WHITESMOKE Reviewed March 2009 What’s It Do? Advertised as “writing software”, WhiteSmoke is intended to help the user write better, with a specialized dictionary/thesaurus, spelling database, and a multi-lingual dictionary suitable for a particular field of writing. Multiple fields, or profiles, are available for add-on at varying prices, and the Executive Package includes all profiles along with the core grammar checker, spell checker, and style enhancement features common to all WhiteSmoke versions. Does it do what it promises? Reviewer 1: No. The WhiteSmoke Web site claims that the program has "a single aim—to help you write better." Unfortunately, although the program's grammar checker does catch a number of errors, too often it provides bad advice that is more likely to harm one's writing than to improve it. Reviewer 2: While WhiteSmoke did succeed in popping up to check my spelling and grammar, the quality of its proposed edits was poor. It attempted to change my Internet home page and produced pop-up advertisements on my computer. Reviewer 3. Yes, if your writing is in sentences. Reviewer 4: Yes, WhiteSmoke runs in the system tray and will monitor one’s typing and pop-up a window to notify of any mistakes based on its criteria and style guides or templates. Reviewer 5: Yes. WhiteSmoke works with most text editors and word processors, although there are a few programs that I use which are not compatible with it, e.g., EditPad. Reviewer 6: No. All claims that this software program will “help you write better”; help you to produce “high quality texts” through its Text Enrichment tool; help you to “get rid of embarrassing grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes; and that it will “bring a new level of professionalism to your writing are, at best, facetious and at worst, outright mendacity. Furthermore, WhiteSmoke is not a software program by almost any definition of that term; it is a Web application. Was it easy to install? Reviewer 1: Yes. The installation process offered several options, including installing a WhiteSmoke toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox, adding WhiteSmoke Search to Internet Explorer, setting the WhiteSmoke search page as the browser's default, having WhiteSmoke start at the computer's startup, and setting the browser's home page to the WhiteSmoke IE customized Web search page. Although it offered all these options, it installed icons on my computer's desktop and its quick launch bar without giving me an option to say no. I immediately removed the quick launch icon. Reviewer 2: During installation, a third-party program, WinPatrol, alerted me that my home startup page in Internet Explorer was being changed. Nowhere in the license agreement or displays generated by WhiteSmoke was I informed or asked about changing my home page. I consider this an intrusive and aggressive act which is entirely unacceptable. The license agreement strictly limits use to the original workstation upon which it was installed. Reviewer 3: Yes, the 9.42 MB downloaded file installed without any problems or conflicts. Reviewer 4: Yes and no. At first I installed WhiteSmoke on my portable tablet PC. The 9.4 MB download installed a toolbar in Internet Explorer and Firefox. It also offered an option to set it as the default search. While the first install appeared to be successful , it actually didn't work. The F2 function key did not call it up as it was supposed to and there was no "floating button" to activate WhiteSmoke. Reinstallation solved the problem. WhiteSmoke requires a full-time Internet connection to be fully functional. This connection was not always available on my portable laptop when I was working in the field. Although the EULA (End User’s License Agreement) permits installation on only one machine, WhiteSmoke allowed transfer to my desktop for further evaluation. This installation went fine with no problems and everything worked as advertised. Reviewer 5: Yes. I was able to install the program in the folder of my choice. Shortcuts were placed on the desktop, in the Start Menu and in the Quick Launch section of the Taskbar. I much prefer it when the installation allows me to select the location of the shortcuts. The activation code was required in order to be able to finish the installation, and this was accomplished with a simple copy and paste. The program started up as soon as the installation was completed. A pop-up hint from the System Tray appeared suggesting that the program could be called up with the F2 key or when there is a "." at the end of a sentence. A "Welcome to WhiteSmoke" window also appeared, with hints on how one could start using WhiteSmoke immediately. This Window will start up each time the program is launched, but it can easily be turned off. Reviewer 6: Yes. The reasonably medium sized 9.39MB program downloaded and installed smoothly, notwithstanding