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?
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!
I use Gboard but with internet access disabled for it. I haven’t found a comparable open source keyboard 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 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.
Understandable. I had to take some time to learn it, and I sometimes do stop for a bit when I dont exactly know how to spell something lol
I just noticed, that keyboard was created by one of the Lemmy Devs.
Quite fitting to see it posted here
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
That weirdly only happens on jerboa for me
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
Only for english, which isn’t my main language.
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.
Agreed there isn’t any beating google, but everyone operates on different threat models. A bit of inconvenience for a bit of privacy may be worth it for some and not for others. From what little i used of it when i was trying it that yes it had much room for improvement but it was still useable. Once they get predictive text enabled i think the a swipe feature will really shine. But then again that’s just my humble opinion
I agree Florisboard is unusable as a daily driver
I’ve been using florisboard for a while now, across multiple phones. It’s exactly what I need in a keyboard with no fluff.
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.
my dumbass thought you were referring to a physical keyboard
Open source physical keyboards do exist though
I use AnySoftKeyboard because I have not found anything that supports swiping. But it regularly freezes on me for dozen of seconds at a time. Other than that, it works ok.
expired
Yes, that’s annoying. I stay away from Jerboa because of this error.
I use open board since forever and always hoped they get gesture… Why would I need to find it this way haha… Thanks
Because this fork uses a propetary library. That’s the only downer here. Florisboard and AnyKeyboard try to reinvent it OpenSource.
Thanks! Giving it a try, so far it’s my favorite.
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?
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.
I use an OpenBoard fork with gestures after giving up Gboard.
https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/releases/tag/v1.4.5-gesture-typing
Does it support ota by any chance?
This was a one off that hasn’t been updated in almost a year. I doubt it’s getting any more updates.
Might want to look into https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium, automatic updates from any git repo.
Looks good
holy shit this is perfect
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
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.
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