The feature should provide better results, but raises some privacy concerns

Nov 22, 2011 15:11 GMT  ·  By

Google Chrome's spelling suggestions are about to get better, albeit slightly. In an anticipated move, the latest Google Chrome/Chromium builds now integrate Google's online spell checking service.

What this means is that, besides the spelling suggestions coming from the built-in dictionary, which aren't that great, you also get suggestions coming from the web, as long as you enable the feature.

The web spelling suggestions are powered by the same technology that powered Google Search's older "Did you mean" feature or the newer version which automatically replaces your query with the corrected term.

The latest Google Chrome dev and Canary Builds as well as Chromium support the new feature, as Google Operating system noted, but only the Windows versions.

If you're running the experimental versions, you can enable web spell checking by right-clicking in any text box, choosing "Spell-checking options" and then selecting "Ask Google for suggestions."

The web suggestions will be placed below the regular dictionary suggestions. That may not be the best option as web spelling suggestions are regularly better than the built-in ones.

One reason why Google hasn't done this sooner and why it's still not relying too much on web spelling suggestions is the inherent delay in getting data from the cloud rather than using local resources.

But if there's one company that believes in the cloud, it's Google, so the delay should be minimized by the time Google Chrome 17 lands in the stable channel or, at the very least, in future Chrome versions.

There's another reason for Google's reticence, in order for the feature to work, Google Chrome sends anything you type to Google.

That's not something that most people will feel comfortable with, even if Google promises to anonymize the data and not use it in any other way. This is the reason why the feature is not enabled by default and why it won't be any time soon.