that it did install the toolbar and search bar even though I had instructed it not to do so. It seemed to integrate seamlessly into the Window’s operating system initially. The EULA (End User License Agreement) is printable, which I greatly appreciate and something that I wish all software developers would emulate; however, it is the EULA that, in part, prevents me from recommending this software. In Section 4. LIMITED WARANTY /UPGRADE POLICY, Subsection 4.7 it states LICENSOR DOES NOT WARRANT OR GUARANTEE . . . THAT THE SOFTWARE . . . WILL BE FREE OF ANY VIRUSES, WORMS, OR ANY OTHER DESTRUCTIVE PROPERTIES . . . . That alone is a deal-breaker for this reviewer, but unfortunately there is more. Good points Reviewer 1: There are many spell checkers and grammar checkers that can help with a single program (e.g., with Microsoft Word), but WhiteSmoke will work in virtually all Windows text-based programs: in text editors such as NotePad and UltraEdit, word-processing programs such as Word and WordPerfect, Web browsers, email clients, and more. The WhiteSmoke toolbar includes a variety of additional resources: a radio with a number of stations already set, an RSS reader, and a Gadgets section that includes LabpixiesTV, a calorie calculator, a regular calculator, a to-do list, a unit converter, old New York Times crossword puzzles, lots of games, and more. What any of this has to do with writing improvement isn't clear, but some people will probably feel that these resources add value to the WhiteSmoke program. Reviewer 2: The concept behind WhiteSmoke is a good one: having a program which can provide editing solutions in any program, not just one’s word processor or email client, would be a definite benefit. However, the concept is about as much as the developers of WhiteSmoke have achieved. Reviewer 3: Before describing what I considered the good points and later the weak points of WhiteSmoke, it is important to understand that WhiteSmoke is a hybrid of what is now called “cloud” computing. The program that resides on your PC after installing WhiteSmoke is indeed individualized for one’s PC, but the actual functions of checking for spelling and grammar occur on WS servers. What this means is that WhiteSmoke will not function unless there is an active Internet connection. Thus, the performance of WhiteSmoke as far as speed, crashes, and size of files are dependent upon the kind of Internet connection that it is used with. One of the most important features about any software program is the learning difficulty. WhiteSmoke is very easy to learn to use. It makes the task of learning how to use it easy with a unique help file User Guide. The User Guide explains the functions of WhiteSmoke with a screen shot and balloon captions that describe how to use that portion of the program. This method of explaining how to use WhiteSmoke makes the process quick and informative. I tried WhiteSmoke out of many different files representing Word documents, emails, online forum text boxes, WordPad, and NotePad. Many of the documents I had WhiteSmoke review for grammar and spelling were technical documents with medical terminology. WhiteSmoke did find many errors on documents that were checked and corrected using Microsoft Word. I ran grammar and spelling checks using MS Word and accepted changes suggested by Word. Those documents were rechecked for spelling and grammar with WhiteSmoke. It found grammar errors that were not detected by Word. Nearly all of the spelling errors detected by WhiteSmoke were detected by Word and both had the function to add the word to their dictionary. This pattern repeated on numerous documents that it was clear that WS is better than Word in detecting grammar errors. WhiteSmoke has an option called Notifier that alerts the user to errors as he or she is typing. MS Word has a similar function by underlining words with detected errors as the user types. I like WhiteSmoke’s function because it is better to detect errors as typed while one’s thought process is on what he or she is trying to say rather than waiting to review the whole document when completed. This is a big advantage with WhiteSmoke because it decreases the size of the upload being analyzed at one time and thus speeds the process. Many of WhiteSmoke’s functions are very similar to Word, such as right-click to select spelling choices, errors detected as typed, point-and-click to replace errors with suggested correction, ability to add words detected as spelling errors to dictionary (and thus no longer detected as a spelling error), and ability to check a portion or the entire document; just to name a few. The big advantage that WhiteSmoke has over Word is the Enrichment On-Demand function. The function gives the user alternative words and ways to write, and is of enormous help to a writer who is stuck trying to use the same words over and over. I was quite