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As a blogger and content writer, I have been using Grammarly for years to proofread my work. But when people ask me if they should use this tool or not—Is Grammarly Safe? Let me tell you more about myself so that the answer makes sense!
In my younger days as an English learner trying desperately hard just in order achieve fluency – each time there would be some fear over grammatical inaccuracies coming through-I spent countless hours working on enhancing skills only to find out what was boring at best.
Nowadays though things are different: now with technology being far superior to ever before via programs such as “Grammarly” makes writing much easier than ever before. My content would have contained spelling and grammar errors that could’ve hurt the quality of what little writing skills I had developed up to that point in time!
Back to Sep 2017, Boom!! I’ve been testing Grammarly. And it was a game-changer for me. I started noticing mistakes I had never seen before.
After using this tool (nearly 4 years), it became one of my preferred writing tools. Since then, Grammarly has examined 6,26,730 words and nearly 15k words every week as of 06 November 2021.
You can also get 20% off using Grammarly Student Discount.
You’ve heard rumors Grammarly isn’t as safe and secure as you thought. And there’s some truth behind Grammarly’s privacy concerns.
So you’re thinking about installing a browser extension, but don’t know if it’s safe? You’re not alone.
I have been there too! But now we’ve found the answer for all your doubts and questions with one simple question: “Is Grammarly Safe?” I’ll give you our personal opinion as well – in layman terms so even those without technical know-how can understand (though keep reading).
Is Grammarly Safe To Use?
After Grammarly released an updated version of their browser extension in February, it quickly became apparent that not all users had installed the update.
This left many asking if there were any security risks associated with downloading and installing third-party apps on your device or even accessing personal data while browsing platforms like Facebook without HTTPS protection enabled.
Luckily for anyone concerned about these things – after only days rather than weeks’ worth of research- Grammarly fixed the problem within hours! Their diligence has largely dissipated fears over privacy violations caused by using unsafe extensions (ie. ones that also collect information).
We’re proud to share that Grammarly has reached new milestones on how we keep our users’ data safe and secure.
Learn about our new SOC 2 (Type 2) report, ISO certifications, and HIPAA compliance from @rahulrc, our Global Head of Product.https://t.co/urfVlVEuqm— Grammarly (@Grammarly) June 17, 2021
It’s also beneficial to be specific. Grammarly offers six tools to help you detect and fix mistakes in your writing:
- The text editor on Grammarly’s website
- For Windows and Mac OS, a desktop application is available (download)
- Microsoft Office (Windows or Mac) application (download)
- Extension for your browser (works on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari)
- For phones, there’s an app called Grammarly Keyboard.
- App Grammarly for iPad
Given that, read on for some frequently asked questions and their answers.
Experience With Grammarly In My Personal Life
For the past 4 years, I’ve used Grammarly for all of my writing projects. I’ve checked over 51.70 million words with the writing tool in this period.
The following are my exact writing statistics:
Grammarly was used to check a total of 51,708,856 words, and the Grammarly Chrome plugin was used to proofread roughly 193,458 words per week.
Monthly, I’m going to increase my vocabulary by 32.8%.
I’ve checked 575,480 words on Grammarly in the previous three months alone.
Is Grammarly Stealing Your Information?
Their privacy agreement lays out the following circumstances and justifications for sharing your personal information:
When they tell their service providers about it.
When you give them your clear permission.
When they believe it is necessary to examine potential breaches of their terms of service.
When the law requires it.
When they are required to do so due to a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or other similar events.
Grammarly has a privacy policy that doesn’t go into detail on what their service provider does with the data they collect from users.
However, it’s worth noting that Grammarly only accesses and stores personal information when acting as an agent following instructions given by you – which means if a user requests reports about his or her usage habits through support/ticketing system then this will be made available upon request within reason(s).
Does Grammarly Steal Your Articles Or Documents?
You might be wondering if Grammarly uploads your work after you enable the online text editor on their dashboard. This is a common concern among people who are not familiar with how it works, but they do store all uploaded content to help locate and fix any errors that may pop up while editing documents.
If you upload your work to Grammarly’s online text editor, they will store it on servers in the United States.
