Free Online Grammar Checkers

I would say I'm pretty good in written English but, I still catch a lot of grammar errors with grammar checkers.  I tried 3 free online grammar checker today just to check if the result in the other two checkers are correct.


1. WhiteSmoke Free Online Grammar Checker
It's great in catching errors and the suggestions given are good too but it doesn't give any explanation about the errors and there is a 250 characters limit to how many characters it can check at a time. To remove the limitations you need to upgrade to the full desktop version. It has the best look out of the three though.
*Update: Either there is no free version anymore or I just don't know where they put the new link.


2. www.spellchecker.net
Woaa, lots of errors! Just look at these two simple tests:

Test 1: Whether they're genuine or not, that's another matter to find out.
Result: Whether they're genuine or not, that's another matter to find out.
Error    Whether > Weather
Style    they're > they are, that's > that is / that was / that has

This sentence is not even wrong. Whether and weather are both correct spelling with totally different meanings. Whether means if and indicates multiple alternative possibilities while weather refers to atmosphere behavior.

Test 2:  A useless piece of junk.
Result: A useless piece of junk.
Error    A useless > An useless

Reason given? Use "an" before words that start with vowels. Well, that's not wrong but, it also depends on the pronunciation. As in this case, use is pronounced as 'yoos' not 'oos'.


3. SpellCheckPlus.com (My Favorite!!)
It even catches errors missed by WhiteSmoke Free Online Grammar Checker. And, guess what? Explanations are freely given and there is no limitation on numbers of characters! Every now and then, an alert box will appear and asks you to support this website but it's not mandatory. Other than that, the explanation can be quite confusing (to me) sometimes. It's still a great website though. Oh, this is the alert window I'm talking about.

It says:

We are delighted that you are finding our site useful. Please consider showing your support for this project by becoming a Pro subscriber; advantages include:
* no ads
* no imposed limit on test length
* resizable editor
* personal writing portfolio
* interactive grammar exercises
* integrated vocabulary tools
Only €9.99 (about $13) - create a free trial account!

I did say there's no character length limitation but it really haven't say the maximum length. I can't find it written anywhere on that page. I've even tried it with one of my post with 1826 character lengths.

^_^