Privacy @lemmy.ml Ginger666 @lemmy.world 2 mo. ago

What is a good keyboard for android?

I've been using SwiftKey for waaaaaaay too long. I shoulda switched when Microsoft bought them out.

But old habits die hard. And I love the skin I use.

Help they know everything I've typed on a phone. That can't be good for anyone.

Edit: Holy fuck everyone, thanks for all of the responses!

I went with Heliboard, and typing this, it looks like I have to change a couple more settings to get it like I had Swiftkey, but I already like it more.

The fact you can basically make your own skin by changing all of the colors of the keyboard is amazing.

Fuck microsoft's ai keyboard.

Heliboard for lyfe!

Edit edit: trying to delete my data from Swiftkey was INSANELY hard. I couldn't do it from my phone, so I had to login with a computer. They think they are slick.... Fuckers....

89 comments

Check out HeliBoard on f-droid.
- Maybe you meant Izzy ? https://android.izzysoft.de/repo/apk/helium314.keyboard HeliBoard does not appear to be in the main F-Droid repository unless I'm overlooking something.
  
  You are probably correct. Didn't check the repo.
  
  It is about to be in official F-Droid repo very soon
  
  https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/-/issues/2662
- Yes, this.
  
  Highly customisable, fast, multi language (so you don't have to switch), and you can even load in (a degoogled, but still proprietary) swiping library - so it swipes like gboard, looks however you like, it's fully local, and it's open.
  
  Earlier this month they published 1.0 alpha but do install the 1.2 version from github for easier future updates (new signature): github/Helium314/HeliBoard.
  
  I don't understand how to get the swipe library, could you link it by any chance pls.
  
  The Swype library really saved my ass, I was still holding onto Gboard because of it
  
  How do you get the auto correct / language support to actually work? It's less than useless for me, it hardly ever provides suggestions or corrects typos and doesn't recognise a lot of regular words. Adjusting the aggressiveness/confidence in the settings does absolutely nothing.
- Heliboard is just perfect
- I just grabbed it from your suggestion. my gods I forgot how nice it is to have a keyboard with autocorrect that works properly.
  
  thank you very much. this is a fantastic little keyboard and I'm excited to finally replace Swiftkey. cause it's really been bad for a while.
  
  thanks again 🙏
- I tried to switch to heliboard using multiple languages but its predictions is simply out of league compared to SwiftKey. Reluctantly, I switched back.
- Is has actually usable offline swype. With third party library though.
- Hello, I have search F-Droid app and get no results for Heliboard. Any idea what I could be missing?
  
  You have to look in the Izzy repo.
  
  https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/helium314.keyboard
  
  I found it on Obtanium which you can get from the f-droid store
- I see that's a fork of Openboard, which I have, but I don't really use it because it keeps suggesting American spellings (sometimes alongside British spellings), and my thumbs are too mighty to use a mobile phone keyboard without the suggestions. Would you happen to know if Heliboard fixes this?
  
  I have Heliboard set to English (UK) and it suggests British spellings (highlighting the American ones as typos), so I think you should be good. However, I'm not sure if the spellings come from my phone's system or from the keyboard...
  
  I would nevertheless recommend trying it: it has some very nice improvements over OpenBoard and is under active development, so you could request new features or report bugs and expect them to be taken care of.
Here's one I made, called Thumb-Key. No internet permissions, made to be private.
- Darn it, I popped into this thread to suggest Thumb-Key, and was beaten to it by the maker of the keyboard!
  
  Thank you for making my phone usage much faster and enjoyable (written using Thumb-Key of course!) :)
- I use this after messagease suddenly decided to charge a subscription fee.
  
  It's pretty darn close in functionality. Highly recommend taking the time to learn it.
  
  Thx! Ya the main reason I made it, was because messagease development died, and all my emails to the messagease team (their only contact email) went unanswered for like 2+ years. So it seemed like a good opportunity to do a from-scratch open source rewrite.
- Thank you for making this!
  