Once deleted from an account – even though there’s no need for them since we’re still able to edit these ourselves- both past versions of our document sources as well as corrections will disappear forever!
Is Grammarly Keyboard Safe? Is Grammarly a Keylogger?
Grammarly is not a keylogger as it does not record every single keystroke you make on your device.
When using Grammarly’s product offering, only the text written with their services and features can be accessed for checking purposes.
No input from fields marked “sensitive” will get recorded by this program because of how sensitive those pieces might potentially become if taken without permission or authorization (such situations may arise when hackers use them).
Does Grammarly use cookies?
So, you’re worried about cookies and tracking data? Well, don’t be! From what I can tell Google is the greatest concern.
Grammarly uses cookies but they are all related to functionality which means there are no surveillance trackers on our devices as well.
They do have two different types though – one for login purposes (it expires after 10 minutes) AND another that lasts 24 hours before automatically deleting itself at noon each day.”
Facebook is one of the worst offenders when it comes to data collection, but you can still get a good understanding of what Facebook knows by using Dev Tools.
Depending on how much information you give them and which apps are installed onto your device will affect this result in different ways for each person – some people might find they have less while others may see more depending on their specific situation.
I’m sorry if I spoiled any misconceptions about questionable invasion-of privacy here!
The Grammarly browser extension permissions are very standard. Almost all extensions need to read your browsing history and notifications will alert you when corrections are needed, which is no concern here for me at all!
Is It True That The Grammarly Browser Extension Records Everything I Type? Is Grammarly Extension Safe?
With the help of Grammarly, you can get rid of all those pesky spelling errors and typos.
Unlike keylogging apps that record everything you type without your permission, this program will only analyze text for potential grammatical mistakes while giving suggestions to fix them—so it’s not like they’re taking in any sensitive data!
All Google asks from users who save content as “sensitive” on Cloud formatted drives is an extra layer between their account information such as payment methods or passwords (which gets saved automatically).
Does Grammarly Have Viruses? How Safe Is Grammarly
People are always worrying about the wrong things. You know, like viruses and stuff! The real problem here is a security bug with Grammarly’s Chrome extension – it had “a hole in their code.”
It affected “users documents created within the editor interface,” so anyone who used this feature Gizmodo says was vulnerable to hackers if they were logged into the Grammarly- website.
But don’t worry: Grammarly acted immediately upon hearing of these issues (which we’re glad) because, without quick action from them, there could’ve been big problems!
Grammarly is a great tool for those who want to get ahead in their careers and professionally read through anything they write.
However, we should be concerned with Grammarly’s security issues because it has more to do with the code that was used during beta testing of its browser extension than any other issue or threat vector-like computer viruses/malware attacks trying to hack into your system while you’re logged on (and potentially steal sensitive data).
While this particular situation isn’t an emergency by any means–it doesn’t seem likely there will ever come up again anytime soon where people need such protection.
Is Grammarly Safe to Download?
ANY writer worth their salt uses Grammarly. The downloads for Windows and Microsoft Office are as safe as a download can be, according to the legions of writers who use them—and we’re not talking about those casual bloggers on WordPress!
Grammarly prioritizes Earning Trust with its users while keeping your data secure by never distributing any kind of malware (trojan horse/etc.).
Many writers find that they catch more mistakes when writing with a free app on their computer or smartphone.
The distraction-free Windows app also helps you edit and proofread easily from the comfort of your couch!
Is It Possible For Grammarly To Interfere With Other Apps Or Programs?
The Grammarly extension for WordPress has been reported to cause complications when using it in conjunction with the full editor. Some writers noticed their computer crashing or freezing, but only if they were trying to complete a scan and edit on one page at once instead of just clicking around fixing errors as needed.
Derek Haines experienced no such problems; he was able to use all features without any issues whatsoever even though that marked red had previously caused scripts like YouTube embeds and Twitter/Facebook scripts (among others) that should not have affected anything during editing.
Do you ever find yourself editing your writing style in Microsoft Word and then previewing it to see if any mistakes were caught? If so, be aware that the Track Changes feature could cause problems.
What’s worse is when others are reading over your work who also have this installed on their computers due to sharing projects with them! To avoid these issues simply change Grammarly settings within the word itself for compatibility purposes.”
