I’ve been using SwiftKey for over a decade now, and I didn’t really realize how potentially horrible it is for privacy. What are some good alternatives you guys can suggest, ideally open source?
My ideal keyboard includes swipe to type and a notepad (to paste certain emoticons like shrug emoji and such).
Thank you!
Unfortunately Gboard is still the best around. Block it’s internet access.
I think that Gboard would still find a way to connect to the mothership.
Yes probably. It’s a compromise and not ideal. I revoke internet access and on Graphene OS not tied to a Google account. We all find our own peace with this kind of thing. Florisboard looked very promising but the swipe text wasn’t implemented last I checked.
Florisboard appears to have been abandoned
deleted by creator
So one of the suggestions was to use Invizible Pro to block it’s access. Do you use the same method?
Wanted to add my perspective. Decided to splurge and get the z fold 5 after rocking the OnePlus 7 pro for 4+ years now. Wouldn’t have upgraded except I cracked the shit out of my OnePlus recently and repairing/replacing just wasn’t worth it.
After using this phone for a couple days, I have having serious thoughts about returning it. Spent so much time customizing the keyboard for the main screen, but just couldn’t find a comfortable typing experience. Then I realized I hadn’t installed GBoard yet. As soon as it was loaded, I was off to the races. No customization required. Very comfortable typing experience now with the default settings.
Can you still use GIFs and stuff like that if you block its access? Seems like it would be better if we had an equivalent of a hosts file on Android to block or redirect certain addresses.
can’t access the GIFs panel without internet access…just standard emoji…I don’t use those anyway so can deal with that.
I was going to recommend AnySoftKeyboard but someone recommended OpenBoard fork with swipe type and that’s by far the best open source keyboard app I’ve used now… Especially coming from gboard
For anyone who wants it: https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard
Thanks, trying it now and it’s great so far. Also trying to get away from Swiftkey.
Agreed, it’s a fantastic alternative.
AnySoftKeyboard is great.
I forgot to mention, ASK also has a very wide selection of languages.
deleted by creator
I tried ASK and wasn’t a fan. Unless I’m missing customization options, it lacked the ability to change long press times, there’s an obnoxious empty space above the keyboard, and it was quite poor at auto correcting words that were supposed to have apostrophes. You’ll have to change your bottom row to get the space bar a similar size to Swiftkey (I missed it a fair bit before doing this), and it doesn’t have the hold space bar to move cursor either.
I get that using a different keyboard is going to be an adjustment, being a convert to Colemak, but this one seems just a bit too rough around the edges for me.
E: found the long press adjustment, but now can’t find how to add long press symbols to the keys…maybe I’m just too dumb for this keyboard
E2: Actually, after more messing with it, I’m going to give it another go. Still missing the long press symbols, autocorrect apostrophes, and auto space placement after adding commas and periods though. We’ll see how long I can put up with that.
I’m trying to find the long press adjuster myself, where is it?
UI>Tweaks and more>Tweaks>under behavior tweaks.
I’m not sure ifn you’ve seen the rest of the thread, but there’s a version of OpenBoard that has swipe as well. It’s almost exactly the experience I’ve been looking for. You might like it as well.
OK. Yep open board seems to address all the issues I had with ASK. I’ll definitely give this one a good attempt. Really all my gripes are taken care of, and all in easy to navigate settings. Thanks OP!
Swipe is actually a bit difficult to use with the Colemak layout. With the most common letters all on the home row, much of the swiping just turns into going back and forth on the home row, so you need to be pretty accurate.
I’ll take a look at it though, thanks for the suggestion.
i like florisboard: language switching, clipvoard actions, undo/redo, customization, …
FlorisBoard is feature rich.
I’ve used MessagEase for many years now and I absolutely love it. It’s a very different kind of keyboard and so takes a while to get used to but once you’ve learned to use it properly you can type a lot faster with it on a touch screen with limited real estate.
Ok, I am typing this with that keyboard now, and can see how this could be rather neat once one learns all thkey locations.
It looks really neat, but is it still maintained?
I think so. The last update was in december -21, which doesn’t seem that far back for a keyboard app. I’ve not contacted the developer by their support channel email so I don’t know if they respond that way. I’ve personally had very few problems with it over many years’ use.
I cannot seem to find either the game app or the dictionaries on the play store.
They are still on the app store, but unlike the keyboard app itself don’t seem to be updated for modern Android devices. For example:
I’ve sent Exideas a support email asking why this is the case, so I guess when and whether they respond will be something of a litmus test of how active their support is these days. In the meantime, it seems the language modules/dictionaries can be downloaded as APKs directly from their website. They should not at all be necessary to use the keyboard, in any case.
I’ve sent them a main as well this morning. The dictionaries apk are also only available using http.
I just noticed I received a reply, two days ago:
Google had added some new contraints and we just updated the several of our language modules. We updated English, French and German, the most popular ones, for now. English and French are available now and German is in review.
