What is WebCheck AI?
WebCheck AI is essentially a Chrome extension that you can install on Google Chrome (and other Chromium-based browsers like Opera, Vivaldi, etc.), just like you would with any other browser extension. It is developed by the people over at Edicratic — an online platform that reviews college essays to help students with the admission process. With WebCheck AI, the company aims to help those who spend a lot of time reading on the internet by offering them information about the unknowns (words, phrases, terminologies) in an article/post to provide better context. By doing so, it takes away the need for users to Google the things they are oblivious to, and in turn, allows them to focus better on reading without having to leave the current browser tab.
One of the best things about the extension is that it is available for absolutely free. What this means is that once you install it on your browser, you can use it unlimitedly to get context/information across different websites and blog posts over the internet. Moreover, since the service leverages the power of machine learning and comprises a trained model to get better over time, it is bound to improve gradually as more people get on board and start using it.
How does WebCheck AI work?
WebCheck AI works by identifying different pronouns on a webpage that you might require additional information about to get the relevant context. For this, the extension uses NLP (Natural language Processing), which is a field of machine learning that allows computers to understand, comprehend, and manipulate human language. It then makes requests to the Wikipedia API to lookup for all the relevant information regarding the pronoun/term. Similarly, it also indexes several news sites and blog posts to assist with the context wherever required. Once that’s done, the extension then organizes and tries to display most of the related details about the term within a tooltip-like pop-up box. While the box manages to fit in a significant amount of information about the topic’s subject matter, in some instances, when there is a lot more detail on a topic, the extension offers a button to allow you to redirect to the source of information to learn more about the topic.
As already mentioned, the service relies on machine learning (ML) to train its models, which means as more users start using it, it gets better at offering information on various topics. Besides, you can play your part and voluntarily help developers in improving the extension with your feedback. Similarly, you can also improve the service’s training set by adding words/phrases that the extension missed highlighting but should have been considered, in your opinion. For this, make sure Highlight Lookup is enabled by tapping on the extension in the toolbar and ensuring the toggle switch position next to Highlight Lookup is ON state. Once done, double-tap on the word/phrase which you wish you get added in an article to send the data through to the developers.
How to use WebCheck AI?
- Head over to the Chrome web store, here, and download the WebCheck AI extension on Chrome. 2. Open a new tab and sign in to your Google account. 3. Next, tap on the extension from the toolbar and toggle Automatic WebCheck and Highlight Lookup. 4. Now, when you visit a website, before starting to read a post, tap on the extension and hit the WebCheck This button. Once done, you will see some of the text in the article underlined. To get information about the highlighted text, hover your mouse over the term, and it will open a small pop-up window with all the essential details. Further, you can also select between the Information and News tab to get information about the term accordingly.
Talking about its applications in day-to-day usage, the service certainly helps you learn more about words, phrases, and other unknowns while you read, which is crucial to set the appropriate context. Similarly, when it comes to reliability, the information offered by the extension is pretty accurate and on point most of the time — except for certain common terms, which are sometimes used in different contexts. So, if you happen to use Google Chrome and spend a considerable amount of time reading on the internet, you should definitely consider downloading the WebCheck AI extension on your browser and give it a try. WebCheck AI is currently being showcased on Product Hunt — a platform for creators to showcase their products and services with the world — that has services like WhatToWatch.