Is Grammarly Extension Safe? Should You Use Browser Extensions
Tech experts are warning you to be wary of the Chrome browser extensions. Kim Kommando and Kaspersky Daily recommend keeping your browsing habits anonymous, but it turns out several popular ones have been harvesting user data without consent including credit card information, GPS locations passwords tax returns!
We all must stay safe online so stick with trusted sources for now until this issue gets resolved.”
Fortunately, Google and Mozilla both removed the malicious extensions. Even more fortunately for users who were using them at this time when they disabled or even remotely removed it from their browser user’s computer without any hesitation!
Grammarly has never been on these lists of offenders so we’re free to continue doing what we do best: helping people write cleaner copy than most anything else out there in publishing today–even ads designed by professionals can’t compare with our results!”
Grammarly is safe and secure for 12 reasons.
- Grammarly only checks the text you specify.
- Grammarly will not work in a sensitive or read-only environment.
- Grammarly solely keeps user documents for the purpose of editing.
- You may see all of the information related to your Grammarly account.
- You keep complete ownership of your texts, including all copyrights and duplication rights.
- Grammarly abides by all applicable privacy laws and guidelines.
- Grammarly encrypts all user data to protect the information.
- Grammarly uses a multi-step account authentication system to prevent illegal access.
- Grammarly recruits independent specialists on a regular basis to confirm the strength of their information security as a type of third-party assessment.
- Grammarly does not sell or rent personal information about its users to advertisers or other third parties for the purpose of delivering advertisements.
- Grammarly carefully checks a third-party vendor’s security practices before using them.
- Grammarly employees do not have access to user information. Only those who have been given permission to access data that is vital to their work are allowed to do so.
Final Tips for Using Grammarly For Best Results:
Make sure to proofread your work for any mistakes before you submit it.
If that’s not enough help, there is always the browser extension option! You can also paste into Grammarly’s online text editor or install their app on Windows (or Microsoft Office Word and Outlook).
If you want to be extra careful, we recommend installing this extension. It will help with grammar and spelling as well!
If security is your biggest concern when browsing the web then it might not be such a bad idea to install an extension like Grammarly because their creator cares deeply about making sure that everything stays safe.
Grammarly Employees’ Data Restriction
Grammarly fully incorporates the “principle of least privilege” into their services. The principle is an information security concept that says that you should only give a person access to what they need for their job and nothing more, otherwise, we could put ourselves or others at risk if there’s anything unexpected happening with this kind of permission settings like hackers getting in!
When it comes down to Grammarly’s policy about restricting employee rights across networks infrastructure or any other service offered by them; all users must go through two separate authentication checks before being granted full privileges including customer’s data. This way no one will be able to make unauthorized changes even their employees.
Access to user data is only guaranteed when it’s deemed fit solely for solving a particular problem or to perform a critical task.
Adhering to the principle of least privilege reduces the risk of attackers gaining access to critical systems or sensitive data by compromising a low-level user account, device, or application.
Don’t trust anyone with your data unless they have a good reason to be accessed. The principle of least privilege ensures that only those who are needed will have access, reducing the risk for hackers by compromising low-level users or applications instead!
Is Grammarly App Safe To Use?
Grammarly is the best way to make your writing stand out.
The Grammarly app protects you against any errors on social media, emails, or online profiles with its revolutionary AI that doesn’t just fix spelling mistakes; it also comments on what words are unnecessary and improves sentence structure!
Does Grammarly Sell Your Data?
Grammarly is a free online writing tool for editing and formatting your documents.
Grammarly doesn’t sell, rent or leak users’ data-the company also does not provide information to third parties to help them advertise on you as it’s claimed by popular opinion that “Grammarly makes money from selling their paid product which includes Grammarly Premium.”
From my experience, I can attest the website does not have access to browsing history specific only selected people while they browse through web apps like Google Chrome, Facebook, etc.
Conclusion
When reviewing grammar and spelling apps, one thing that always stands out to me is their commitment to privacy. I’ve been using Grammarly for about 4 years now because it has helped make my writing better in every sense of the word!
The best part?
You can try before you buy–their free version lets even newcomers get a feel for all editing features available on this website or downloadable app without any obligation whatsoever other than trying them out first hand.