impressed with the final results of some of my documents after applying this feature. Reviewer 4: Many word processing programs actually have a proofreading function built-in, but WhiteSmoke takes it a step farther by offering a huge database of templates to target one’s writing for specific uses. There were templates for Business, Legal and General Use, with many subcategories under each one. WhiteSmoke offers an abundance of "Add-on" modules for Advanced Grammar Checking, Grammar Error Explanations, "Patented Text Enrichment.", Powerful Spell Checking and a One-Click Dictionary and Thesaurus. Reviewer 5: WhiteSmoke starts with several help functions enabled, which can later be turned off when familiar with the program. A significant difference between WhiteSmoke and other checking/verification programs that I have previously used is the inclusion of both Grammar and Style suggestions. When a mistake is made, a window pops-up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen with a warning message. Clicking on the message produces a correction screen with the problematic sentence or paragraph already there. The error can be corrected immediately, or the user can access an explanation of the stylistic or grammar problem and learn from the mistake as well as correct it.. A click on any word in the window displays a list of synonyms for that word, a very convenient feature that works better than other systems I have used. A keyboard-mouse combination (Shift-Right-click by default) on a word will bring up a dictionary for that word. There is also a thesaurus, a list of idioms, and translations for the word into any one of the 20 languages supported by WhiteSmoke. There are additional dictionaries to aid people who have to work extensively with specialized vocabularies in business, high-tech, and bio-tech; or those who do creative writing. For anyone who has the experience of continually adding technical or subject-specific vocabulary to the basic dictionary that comes with their ordinary spelling-checker, this is a great feature. I tested WhiteSmoke with text from many fields, and found it to perform well beyond my expectations. Advanced papers on esoteric topics of research brought up only occasional flagged words, and in some cases, the text came up with the message Your text has been checked. No enhancements were made. In fact, many of these articles produced fewer flags than those that pop us in the more commonplace content that I usually write. In addition being a tool to help in writing or editing text, WhiteSmoke provides the user with lessons in English grammar and usage by selecting the English Lessons button in the correction screen. A table of contents is provided for each topic, with explanations and examples of many of the rules and peculiarities of the English language. I would not see this to be a great teaching tool, but a good reference for both native and second-language speakers of English. WhiteSmoke also includes a large collection of business, legal and general templates, which can be imported into one’s word processor. To date, I have not had the need to call up and use any of these templates, although there are many scores dedicated to very specific topics. Because of where I live, I am not likely to be able to use many of the legal templates, but they could probably be used in other regions whose civil laws are based on Common Law principles. The Business and General templates could be used in most places, as long as they are adapted to local needs and customs. Certainly, they can provide users with a basic structure from which they could start, when they are faced with a specialized writing task. Reviewer 6: None, unless its ease of use and resulting uselessness could be construed as a positive. Weak points Reviewer 1: Though WhiteSmoke caught some errors in spelling and grammar, I was surprised that it missed some common errors such as the confusion of to/too/two and they're/their/there. When it examined the sentence "They're was no way I could avoid eating to much candy at the party," it advised changing "they're was" to "they're" because "the auxiliary verb has been written twice by mistake." Once that inappropriate change was made, WhiteSmoke reported that the sentence was correct! It accepted "They're no way" and missed the misspelling of "too" in "to much." Indeed, it failed to catch this misspelling in an even simpler sentence: "I threw up because I drank to much." WhiteSmoke also frequently suggested changes to perfectly correct statements that made them incorrect. It had difficulty, for example, with the following sentence: Please do not hesitate to contact the University Police Department if you see anyone who appears to be suspicious or out of place. WhiteSmoke wrongly advised that "anyone who appears" be changed to "anyone who appear," claiming mysteriously that "the elements of the