I thought replacing Copilot would be straightforward. Even though I need to replace two Copilots: the external web client (copilot.microsoft.com) and Copilot in Edge. I’d imagined the problem would be mechanical: a clean substitution, a tidy little migration from one assistant to the next. The problem isn’t that other AI models don’t exist. There are plenty of them now—too many, actually. But a good one? That is another story.
Can anyone help?
Now, I need something very specific—and that specificity has become increasingly rare. A free AI, without login! Free to match my budget. As for the no login, it is not just about the hurdle to enter a password; it’s about my principles. I’m reluctant to create accounts for just anything, and I live offline as much as possible. I hate forced cloud integration. Take Windows 11: it mandates a Microsoft Account login instead of a local account. That means you need internet just to open your computer. No way 1! So I avoid cloud-connected devices as much as possible—not because I don’t understand what they offer, but because I know too well what they cost.
That said, if no-login no longer exists, or if login would truly add value, I’m prepared to bend. But the benefit has to outweigh the cost. To be honest, given my fruitless search so far, I resigned myself to try Copilot with login. I accepted being tracked. I thought, maybe for that cost the version would be better. It wasn’t. The machine I found behind the login wall was no different from the one I’d abandoned. Slower, maybe. More cumbersome. Definitely less worth the friction of authentication than I’d hoped. And the cost wasn’t worth it. In fact, I regretted the attempt immediately. I had compromised my resistance for nothing.
The extra effort of logging in (and the associated cost) must be worth the benefit.
First and foremost, I need an editor. A real one. Not a tool that pretends to edit. Not a machine that erases your text and replaces it with its own version of what it had vaguely understood. Not the opposite either. One that leaves your text untouched (not changing even the slightest comma) and calls that a polished revision. I don’t want polite fraud. I don’t want a machine that lied with confidence or bullshitted its way through the task. Not a miracle (remember, I was working with Copilot). Not a sentient co-author. Just a free AI, genuinely intelligent, and not merely pretending to be.
I am not asking for a ghostwriter, just a tool that tries—not one that lies.
I need a model that can work a text with me—prompt after prompt after prompt—building on what came before instead of resetting to zero with each exchange. Intelligent enough to understand nuance, collaborative enough to work with me across multiple prompts. Ideally one that could remember what I had written in the previous prompt, because editing is not a sequence of isolated acts. And with enough memory to hold the whole conversation, the whole story, because writing is a continuity, a pressure that accumulates from one sentence to the next.
Right now, it has been a disaster. Wasted time, mounting frustration (to the point I went back to Copilot; see above). Maybe I’m asking for the wrong things in the wrong way to the wrong model—hence my call for guidance. Maybe it’s just a miscommunication: the way I ask, the way I expect language to yield. I know prompting is an art. But still…
The second tool I need is an AI that can access the internet, or at least read my open tabs. I’m not asking for synthesis, contextualization, a weaving of pages into my narrative. Oh no. What I’m looking for is far simpler: an AI that reads my open tabs (i.e., my previously published posts), then gives me a tooltip—a one-line summary I can add to internal links so readers know what the post I am linking to is about. That’s it. Simple. It shouldn’t be rare. And yet..
So yes, I am looking for help—your help. If you know of something—anything—that fits these specifications, please tell me. Remember, I don’t need perfection. Just an assistant smart enough to be honest. Collaborative enough to remember. And maybe one another with access to what I’m seeing. That seems modest enough. A free AI editor, without login! And yet, as usual, it is proving difficult.
1 I need to work even when I am in remote locations without internet. Actually, I am living offline most of the time; I don’t even have data on my phone. Not anymore. No wifi, no internet. ^
2 It’s ironic how every time I finally find something that works, it disappears. I am thinking of Copilot in Edge, but not only that. I remember writing about the other Copilot — the one that had become amazing — only to watch a new update arrive by the time the post was published and wipe out all the improved features as if they had never existed. It happens everywhere. You find a good bank, and then it is absorbed by another one, which promptly erases all the things you liked. You move somewhere else, and the pattern repeats. Bis repetita. The same erosion, the same dull administrative violence, the same little death of usefulness disguised as progress. ^