What's the best privacy respecting android keyboard?
What's the best privacy respecting android keyboard?
I'm looking for a privacy-respecting open-source android keyboard, and so far I've found:
Does anyone have any experience with these (or other alternative keyboards)? Which one would you recommend?
Imagine asking this question 15 years ago
I use openboard but it gets me mad sometimes when I start deleting characters and it removes the space between the last word..sometimes it's really annoying!
That weirdly only happens on jerboa for me
Is it while using Jeroba for Lemmy? I had that problem with that app so I switched to Sync for that reason.
No way I didn't see that! I thought it was while using the English keyboard since it doesn't happen in message apps and the only place I use English keyboard is in Lemmy (jerboa) .. I'll switch to other app
That's a Jerboa bug with any keyboard AFAICT. Insane how this hasn't been fixed yet.
Here's my lazy and unpopular solution
Ill go ahead and snail mail my boss lol.
OCR is good enough these days that that's not enough
You've never seen my handwriting
I use FlorisBoard. It's not perfect, but it has a fully featured clipboard and undo-redo functionality. Missing the swipe tho.
FlorisBoard has swipe
But it's quite bad, given their care for privacy there's no way they can compete with google who has all the data.
I know a bit of machine learning and I'm pretty confident I could hack something together that's better than what florisboard has right now, but I'd have no idea where to even start integrating it.
I've been using florisboard for a while now, across multiple phones. It's exactly what I need in a keyboard with no fluff.
I use Gboard but with internet access disabled for it. I haven't found a comparable open source keyboard yet.
Same. Tried openboard again two weeks ago, but had to switch back. The predictions were just too bad
I can't do that on my side, perhaps because it's a system app on my Pixel phone? Or do I need to be rooted for that?
It isn't a system app for my phone, so maybe. You could still use something like InviziblePro or RethinkDNS to disable its internet access without root though.
Anyone know if it's actually open source or if it has blobs?
Gboard isn't open source, which is why I disable internet access for it.
I use thumb-key, made by dessalines. I downloaded it from fdroid
If you check out screenshots, you'll see that its a very non traditional type of keyboard that requires time and effort to get the hang of.
Once you do, you will be able to type roughly as fast as you would with predictive swipe
That is really out there!
Probably not going to use it (since I'm already too used to normal keyboards), but props to the devs for developing something different.
I'm using MessagEase, which looks incredibly similar.
ETA: oh, its a remake. I might need to install and move my layout over.
Any tips on how to actually learn this keyboard? Do I just force myself to use it as much as possible until the movements start to become muscle memory? How long might that take?
Yes, muscle memory
Roughly two weeks for me
Any keyboard with no internet permission should be "privacy-respecting", as it can't (as I understand it) send any data back to the developers. I'm personally a big fan of Unexpected Keyboard, though it's definitely something to get used to.
Just adding Simple Keyboard here as well. It has no features besides typing. It's literally just a keyboard. Been using it for a bit and like it, but it won't be for everyone.
+1. Took some time for me to adapt, but since then it's been a good experience. Been using since 2022.
my dumbass thought you were referring to a physical keyboard
Open source physical keyboards do exist though
expired
Thanks! Giving it a try, so far it's my favorite.
I use an OpenBoard fork with gestures after giving up Gboard.
https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/releases/tag/v1.4.5-gesture-typing
holy shit this is perfect
Does it support ota updates by any chance?
Might want to look into Obtainium, automatic updates from any git repo.
This was a one off that hasn't been updated in almost a year. I doubt it's getting any more updates.
I'm using openboard rn
@ashtrix shared a link for open board with gestures, this is what I use now
All good but Florisboard has an internal clipboard with past entries. If you use its buttons (change in the settings, top row) and not the android ones, the system never gets your clipboard
I just tried Unexpected keyboard, it's easy to use and open source : https://github.com/Julow/Unexpected-Keyboard you can find it on F droid
Permanently Deleted
Right now I'm using SwiftKey, but if I can find an open source keyboard alternative with good customization and keyboard resizing (vertical and horizontal) I'd happily swap away.
Swiftkey was bought by Micrsoft some eons ago. That was the reason fkr me to change to Simple Keyboard (not from Tibur) and to Openboard, but stayed ultimately with Simple Keyboard. I am a simple man.
Florisboard is my daily driver and I have unexpected keyboard so I can do proper VNC sessions from my phone.
Any keyboard that doesn't have an internet connection.
Unexpected Keyboard, or any other keyboard and use a firewall (Netguard, Invizible Pro) to block internet access.
Privacy respecting, but not open source:
Typewise
(Also a lot less typos and faster writing once you get used to it.)
Problem is, without seeing the code, how do you really know?
There are not many open source projects I've checked extensively, and I'm a software developer. But yes, it's at least possible and some might have done it.
Related: how good privacy wise is the default AOSP keyboard found in no-Google-services ROMs like Lineage and /e/? Does it still phone home?
my favorite is unexpected keyboard. it takes a while to get used to but once you do it's way faster than any othet keyboard.
I second that
I personally use FlorisBoard on Graphine OS and I'm quite happy with it. Been using it for over a month now, it did take a couple days to get used to it.
AnySoftKeyboard has everything keyboards should have and some extras others do not have. Also cool popup thing, which is usefull when you get used to it. Settings are weird and not intuitive, but you can customise a lot.
Florisboard still misses swipe typeing and Openboard can not switch languages with guestures on spacebar.
It took some getting used to for me, but I really like AnySoftKeyboard as well. And while it's more of a bonus than a selling point in itself, I love the retro blue theme it has available.
It's a long shot, but does anyone know if CJK languages (not romanizations) are supported in any of these?
The alpha version of FlorisBoard has preliminary support for shape based Chinese layouts so you can write 汉字／漢字 with say, Cangjie or Zhengma. It also has the JIS kana layout for Japanese. Although, it doesn't support Kanji Substitution yet, but you could use the shape based Chinese layouts for that in the meanwhile. As for Korean, it's supported but no Hanja support yet.
While there isn't a release for it yet, you can take any release artifact from the GitHub Actions CI and it should have it.
Try https://github.com/osfans/trime. It has multiple input schemas (i.e. pinyin, zhuyin, cangjie, etc.) to choose from, and they are great for typing Chinese. Admittedly it only supports the C in CJK, but it is absolutely worth a try if you don't need Japanese or Korean.
Try Thumb-Key. It's a keyboard made by Lemmy's main developer. It uses a rather exotic layout, but once you get used to it, it is so much better than qwerty.
Oh wow, that is different.
OpenBoard fork with Gesture Typing: https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/releases
Any of them have good support for foldables? (I.e. Full keyboard on cover screen, thumb keyboard on main screen)
I use OpenBoard. It's good, but my only problem is the lack of images being copied to the clipboard unlike my default keyboard.