verb phrase are inconsistent" and that "this is a compound verb acting as a single verb: the elements in the verb phrase have to comply to certain rules in order to create a coherent verb phrase." This was not an anomaly; WhiteSmoke frequently gave incorrect advice about subject-verb agreement. This was especially true with subjunctive constructions such as "I wish there were a way I could become younger." WhiteSmoke erroneously claimed that "were" should be changed to "was" because "the subject and the verb have to agree in number and person." It had problems as well with other kinds of English constructions. For example, after examining the sentence "He looked forward to walking his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day," WhiteSmoke recommended changing "walking" to one of the following: "walking on," "walking into," "walking out of," "walking in on," or "walking up"! It explained: "this word [walking] requires a preposition." I pity the person who follows WhiteSmoke's advice and changes the sentence to "He looked forward to walking on his daughter down the aisle." WhiteSmoke was repeatedly unable to deal successfully with common idiomatic English. It balked at the sentence "She's got a great personality" and suggested changing "got" to "getting" or "gotten." When confronted with W. Somerset Maugham's statement Excess on occasion is exhilarating, WhiteSmoke advised changing "on occasion" to "on the occasion" or "on an occasion." It also questioned the expression "for short" in sentences such as "It's known as magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI for short." It underlined "short" and asked (in upper case) "FORGOT A WORD?" It explained, "This adjective [short] has to be followed by a noun." It was similarly inept in understanding the word "thought" in statements like "I've given a lot of thought to this issue"; it recommended changing "thought" to "thoughts," explaining that "both the noun and its article have to be either singular or plural." I might expect someone learning English to make errors like these, but not a program designed to help people improve their command of written English. In addition to its grammar, spelling, and style checkers, WhiteSmoke offers a number of "templates" that are supposed to help the user create documents for various situations, from personal letters to corporate business plans. Unfortunately, many of the templates I looked at contained errors in grammar and/or spelling. For example, one template for letters of apology contained the following paragraph: Instead of simply being grateful and graciously [sic] and accepting it as gesture of kindness, I nervously laughed it off, not really knowing quite how to handle it. It's just that your mannerism was so unfamiaiar [sic] to me. That was wrong and I feel badly about it. Another template included a sentence that began: As and from now I will be conducting more thorough investigations before I go flying off the handle…. A template for a message offering congratulations on a wedding took the form of an awkwardly written poem that began as follows: Dear _______, This bond between two -who've found each other True love must be present and needing one another. With a heart of forgiveness and faults they understand This is the bond spoken about between a woman and a man. The poem ended with these two lines: These are must haves for marriage to a long lasting and happy relation That's what the Lord intended since the beginning of creation. I asked the WhiteSmoke program to examine these last lines. It failed to recognize the colloquial expression "must haves"; instead, it underlined "are must" and advised that these be replaced by "must," because "the elements of the verb phrase are inconsistent." Reviewer 2: I was very disappointed to see popups repeatedly appear on my computer, advertising the new WhiteSmoke 2009 and other “Special Offers”. It is one thing to be advised of options when actively doing a search for upgrades, but it is entirely unacceptable to have an advertising screen pop up while in the middle of doing something else. Not only did WhiteSmoke try to change my Internet Explorer home page upon installation, it tried to do so again upon uninstallation. WhiteSmoke inserts its search toolbar at the top of the Internet Explorer display. Apparently the programming was not sophisticated enough to detect that FireFox was my default browser since no changes were made in that program. Having a limited search toolbar on a browser may be reasonable for a program like WhiteSmoke, but they went beyond that; they added a “Gadgets” display, essentially a set of bookmarks to games and entertainment sites. The difference between these links and normal bookmarks, however, is that one can display the link properties in a normal bookmark before clicking through to the site. With “Gadgets” this cannot be done, and that