  I really need to try making something for Android, looks like fun
- Hey! I tried your keyboard out when I was setting up my new phone - very cool and innovative idea!
  
  Thx!
- I appreciate that it's made for my thumbs as opposed to other, less keyboard optimal digits.
Heliboard https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard
- no material you ):
I would recommended you HeliBoard (an OpenBoard alternative with some enhancements like multi language typing) https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard
- Thanks to you and everyone else in this thread that recommended HeliBoard. It's excellent
- Thanks for the recommendation. I see there's gesture typing support if you load a library. Which one do you use if any?
  
  I followed the recommendation of the developer and installed the file from GApps packages ("swypelibs"). They provide a link in Heliboard's README, scroll down to the FAQ section and look for "How to enable glide typing"
Heliboard seems decent so far.
- +1 vor HeliBoard. I was in the same position and switched about half a year ago. The only thing I missing so far is a dedicated voice input button.
  
  It has that now
irregular expressions.

🅆🄷🄾 🅽🅴🅴🅳🆂 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚌𝚔 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖓 𝔂𝓸𝓾 🅒🅐🅝 ｔｙｐｅ 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 a͟ ̶h̶̶o̶̶s̶̶t̶̶a̶̶g̶̶e̶👏taker👏
- Hell👏yes👏thank👏you👏for👏bringing👏this👏into👏my👏life
  
  y̷̪͎͙̣̠̪̅͆̕͝ͅọ̷͒̍͟ͅų̸̮͎̞͙̣̥͍̽̌͒̉͋͊̽̆̽̋͘͡͠r̸̡͈͈̬̬̹̭̹̍͗̐͂̑͛̅̄̕̕͘͠ ̷̨̙̩̘̩̰̀͋͜w̸̗̖̺͖̫̐́͋̐̀̈́̋̓̕͠ę̶̡͎͉̪̰̲̼̠̭͓̳̀͐̀ͅl̶̰̺͚̫̦̍́̓̐̅̈́̓̂̑͝͝͝c̵͖̞̀̈́͋̓́̓̌̓̋̕͘͠ò̴̫̰̬̮̗͓̻͚͛́͘͟ṁ̷̳̣͔͖e̶̖̝͎̞̅̓̾̍̉́͌͆͝ ̸̳̜̳̥̠͍̲̠̣̈́̾̍͗̌͂͑̚͝m̸̧̛̳̠̦̩̱̞͎̝̯̲͚̜̬͗̓̄̓́̈́̾̾̈́̊̽ͅa̸̧̨͖̼̦͉̲͛̾́͋̌͑͌̽̚͝t̴̝̦̘̞͇͖̪͔̙̠̲͈̀̒̒̋̇̎̔̄̂̇́ę̸̧̼̮̭͉̼͔̮̥̗͇̟̥̤͛̐̉̾͗̓̆̇͛̀̚͘͟
Been using Florisboard for a while. It is the most like gboard, although the swipe typing is not as good. All in all though, I'd still recommend.
- Ay, also am using that one
FlorisBoard beta is very nice. Mine looks very nice.
- Also FlorisBoard is back in the game !
  
  Note: Due to various reasons development has been quite stuck in the past year, but things are slowly improving again and new releases/features will follow in the near future, please see the roadmap for details!
  
  florisboard
- Yeah been using that for a long time.
I've wandered through a bunch of them. Used to use Florisboard. Unexpected Keyboard is pretty good too. The Hacker's Keyboard for some stuff. Mostly these days Heliboard for general typing.
Ima be honest, I just use Google Keyboard but disable the its networking for the app.
If you'd like to have a more ergonomical keyboard: thumb-key is way worth the learning curve!
- +1 for the keyboard. I thought it was a meme app at first but it turned out to be way better than I ever expected. Written from Thumb-key BTW.
  
