2y ago

Any good keyboard recommations?

Every year or so I try one or more privacy focused keyboards. I always end up right back on SwiftKey after a couple of weeks because most of the keyboards I try have the same problem: the predictions suck.

Ok, I get that surveillance is good for predictions. Put another way, predictions are tough without collecting everything everyone types. Is there a best-of-both-worlds keyboard out there? I'd be patient enough to give it some time to learn how I type and get better.

52 comments

Closest I got was Florisboard because of the customization options
The main things I'm looking for (in order) are
predictions
better support for emojis and gifs
built in translations
Google Keyboard works really nicely and it's hard to give up on some of that
- Can you link me? Searching it in the Play Store turns up some weird results.
  
  It's on fdroid :)
  https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.patrickgold.florisboard/
confused mechanical keyboard noises
- yes, OP should have specified for Android.
I like AnySoftKeyboard but it also doesn't have great predictions. They're very customizable though, so maybe you can get something out of it?
I've been loving Thumb Key recently.
- $20 on Google Play? Interesting.
I assume you must've tried openboard. What issues did you have with it? The predictions have been more than satisfactory in my experience.
- Doesn't seem to have swipe typing, which is important for me. Otherwise it's great.
  
  ahh, yeah swipe typing is really tough to inplement well without data collection. i used to use it a lot back before i completely degoogled and id be lying if i said i didnt miss it. i honestly just couldn't find any foss keyboards at all that had swipe typing!
  
  There's a fork that supports it, though it looks like it has become inactive, if you care about that https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard
- I have OpenBoard too and the predictions suck for me. What do you do that makes it not suck for you?
  
  I use openboard and it does exactly what I want it to do: it displays characters I can type out myself. I don't use swipe typing, predictions or autocorrect as those never work well enough, usually exclusively giving shit suggestions or corrections. I also use three languages daily, so I'd have to constantly switch the keyboard language, if I had autocorrect/predictions/swipe turned on.
  I do understand that my use case is not the norm, but I still wanted to give my two cents.
  
  Use it for a while.
- I just installed it. I'll give it a shot. Seems like something I probably tried years ago and decided I didn't like it.
Not sure how it hasn't been said yet, but I really like Helium314's OpenBoard fork. Can't recommend enough.
I use Unexpected Keyboard
https://github.com/Julow/Unexpected-Keyboard
I end up back on SwiftKey because ios stock keyboard doesn't have an option for a persistent number row. That's literally all I want.
Open to suggestions. Would LOVE to not have to have a fucking bing button and be letting Microsoft creep my shit.
- Dude I'm surprised that iOS even lets you pick a different keyboard than the default
  
  They actually didn't for many years.
- It annoys me that I can't long press for punctuation on iPhone SwiftKey, like I could with Android. Also, no comma button.
  
  You can long press the period beside the enter button for some punctuation, though the swipe through that pop up after the long press is a little janky.
  You can also long press letter keys for variations on that letter.
  I'm typing this on an iPhone and I just tested both those things to make sure I wasn't lying to you lol. What feature is missing? Its been a few years since I used android regularly so I seem to have forgotten.
Used to use Openboard but honestly swipe typing is actually good. So I went with Gboard with internet access turned off.
- OpenBoard supports swipe typing and uses a Google library to enable it, so it's pretty much exactly the same as Gboard.
  https://github.com/openboard-team/openboard/issues/3
- AOSP keyboard also supports swipe typing when the right library is in place, but I don't think you can get it without flashing a new ROM or via root access.
  
  Aosp keyboard is the worst keyboard in existence.
Every years or so I try out a bunch of alternate keyboards. Then I go back to using Gboard. {sigh}
I've been using swipe typing for years and I just can't get by without it. None of the privacy oriented keyboards do it well enough to really be usable yet.
- Almost exactly my situation, expect predictions over swiping and Swiftkey over gboard.
I'm starting to like Thumb Key. It may have the hardest learning curve I've ever seen, but it's highly configurable, the developer is super active, and it has a ton of nicely implemented features. I feel as if it'll be like vim: hard to get up to speed on, but once the muscle memory takes hold, I'll be extremely productive with it.
Gboard with every connection blocked through Rethink Firewall except for "media.tenor.com" and "tenor.googleapis.com" (because GIFs are cool).
I will never really know whether it really protects my privacy or if Google has other means to exfiltrate my data, but from Rethink logs it seems to be working. Unfortunately I have never found any keyboard as good as Gboard, so I would say this a risk I am personally willing to take for the convenience of a great keyboard. What would you say?
- Gboard with every connection blocked through Rethink Firewall except for “media.tenor.com” and “tenor.googleapis.com” (because GIFs are cool).
  How can I specifically do this?
  
  Sorry about the delay.
  Install Rethink Firewall and follow instructions to configure it;
  In "Apps" set Gboard to "Isolate";
  Add two domain rules for the two Tenor domains as "Trust".
  That's all.

52 comments