is a security risk. They also install an internet radio station player and an RSS feeder with pre-loaded feeds. I installed WhiteSmoke for the serious purpose of having a spelling and grammar checker. I do not want it cluttering my desktop with entertainment items I did not ask for and did not authorize. When I first used WhiteSmoke within Microsoft Word, third-party popups appeared asking whether I approved allowing installation of Adobe Flash Player from within Word. I declined this request since I already have Flash Player installed on my system. There was no mention in the license agreement or in any of the other documents I reviewed prior to installing WhiteSmoke to indicate that Adobe Flash Player would need to be installed on my system. WhiteSmoke required Internet access to provide editing suggestion and the editing suggestions I received while using WhiteSmoke were usually useless, irrelevant, or wrong. For example, if I wrote “I went on the Internet.”, WhiteSmoke would pop up with the suggestion such as “you typed the word Internet, did you mean to type Internet?”. Or it would suggest changing a word from singular to plural when that would change the meaning of the sentence to something other than what I meant to say. A typical example of WhiteSmoke's grammar suggestions occurred when I typed the sloppy sentence: Had a hard drive go out on my front desk computer this week. WhiteSmoke wanted to change “go out” to “gone out” but made no mention of my leaving out the subject of the sentence (“I had a hard drive go out…”) I don’t consider myself as having excellent grammar, especially when I am writing on the fly, so I was surprised to see comparatively few accurate suggestions to correct my grammar.. Uninstalling WhiteSmoke did not remove the WhiteSmoke Internet Explorer Toolbar. This had to be uninstalled separately. Reviewer 3. The most significant weak point for WhiteSmoke is how it functions by transferring files over the Internet for analysis. Larger files did bog down and take considerable time even though I have a very fast connection (download 6,000Kb/s – upload 750Kb/s), which would cause concern for those with slower connections. WhiteSmoke has a 10,000-character limit on uploads to its servers, thus there is a limit to the size of a document that one can have WS analyze. With WhiteSmoke running, I encountered numerous crashes with IE that repeated at exactly the same point while accessing different sites. After shutting down WhiteSmoke, I repeated the same steps that resulted in a crash; but no crash would occur. The IE error in each of these crashes was “not enough memory”, a strange error considering my system has 4GBs of RAM and monitoring software indicated that all of it was not in use when these errors occurred. My only conclusion for these crashes is that they were due to some function in WhiteSmoke as they would only occur when WhiteSmoke was running. Transferring files over the Internet and having my documents on another PC (server) does raise some security concerns. No matter how secure WhiteSmoke’s servers are, history has taught that all PCs are hackable. WhiteSmoke sells packages designed for technical writing that are included in the Executive version I used. I found numerous medical terms that WhiteSmoke falsely detected as spelling errors. While I was able to add these terms to its dictionary, I felt these terms should have been in a “Bio-Tech dictionary for medical professionals”. WhiteSmoke is designed to detect errors in sentence writing; however, much technical writing is not written like a novel but rather in sectionalized blocks by topic headings. This block form writing and the headings of each block in technical papers (such as articles in professional magazines) will be detected by WhiteSmoke as grammar errors. This gave rise to more wrong detections than the real grammar errors in these documents. These false detections required me to turn off the autocorrect feature to prevent destruction of the document’s format. I could not get WhiteSmoke to work on plain text files in NotePad. Each time, all I got was a notice that it could not find an Internet connection; however without changing anything I could analyze Word documents in between trying with NotePad text files. So the error message about Internet connection was incorrect. Reviewer 4: WhiteSmoke requires an Internet connection to function properly. This is not stated or made clear anywhere I could find. I only discovered this in a response from their tech support. I do not see why this is required and this required me to move the program from my laptop to my desktop to continue. WhiteSmoke seems to be a bit of a "nag". It runs in the system tray unless it is set to NOT start with Windows. Leaving it running would cause it to pop up when not expected, such as a conflict with a “hot key” in an online game I play. (F-2) It actually