Online Word Processors as Web Based Microsoft Office Alternatives

I love Webware. Webware is software that is used inside of your browser with no download needed. I hate Microsoft Office and indeed I even dislike the open source alternative Open Office, both are huge, cluttered and complicated. There are lots of online word processors on the other hand. I tried almost all of them and I want to share with you the list of those web based word processors I used or that I rather still use.

1. Google Docs, the artist formerly known as Writely is called Google Docs, it's easy to use, supports different languages without the need of switching them, it's great and I use it in English, German and Polish. Drawback: Big Google watches you! In Germany Google even reserves the right to publish your private documents, basically Google owns them.
2. Zoho offers the best web based word processor aka Zoho Writer among a plethora of other online applications, I use Google Docs only because it's quicker as I log in at other Google services anyways
3. Think Free Write is a full fledged online word processor based on Java with all it's pros and cons, with me here it loads a while so it's more for the longer texts not the quick e-mail
4. Peepel Webwriter focuses on collaboration of online teams
5. Glide is a Flash based ofice suite that offers a word processor among others, it also works on mobiles it says
6. Writeboard also stresses the online collaboration

Adobe released a new online word processor based on the start up called Buzzword they bought.

For a thorough test visit cnet's comparison of 4 of the above mentioned online word processors.

Last updated November 17th, 2010.