{
  "id": 16064144,
  "title": "Ditto: type it once, and Gemma 4 on your laptop fills every form after that",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/22/ditto-type-it-once-and-gemma-4-on-your-laptop-fills-every-form-after",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-22T15:37:35.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/vivaan_teotia_/ditto-type-it-once-and-gemma-4-on-your-laptop-fills-every-form-after-that-331"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In school, when a repeated answer was required, students would write two small strokes, the ditto mark, and move on. The internet never discovered this shortcut. Job applications, bank verification forms, clinic registrations, college admissions, and rental agreements all require the same forty questions, but often with slightly different wording. When asked for legal first name, father's/spouse's name, date of birth (DD/MM/YYYY), Aadhaar No. (last four digits), and whether the correspondence address matches the permanent address, browser autofill handles the name and email, but then stops, leaving you to type the rest repeatedly. That's why Ditto was created: a Chrome extension that fills web forms from a private profile using Gemma 4 running locally through Ollama.\n\nPressing Alt+Shift+., or clicking the toolbar button, triggers a small open model to read the form like you would and fill it, field by field, at a leisurely pace. Green fields came from your profile; amber fields require your review; grey fields need your input. Essays, consent boxes, and other details not found in your profile are marked grey until you fill them in.\n\nDitto is designed to be safely lazy. It never submits a form or ticks the \"I agree\" or \"I hereby declare\" boxes. You remain in control of your consent. It doesn't guess or invent answers. If your profile doesn't specify the number of people living in a flat, that field remains blank until you provide the information. Ditto learns from you by remembering answers you type once, clicking \"Remember what I typed,\" and later using them to fill out similar forms quickly.\n\nAnyone who fills out forms can benefit from Ditto, from job seekers entering their resume into applicant-tracking portals to students submitting admission and scholarship applications. Parents complete school forms, patients visit new clinics, and individuals opening bank accounts in India, where KYC is an ingrained lifestyle. A demo of Ditto running on a laptop CPU is available, showcasing green, amber, and grey fields as it fills forms. The website and five demo forms can be found at dragon-slayer27.github.io/ditto.",
  "summary": "This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 3: Slow and Steady What I Built In school, when an answer was the same as the line above, you didn't write it again. You drew two little strokes, 〃 , the ditto mark , and moved on. The internet never learned that trick. Job portals, bank KYC forms, clinic intakes, college applications and rental forms all ask the same forty…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}