kicked me out of the game until I shut WhiteSmoke down. After a bit of digging, I found that I could reset the hot key to another key and that issue stopped being a problem. I just needed to remember to turn WhiteSmoke back on when I wanted to use it. My biggest complaint was the supposed errors that WhiteSmoke found in my writing. It frequently marked words as being incorrect when they were not, often offering the exact same spelling as a correction? It also seemed to adamantly insist that every line start with a capital letter, even those created on purpose by a carriage return. These errors and "nags" eventually made WhiteSmoke unusable in my opinion and I turned it off and stopped using it for other than testing its functions. It sits in the System Tray and activates automatically. Reviewer 5: In spite of the many features available in the correction window, editing other than accepting or rejecting options provided by WhiteSmoke is very difficult, and sometimes impossible. I found this to be very frustrating. Time and again, I wanted to make an immediate change in the window, often because WhiteSmoke had pointed out that a particular sentence structure was weak, or words were inappropriate, but the suggestions proposed were unsuitable. I was so often frustrated by the rigidity of the correction window that I would simply turn off the program, and go ahead on my own. The pop-up window is intrusive and frequently its suggestions are simply incorrect. For example, the word-wrap feature in editing or word processing programs moves the cursor to the beginning of the line being typed. WhiteSmoke often pops up to tell me that the word at the beginning of a line needs to be capitalized, although it is, in fact, in the middle of a sentence. Other irrelevant suggestions regularly appear as I work. I can, of course, turn off this window, but it is normally a very quick and convenient way to get to the correction window. The program uses the F2 key as the default hot key for calling up the correction window while working on text. A change of any other key combination is limited to just three choices. It would be much better to be able to choose one’s own hot key combination if none of those other F key choices are appropriate in a particular computer setup. My experience with the support provided by the developers was inconsistent. Some of my questions were answered quickly and satisfactorily, but others received little or no attention from the support staff. I would rate their support as “sometimes adequate.” I use Edit Pad as my favorite replacement for Notepad but it did not seem to work with WhiteSmoke. When I asked about this, I was informed that WhiteSmoke is “not fully compatible with Edit Pad.” At least, they did apologize, but I still find it a bit odd. The next question I submitted concerned a problem I was having with the correction window. I did receive an automated answer giving me a ticket number, but never had any further communication on that one. My last set of communications went well, and I was able to successfully resolve the issue I raised at that time. Reviewer 6: WhiteSmoke is a resource hog—using almost 30MB of RAM just sitting in one’s system tray and using almost 50MB of RAM in use. The program is misleading as it is not so much software as a Web application requiring connection to the Internet for it to function. ** It consistently shuts down to “runtime errors: ** It is replete with inaccuracies in its proofreading: ** On the other hand, WhiteSmoke fails to find many grammatical errors: WhiteSmoke does not guarantee the user that it does not contain viruses, worms, spyware, etc. Technical/customer support is almost nonexistent when they do finally respond after several weeks one out of 4 requests, the answer is irrelevant to the question. Their support forum is inactive with most recent posts dated from November 2007 to December 2008. In my opinion, many reviews listed on their Web site are, for the most part, obviously fake as they either have no active or “hot” link or point to a dead link. According to what I have seen in blogs and forums, many users have been unable to receive refunds or support and in those same blogs and forums there are frequent reports that WhiteSmoke has spammed subject-related discussion boards or posted contrived postings praising their product on their competitor’s support forums. Developer's web site. Reviewer 1: I was unimpressed by the WhiteSmoke Web site. For well over a month, visitors to the home page were greeted by two rather garish, flashing ads screaming "75% OFF. LAST DAY!" The ad carried that day's date and the number of hours, minutes, and seconds remaining before the offer expired. But the next day, the same ads appeared, only with the new day's date. This kind of deceitful advertising did not inspire my trust in the company. I went to the Web site in search