  Thx! (I'm the main dev)
I like florisboard, it's fairly customizable.
I use Heliboard: https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard
Simple Keyboard on fdroid. Others have more features, but I can't switch. The swipe delete and swipe to move cursor are so smooth and I can't make any other keyboards work as well for me. I wanted florisboard to work, but it just felt clunky
- Do you mean the SimpleMobileTools keyboard or the "normal" Simple Keyboard?
  
  Coming from the Samsung keyboard (and before that Apple), I'm quite dissatisfied with the cursor movement in most Android keyboards (including HeliBoard).
  
  the latter
- Be sure to switch as soon as Fossify releases their fork of it, Simple Mobile sold out HARD! Thankfully the 2nd in command at Simple Mobile created Fossify and is releasing all the apps to keep everything open sourced.
  
  Didn't notice that one. I'm using the first simple keyboard, from rkkr. Think the simple mobile one must be a later addition
Unexpected Keyboard on f-droid.
- Florisboard on f-droid is pretty ok.
- irregular expressions.
  
  🅆🄷🄾 🅽🅴🅴🅳🆂 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚌𝚔 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖓 𝔂𝓸𝓾 🅒🅐🅝 ｔｙｐｅ 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 a͟ ̶h̶̶o̶̶s̶̶t̶̶a̶̶g̶̶e̶👏taker👏
I'm also a Swiftkey holdover, trying Heliboard now..

Is there a keyboard that can do haptic feedback while typing and enable multiple languages at the same time? These two features are really missing for me.
- Heliboard can do multilingual typing, and I believe there is some kind of haptic feedback... I don't use that function, but it was mentioned in the latest release notes
  
  How does it do multilingual typing? You have to change the input method, right?
  
  Thanks! I went back and eventually found the settings for them. You can even configure the length of the haptic feedback which is great.
I use AnySoftKeyboard (fdroid github website). It has quite the amount of customizability. I like that there are arrow buttons to navigate text better.
- Spent a bit of time customising it when I got it, and it's saved me so much frustration over the past year. Copy pasting, tabbing, having an undo via keyboard, moving character with an arrow. I enjoy typing with a touchscreen now. Would recommend it to anyone wholeheartedly.
I have been using Hacker's Keyboard since ... forever?
thumb-key
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.dslul.openboard.inputmethod.latin/
I use Gboard cause it's the only keyboard that has the preferences that I want. I'm on GrapheneOS, so I just disable the network connection for Gboard.
- What preferences are you referring to?
  
  Autocorrect, not removing my corrections after I hit the backspace key, being able to disable the suggestion boxes, being able to customize it to my liking, and a couple other things that I'm currently forgetting about.
thumbkey. blazingly fast and secure.
I use openboard mod with gesture typing
Is there a privacy conscious keyboard that offers a floating mode like Swiftkey does? I'd love to switch.
You are posting in a privacy community confessing that you were long hooked on some keyboard for their shiny look and what not :-) What do you really want from a keyboard app besides privacy ?

Funky characters ? https://f-droid.org/en/packages/mf.asciitext.lite/

As simple as possible ? https://f-droid.org/en/packages/rkr.simplekeyboard.inputmethod/

Probably there is more privacy friendly ones in this long list : https://search.f-droid.org/?q=keyboard&lang=en

Have fun!
- Swyping, the core functionality? And maybe one-finger mode?
I love the Samsung keyboard. It has a delete key
- Samsung and Privacy don't mix. Not worth it IMO to use a closed source keyboard if you care about privacy.
  
  While I do agree and have stopped using the Samsung keyboard, it does have many unique features that I still miss almost daily.
  
  A few that come to mind:
  
  a special text editing mode (select all to the left, right; turn select mode on and then move around with arrowkeys while selecting, ...)
  
  visual resizing of the keyboard
  
  "2D" cursor control (move cursor diagonally)
  
  swipe spacebar left/right to change input method (while having spacebar cursor control enabled!)

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