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!

Edit, for any future lemmings/internet people who want the definitive answer (so far, as of October '23), OpenBoard works great.

Download the latest release apk from here

And if you want swipe typing as well,

Download the “libjni_latinimegoogle.so” file onto your phone from here

Then when you open OpenBoard, go to Advanced and select “Load gesture typing library”. When it asks you to select a file, select the “libjni” file and swiping should work just fine.

      • bledley@lemmy.world
        6·
        1 year ago

        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.

          • Chais@sh.itjust.works
            3·
            1 year ago

            I’d love to love Florisboard, but it doesn’t make it easy. Swiping feels great, but it’s dearly missing autocorrect/suggestions and the word recognition is so bad that typing is faster at least 80% of the time, which defeats the purpose.
            I hope it gets better in the future.

    • Ashen@sh.itjust.worksOP
      3·
      1 year ago

      So one of the suggestions was to use Invizible Pro to block it’s access. Do you use the same method?

    • aubertlone@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • bledley@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        can’t access the GIFs panel without internet access…just standard emoji…I don’t use those anyway so can deal with that.

    • Too Lazy Didn't Name@lemmy.woodward.techEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      Ive been using this keyboard for around a year now, and compared to Swiftkey and gboard, I absolutely hate anysoftkeyboard with a passion. However, its the best FOSS alternative I’ve come across.

      Also, my dogs name is Bowie, so whenever I type his name, the keyboard just starts spitting out David Bowie lyrics across the bottom of the keyboard, so thats kinda cool I guess.

    • OminousOrange
      3·
      1 year ago

      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.

          • Ashen@sh.itjust.worksOP
            2·
            1 year ago

            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.

            • OminousOrange
              2·
              1 year ago

              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!

            • OminousOrange
              2·
              1 year ago

              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.

  • Dillacorn@lemmy.ml
    16·
    1 year ago

    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

  • marionberrycore@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    12·
    1 year ago

    I’m in kind of the same boat as you op, I’ve been using Swiftkey for 5+ years but have been wanting an altnernative that isn’t associated with the big tech companies for a while. After seeing this post earlier today I decided to give AnySoftKeyboard a shot.

    I got it all configured the way I wanted but now I’m actually using it I don’t think it’s gonna work for me tbh. I’ll give it a few days before making a decision though. I wish there more options out there.

    On the plus side, I came across this and it made my day:

    • Ashen@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Hahah, that’s hilarious! I tried ASK as well but gave up after 10-15 minutes of using it.

      One of the comments has a link to a fork of OpenBoard that includes swipe (version 1.4.5 or something), and it works really well. The auto correct isn’t as great as Swiftkey (I’m hoping it gets better with time), but the swiping is absolutely solid.

      Been using this for about a day now and I don’t see myself going back to Swiftkey. Typed this comment with it, hahah.

  • Illecors@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    Floriaboard deserves a shoutout. As a multilingual, I value the mixing languages without switching them. Takes some time to adjusr and no autocorrect for now, but it’s getting there.

    • angrymouse@lemmy.worldPortuguês
      2·
      1 year ago

      Dude, thanks to recommend this, as a multilingual I’m tired of the default keyboard of E/os that doesn’t have this feature.

  • Anbalsilfer@lemmy.mlEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Rouxibeau@lemmy.world
      31·
      1 year ago

      Ok, I am typing this with that keyboard now, and can see how this could be rather neat once one learns all thkey locations.

      • Anbalsilfer@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • bahmanm@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          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.

            • bahmanm@lemmy.ml
              3·
              1 year ago

              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.

              • Anbalsilfer@lemmy.mlEnglish
                3·
                1 year ago

                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.

      • Anbalsilfer@lemmy.ml
        2·
        1 year ago

        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.

          • Anbalsilfer@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            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.

            • aurele@sh.itjust.works
              2·
              1 year ago

              I’ve sent them a main as well this morning. The dictionaries apk are also only available using http.

              • Anbalsilfer@lemmy.mlEnglish
                2·
                1 year ago

                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.

  • jacktherippah@lemdro.idEnglish
    81·
    1 year ago

    GBoard is the one Google app I put in my owner profile. I’ve tried every recommendation I’ve seen and nothing else comes close to how good Gboard is.

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
      31·
      1 year ago

      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

    • Ashen@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Check out the comment which includes the fork of OpenBoard with swipe. I’m using it right now and it’s fantastic!

  • Gnorv@feddit.de
    5·
    1 year ago

    Look at the AnySoft keyboard, available from F-Droid.

    It has emojis like the one you mentioned inbuilt.

  • M_Djallo@feddit.it
    61·
    1 year ago

    Different apporach: use the keyboard you like and block its internet access using invizible pro/netguard/afwall.

    I had the same problem, after using openboard for a long time, and now I’m doing this, using gboard and blocking it with invizible pro.