of information about the current version number of the WhiteSmoke software. I could find no such information, nor any information about how the current version differed from earlier versions. I did come upon what was ostensibly a free online grammar/spelling/style checker. When I entered some text, the checker highlighted certain words, but it offered no explanation of what the highlighting signified. The only way one could get more information was to download a copy of the commercial software. Thus, the free online checker was little more than another ad for the software. I also came upon forums that WhiteSmoke had established to help people with questions about English. The moderator, known as "Top Expert," is apparently supposed to answer people's questions about grammar, spelling, and style. Unfortunately, Top Expert's command of these matters seemed at times pretty shaky. His/her messages contained surprising numbers of errors. "Warrant" appeared as "warrent," "vice versa" became "visa versa," "unexited" was offered as a synonym for "bored," and the forum's rules asked experienced forum members to "assist other newer members rather then [sic] attacking them." Even highly skilled writers make occasional errors, especially online, but I would expect that someone responsible for helping people to improve their English would try harder to write correctly and would not offer (or not bother to fix) careless responses like the following: "You do need a comma here, as the text before the independent clause "we can..." is an introdcutory [sic] element which needs to be spearted [sic] with a comma." Reviewer 2: The Web site is almost entirely dedicated to selling products. The blog consists of grammar lessons. The link to technical issues led to a “coming soon” display. Reviewer 3: WhiteSmoke Web site is easy to navigate and find what is wanted. I did not utilize the contact support function, so I can’t comment on that aspect of the Web site. Reviewer 4: WhiteSmoke’s Web site is one giant sales pitch. There were continually running "Flash" animations that were a bit distracting. One of the buttons on the navigation bar called "Hot Offer" brings up a page that asks for name and e-mail address, so they can "send you this special offer" rather than just stating the offer. They are working hard at expanding their email list. The navigation of the Web site was good and information was easy to find with no real problems. There is a drop-down menu that makes the page available in 12languages. The Web site offers the program in five different, targeted versions and an "Executive Package", the one we tested, that contains all the versions. Under the "Community" Navigation button., the site offered a blog, a forum and an RSS feed. The "Support" drop-down menu offers support for personal users, academic users and corporate users. Reviewer 5: The WhiteSmoke Web site is heavily oriented towards sales and marketing. Although I understand that they need to sell their product, I found the sales banners and flashing advertisements to be particularly annoying when I selected “English Lessons” from the correction screen. The first page that opens is quite as would be expected, with an introduction, and five main topics to choose from: Grammar, Punctuation, Vocabulary, English Writing and How to Learn Languages Guides. However, choosing any of those items transports the user to the main site, where the most recent special is flashing, in bright colors across the top, and occupying a full ¼ column width on the right-hand side of the page. While scrolling through the lesson, the brightly colored rapidly flashing ad slides down the page and is always present to the point that I quickly lost interest in reading the material and closed my browser. The site design is peculiarly out of sync for a product that advertises itself as a serious and even scholarly kind of program. On the other hand, I did like browsing through the blogs, where one can find some interesting comments on different aspects of the English language. I was pleased to find a variety of topics, without an overwhelming emphasis on all things orthographical and grammatical. Reviewer 6: There is little more to be said. The Web site is peppered with favorable reviews from companies, magazines, newspapers, and customers which, for the most part, cannot be verified. Based on that, all else is moot as far as I am concerned. Other comments. Reviewer 1: The rather high list prices displayed on the WhiteSmoke Web site seem artificially inflated: as far as I can tell, the software is often available at huge discounts. However, I found the program so unreliable that I would advise people not to use it even if they could get it for free. Reviewer 2: Having been dissatisfied with Microsoft Word’s grammar correction, I was looking forward to the promised improvements from WhiteSmoke 2009. Regrettably, I