Grammarly is an American

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

-based typing assistant. It reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

texts, detects plagiarism, and suggests replacements for the identified errors. It also allows users to customize their style, tone, and context-specific language. Grammarly was launched in 2009 by Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider. It's available as a standalone application for use with desktop programs, a browser extension optimized for Google Docs, and a smartphone keyboard Grammarly is developed by Grammarly Inc., with hubs in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, and offices in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

History

Grammarly was founded by Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko, and Dmytro Lider, the creators of My Dropbox, an app that checks essays for plagiarism. Grammarly was initially designed as an educational app to help university students improve their English skills. It was later offered to the end customers who use English in everyday life. In early 2018, a security researcher at

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

discovered a

vulnerability Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." A window of vulnerability (WOV) is a time frame within which defensive measures are diminished, com ...

in Grammarly's browser extension

beta version A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

, which exposed authentification tokens to websites and potentially allowed them to access the users' documents and other data. In a few hours, the company released a

hotfix A hotfix or quick-fix engineering update (QFE update) is a single, cumulative package that includes information (often in the form of one or more files) that is used to address a problem in a software product (i.e., a software bug). Typically, hotf ...

and reported that it found no evidence of compromised user data. Later in December, Grammarly launched a

bug bounty program A bug bounty program is a deal offered by many websites, organizations and software developers by which individuals can receive recognition and compensation for reporting bugs, especially those pertaining to security exploits and vulnerabiliti ...

HackerOne HackerOne is a vulnerability coordination and bug bounty platform that connects businesses with penetration testers and cybersecurity researchers. It was one of the first companies, along with Synack and Bugcrowd, to embrace and utilize crowd-sou ...

, offering a 100,000 reward to the first

white hat hacker A white hat (or a white-hat hacker, a whitehat) is an ethical security hacker. Ethical hacking is a term meant to imply a broader category than just penetration testing. Under the owner's consent, white-hat hackers aim to identify any vulnerabil ...

to access a specific document on the company's server. Being a company with

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

roots, Grammarly effectively cut all business relations with users in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

in response to the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...

. The company also announced that it will donate the net revenue earned in Russia and Belarus since 2014 to Ukraine. It also provided free access to Ukrainian media, which reported on the war in English.

Reception

Reviewers have praised Grammarly for its ease of use and helpful suggestions, considering it useful despite its relatively high price and lack of offline functionality. Josh Steimle of Forbes lauded it in 2013, saying that "It's an online that quickly and easily makes your writing better and makes you sound like a pro, or at least helps you avoid looking like a fool." However, some users have criticized Grammarly for incorrect suggestions, ignorance of tone and context, and reduction of writers' freedom of expression.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grammarly Cloud applications Nonfree Firefox WebExtensions Google Chrome extensions Grammar checkers Internet properties established in 2009 Spell checkers 2009 establishments in California Plagiarism detectors Common Lisp (programming language) software Android virtual keyboards Software companies of Ukraine YouTube sponsors

History

Reception

See also

References