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!
FlorisBoard with Material You dynamic themes version
i like florisboard: language switching, clipvoard actions, undo/redo, customization, …
FlorisBoard is feature rich.
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
Agreed, it’s a fantastic alternative.
For anyone who wants it: https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard
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.
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.
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.
I’m also using it in blind mode save for the symbols. I really like it so far.
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.
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!