Please, if you can, give it a try and see if the problem is rectified.
So apparently the support is still active.
And I got a reply: “we are working on it”. This is great news, let’s see what hapens!
Does it collect/transmit the keystrokes to their server?
I can’t claim to be a 100% sure to be honest, but if the information on their privacy info page is accurate, it shouldn’t ask for any android system permissions at all, including internet access:
In particular, MessagEase does not seek Internet access permission.
I installed it. Definitely very different! I’ll give it a fair shot though - looks like there’s been plenty of thought behind its design.
Nice! I hope you will like it.
I’m already liking it - I’ve switced to it as my main keyboard. I’m actually typing this on my phone (miserably slowly 😂 - it definitely needs practice getting used to.) I think it’s a good practice for the memory muscles & the brain! Thanks.
Glad to hear it and I hope Exideas’ admittedly questionable support won’t be a big issue going forward for you. It hasn’t really been for me - the app is pretty solid. It saddens me that novel designs like this never seem to catch on, between public inertia and established corporate actors actively trying to suppress anything new.
I’m also using it in blind mode save for the symbols. I really like it so far.
Florisboard
So I do appreciate that they have swipe to type, but it doesn’t have a word suggestion feature / autocorrect.
That’s what’s being worked on. Kind of complicated
I’ll check this out, but on their Git they haven’t updated since September 2022 :/
Doesn’t really matter. There will be another update. It’s still actively developed.
Not a huge fan last time I used it
Check out one of the comments which has a fork of OpenBoard with swipe. I’m using it right now and it’s quite a solid alternative!
FlorisBoard with Material You dynamic themes version
OK, this doesn’t have swipe to type or a notepad, but I’m trying out Thumb-Key. It’s a very different sort of keyboard, almost akin to the old-fashioned way of texting with just the number keys on a phone, just updated for a smartphone screen. The problem is that it takes practice/memorization to learn, because it’s a whole new layout. It’s open source and very privacy conscious (there’s no predictive text or autocorrect).
I started using it about a month ago, and I’m now having a pretty good muscle memory. I like how having larger keys makes it much easier to “touch-type” (even thought I can barely do it, but I see the potential).
The only thing I’m missing is auto-completing my email and home address, but oh well.
I’ve been using SwiftKey for about as long as you have and for a while, about once or twice a year, I’d do exactly what you’re doing- looking around for a better, privacy focused keyboard. I find one or two and try them out for a while but always end up back on SwiftKey because the predictions are unmatched.
Florisboard
Check out the comment which includes the fork of OpenBoard with swipe. I’m using it right now and it’s fantastic!
Poorly the dev is not active anymore. And the beta sucks, the new buttons are pretty weird.
For people needing autocompletion its poorly not an option, but I love it.
Easy clipboard functions, cursor, internal clipboard with history. Its also so good for security as no app can view your clipboard
There was a cool multiswipe keyboard called KeyMon like ten years ago. It was great to be able to dual swipe to type. It brought back memories of t9 typing. Unfortunately, the app hasn’t been updated and has been lost to outdated time.
Any of these allow you to change the size of individual keys like Smasung Keyboard?
I’ve tried most of the ones suggested on here, but I don’t recall any of them having this feature.
Openboard
This fork is actively developed, supports gestures amd many other features. Try it!
Thanks for this, btw. The fork that has swiping enabled hasn’t been updated for over a year at this point :/
u/sudo22 has mentioned that a library is required to enable swiping, but I don’t have a clue on how to download/use it. I’ll try figuring it out.
Edit : Figured it out, the app allows you to import the libjni_latinimegoogle.so file if you’ve downloaded it.
I was very pleased with how well swipe input works with this library. After finding this fork, I stopped using GBoard, which I am very happy about :)
Yes! Also the original, actively developed Open Board has a vastly superior auto correct. I’ve just been using it for a couple hours now but I absolutely love it.
My typing speed was really good in SwiftKey because of it’s autocorrect. I felt hindered with the previous fork, but this one is absolutely wonderful. I’m about 90-95% there.
Thank you, @Helium314 ❤️
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a lot! Now I can definitely leave gboard. One step more in my degoogling process.
yup! same here. this fork have me ability to finally leave GBoard. it is awesome!
I downloaded that, but gesture support is no working. Do we have to do something else. I already turned on the gesture support option in settings, what am I missing?
You should download this file to your phone. Then in additional settings you should choose load gesture typing library and choose this file. That’s it.
Done it, still not working. Do we have to restart for it to effect??? i even turned on show glide trail, but nothing
It worked for me without restarting. Lemme know if you’re still interested in trying it out, maybe it can be troubleshot.
Maybe. It started working for me after this steps so 🤷♂️
Any way, thanks for helping fellow lemmy user.
❤️🙂
