My private, free AI setup

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Download a free, private AI program that you can run on your computer. Use it offline without subscription fees and avoid the risk of sensitive information being included in a major language model such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. The latest versions of private AI tools such asJan work easily on my 2021 Mac laptop, costs nothing and is easy to use. They are a good alternative to more expensive AI platforms.

? Quick start guide

1. Download and install Jan free. Other good free alternatives to consider includeRevenge,EverythingLLMorLM Studio.
2. Open Jan and choose an open-source large language model. The model you use affects the AI’s response style. You can switch at any time. I use thev1model.
3. Attempt your first question. Here are a few quick mini prompts to get you started:
   “Summary of the pros and cons of using AI for [specific task].”
   “Turn my rough notes below into a quick summary and bullet points.”
   “Turn this angry email draft to my service provider into a constructive message that is likely to elicit a helpful response.”
4. To adjust the app’s display settings, including font size and shortcuts.
5. Near other processor-intensive apps on your computer, such as video editing tools, to reduce the chance of your computer slowing down.

?? 5 reasons to use private AI

• Save money: Avoid subscription fees by running AI models on your own computer. Generate unlimited responses without monthly fees.
• Keep your information private:Using private AI on your computer ensures that no data is sent to or stored on the servers of major tech companies. No calls leave your device. You can even use these tools offline.
  • For sensitive legal, medical, financial, or personal issues, you can ask questions without worrying about your data ending up in the training data of a large language model.
• Working offline: Full offline access is useful whether you’re traveling without Wi-Fi, working in a remote area, or hesitant to trust any public network.
• Experiment with hundreds of open source models:Choose an open-source large language model that suits you. Everyone is trained differently. Some are stronger in certain languages, others specialize in coding. New ones are added regularly. Switch as often as you want. ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini, on the other hand, limit you to the platform’s own models.
  • Tip:UsageLM Arenato compare the answers of two models side by side.
• Reduce your impact on the environment: If you run hundreds of daily prompts, a local AI app can mean less use of internet infrastructure and remote data servers.

Private AI tools let you keep your data on your laptop, even though they may not be as powerful as top AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.[Image: generated with ChatGPT] ?Jan is an excellent, free, private AI tool

• Platforms:Mac, PC, Linux

What I like about it

• Quick and easy to install and use:Jantakes a minute to download and install. Using Jan is as easy as using ChatGPT, Claude or any other chatbot, although you will need to make an initial decision about which model to use.
• Assistants:Create custom AI helpers for different purposes. One for translating Chinese, another for coding. Instruct it to “act as a mentor for software engineering, focusing on Python and JavaScript. Provide detailed explanations with code examples. Use markdown formatting for code blocks.”
• Projects:Organize searches into separate folders for easy access to topics of interest without having to search through hundreds of threads.
• Integrations:Connect Jan to Canva, Todoist, Linear or other tools using MCP (model context protocol) connections.
• Documentation and resources:Much useful documentationincluding onemanualAndblogging.

What’s next:Jan AI develops mobile versions for iOS and Android and adds integrations to link Jan to other services.

? A case study of Jan

Becky Leea senior technical writer, usesJanto explore health questions she wants to keep private.

“I have a chronic illness and I’m struggling to get diagnosed,” she emailed me. “So I created an assistant to help interpret the test results and brainstorm possible explanations for my symptoms. It’s obviously very important to take this with a grain of salt (a chatbot is absolutely no substitute for a doctor). However, this helps bring up conditions that I can investigate further on my own, and it also generates questions that I can ask my real doctor.”

✨ More free AI options for Mac, PC or Linux Revenge

The free version of this well-designed app has several unique features. Unlike Jan, which is completely free,Revengealso has paid advanced features.

The best free features include:

• A built-in prompt librarywith hundreds of options.
• Special focus and zen modeswhich take away side menus.
• Create multiple personasthese are assistants with different personalities. Each of them may have a different style or approach to answering your questions.
• Knowledge Stackslets you import document collections for analysis. This could be PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoints, spreadsheets, lists of YouTube links, or even an Obsidian vault.
• Advanced featureslike multi-step automations, require a paid subscription. I only used the free version. It is easy to use, powerful and well designed. I chose the Gemma 3.

EverythingLLM

Like Jan, this is a simple open-source AI app that is a good option for novice AI users.

How different is it with Jan?

• You can upload files for AnythingLLM to summarize.
• Enable it to create simple graphs.
• Enable Web Search, which requires a free API keyGooglingor Serpa.
• There is also a new betaAndroid version.

Caveat: It’s not as nicely designed as Jan, and isn’t updated as often.

LM Studio

This more developer-friendly option is less easy for beginners.

What stands out:Florent Daudens, an AI expert and lecturer who oversaw daily editorial coverage at CBC/Radio-Canada, relies on LM Studio for private AI use.

I asked him why and he said: “It’s practical, with a user- and developer-friendly interface, quick updates when new models appear, a server option and useful information about model compatibility.”

In oneLinkedIn message,Florent shared an example of using LM Studio on his laptop. He used Google’s Gemma 3 model to analyze aircraft photos and retrieve registration numbers, as an investigative journalist might do, without sending data to external servers.

Limitations of proprietary AI tools

• Function limits:Many special features on other AI platforms do not work on these private AI platforms. For example, ChatGPT’s new plugins for Canva or Figma don’t work with private AI. You may not be able to export results directly to Google Sheets or Slack, as you can with other AI tools.
• No interactive or advanced visuals:You can’t create infographics and visual illustrations like those from ChatGPT. No coding and hosting of interactive applications, as is possible with Claude or Gemini. No advanced searches with detailed quotes like Perplexity’s.
• Quality variation:Some open source models have limited or older training data, which can result in poorer results for certain queries. With regular searches and text summaries, this difference in quality may not be noticeable.
• Lower speed:Depending on your demand, some open source models may have a longer wait than ChatGPT, Copilot, or other proprietary AI platforms. Speed ​​hasn’t been a big problem for me so far.
• Can’t process so much text at once:A smaller ‘context window’ means private AI tools may not be able to analyze blocks of text as large as ChatGPT or Claude. Some small language models may resort to skimming longer text. They are also more likely to hallucinate details when asked for summaries of long, complex documents.

?‍? Additional Resources

• Free, open-source AI tools for journalistscomposed on Hugging Face by Florent Daudens. Read more aboutwhy I love Hugging Faceas an open source AI hub.
• Local LLM groupon Reddit, with 546,000 members. Stay up to date on notable AI research and the development of proprietary AI tools.
• Convenient writingabout local major language modelsStephen Turner.
• LinkedIn learning courseabout private large language models and Jan AI.

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps.Subscribe here.

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