other things, like the C interpreter of a scripting language.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#75
post #28

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. [1] - https://github.com/languagetool-org…

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.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#76
post #28

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. [1] - https://github.com/languagetool-org…

Same, it integrates in all input fields too and has all the browser extensions you need. Non-GitHub landing page: https://languagetool.org

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#77
post #24
post #21

Seems a stretch to call it open source.

The source seems to be at the linked repo, and the license is MIT. How’s that a stretch?

Because it’s a wrapper on a closed-source system.

Imagine writing a shell script that cuts and converts video by calling ffmpeg, would you say it was “a video converter written in bash”? No, the important part would not be in bash, that’s just the thin wrapper used to call the tool and could be in any language. Meaning it would be useless to anyone who e.g. worked on a constrained system where they are not allowed to install any binaries.

Same thing here. If you only run open-source software for privacy reasons, sending all your program data to some closed server you don’t control doesn’t address your issue. There’s no meaningful difference between making an open-source plugin that calls an OpenAI API and one that calls a Grammarly API.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#79

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 Future plans: add LLM provider/model choice, custom prompts, bug fixes, and im…

> 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.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#80
post #28

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. [1] - https://github.com/languagetool-org…

This! And what's more - it doesn't funnel all what I type to OpenAI so I'd say it's more FOSS than this extension…
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