found WhiteSmoke performs even worse. Reviewer 3. WhiteSmoke’s cost is high for what it offers; however, I would suggest it for those who wish to write and English is not their native language, as grammar is often lost in translation. Reviewer 4: WhiteSmoke requires an internet connection to function properly. The available online spell checkers, grammar checker, style checker and translation functions reside online and one’s writing sample is run through them to generate the needed corrections that WhiteSmoke thinks are appropriate. I experienced less than stellar response times from WhiteSmoke’s support system. Inquiries took at least three days or more. I often use technical terms that are not in WhiteSmoke’s dictionary. There did not seem to be the capability to add anything to the dictionary. This is a failing and makes WhiteSmoke less usable, since it continually flags those words as misspellings. Another irritation I experienced was unsolicited email. Although I had downloaded and installed a registered version of WhiteSmoke, I continued to get messages asking me to buy WhiteSmoke. Reviewer 5: The additional features of the Grammar, Style, the one-click access to a multi-featured dictionary, and the large database of available templates set WhiteSmoke apart from other spelling and grammar checking programs of this genre. For those who must work with specialized vocabulary, WhiteSmoke is certainly worth examining. Reviewer 6: Without regard to WhiteSmoke per se, as a professional writer and one who teaches writing at the university I would remind you that good writing is an art, not a science. As such, any of the so-called proofreading software programs can only be expected to do so much, and many will result in what can only be described as “machine-writing.” That said, there are legitimate software programs available that can help an intermediate writer as long as he or she has a basic understanding of punctuation, syntax, and grammar so it will normally not be necessary to “proofread” the “proofreader”. I would invite the reader of this review to simply type into Google the words “WhiteSmoke + scam” (without the quotation marks) and seethe many users who are reporting this product as a possibly illegal get-rich scheme. As for me, the only recommendation I can make is to run far and fast away from this program. Will you continue to use it? Reviewer 1: No. Reviewer 2: No. In years of reviewing programs for Neat Net Tricks, I am hard-pressed to recall a program I have been dissatisfied with on so many levels. Reviewer 3. I would not use WhiteSmoke for the technical papers I currently write, but I would use it if I decide to write a book. Reviewer 4: No, the built-in function in Microsoft Word works well enough for me, considering that WhiteSmoke requires both an Internet connection and to be running in the system tray, consuming additional resources. The only time Word ever tags a grammar correction is if I throw in an extra space here and there. Reviewer 5: Yes. Reviewer 6: It was long ago removed from my computer. WhiteSmoke responded (March 26, 2009): Thank you for sending us the reviews – such feedback is very important to us. We are aware of the issues that were raised, and this is why we have dedicated the last couple of months to solving them. In the beginning of next week, we will launch a new server with a number of new features, which significantly expands our detection scope. The highlight is contextual spelling correction, which addresses thousands of confusions like too-to, you’re-your, then-than, etc. We have also improved the precision of our corrections. With that, it is important to understand the inherent limitations of a grammar checking software: The more errors it detects – the more likely it is to point to rare grammatical constructions as problematic, although they may be correct. WhiteSmoke’s detection scope exceeds by far that of other grammar checkers, including MS Word. As such, it is only natural that it also generates a bit more “false alarms”. As for other issues that were raised by your reviewers – our next client, to be launched within the next two weeks, addresses the problems that bugged them most. Among the resolved issues you’ll find, for example: - - WhiteSmoke will no longer install a toolbar or change the homepage. - - The formatting problem has been resolved, so that saving WhiteSmoke’s changes to the document will maintain the original formatting (font color, size, etc.). - - Editing within the main WhiteSmoke window goes smoothly. On a more general note, - - We have made significant improvements in our support services over the past month. - - We’re doing a total revamp of our template DB. - - Most of the other issues that were pointed to are already being resolved / reconsidered these days. OPERATING SYSTEMS USED IN THIS REVIEW Windows XP Pro, XP Home, XP Media Center Back