I’m looking for a privacy-respecting open-source android keyboard, and so far I’ve found:
Does anyone have any experience with these (or other alternative keyboards)? Which one would you recommend?
fernandu00 ( @fernandu00@lemmy.ml ) 19•10 months agoI use openboard but it gets me mad sometimes when I start deleting characters and it removes the space between the last word…sometimes it’s really annoying!
SomeBoyo ( @SomeBoyo@feddit.de ) 8•10 months agoThat weirdly only happens on jerboa for me
Rin ( @Rinna@lemm.ee ) 4•10 months agoIs it while using Jeroba for Lemmy? I had that problem with that app so I switched to Sync for that reason.
fernandu00 ( @fernandu00@lemmy.ml ) 3•10 months agoNo way I didn’t see that! I thought it was while using the English keyboard since it doesn’t happen in message apps and the only place I use English keyboard is in Lemmy (jerboa) … I’ll switch to other app
Lemmchen ( @Lemmchen@feddit.de ) English3•10 months agoThat’s a Jerboa bug with any keyboard AFAICT. Insane how this hasn’t been fixed yet.
pimento64 ( @pimento64@sopuli.xyz ) 2•10 months agoThat’s due to a bug with the AOSP keyboard that google has been ignoring for like 6 years.
tty84 ( @tty84@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 15•10 months agoHere’s my lazy and unpopular solution
Umbrias ( @Umbrias@beehaw.org ) 5•10 months agoIll go ahead and snail mail my boss lol.
CAPSLOCKFTW ( @CAPSLOCKFTW@feddit.de ) 15•10 months agoI use FlorisBoard. It’s not perfect, but it has a fully featured clipboard and undo-redo functionality. Missing the swipe tho.
zerodawn ( @zerodawn@leaf.dance ) 3•10 months agoFlorisBoard has swipe
CAPSLOCKFTW ( @CAPSLOCKFTW@feddit.de ) 2•10 months agoOnly for english, which isn’t my main language.
zerodawn ( @zerodawn@leaf.dance ) 4•10 months agoAh, my apologies, i didn’t know it was only limited to english
nottheengineer ( @nottheengineer@feddit.de ) 1•10 months agoBut it’s quite bad, given their care for privacy there’s no way they can compete with google who has all the data.
I know a bit of machine learning and I’m pretty confident I could hack something together that’s better than what florisboard has right now, but I’d have no idea where to even start integrating it.
zerodawn ( @zerodawn@leaf.dance ) 4•10 months agoAgreed there isn’t any beating google, but everyone operates on different threat models. A bit of inconvenience for a bit of privacy may be worth it for some and not for others. From what little i used of it when i was trying it that yes it had much room for improvement but it was still useable. Once they get predictive text enabled i think the a swipe feature will really shine. But then again that’s just my humble opinion
nottheengineer ( @nottheengineer@feddit.de ) 2•10 months agoGoogle’s swipe typing is pretty damn good, but it isn’t magic. It gets a lot better after using it for a while so I’m sure they use reinforcement learning in addition to the dictionary.
They’ve had it for quite a while and it’s good, so I doubt they are putting much work into improving it. And since we have phones with TPUs and multimodal LLMs now, I think it’s possible to beat google.
The LLM would only need 3-10 words of context and the swipe data as input to generate a single word, so it can be very small. I don’t know much about the power of cellphone TPUs, but I think training an LLM with about 10M parameters on the fly should be possible. If that’s the case, we could beat google while doing everything locally on the phone, so no privacy compromises.
Now that I think about it, it sounds doable. But then again I never did anything like this so I’m probably underestimating it by an order of magnitude or two.
zerodawn ( @zerodawn@leaf.dance ) 3•10 months agoBeating google while being local would be the dream, wouldn’t it? What you say tracks but i’m like you, i’ve not done anything remotely like it so it’s very possible we’re underestimate indeed.
Coeus ( @Coeus@coeus.sbs ) 1•10 months agoI agree Florisboard is unusable as a daily driver
moonsnotreal ( @moonsnotreal@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 1•10 months agoI’ve been using florisboard for a while now, across multiple phones. It’s exactly what I need in a keyboard with no fluff.
DengueDucky ( @DengueDucky@lemmy.ml ) 11•10 months agoI use Gboard but with internet access disabled for it. I haven’t found a comparable open source keyboard yet.
wax ( @wax@lemmy.wtf ) 4•10 months agoSame. Tried openboard again two weeks ago, but had to switch back. The predictions were just too bad
library_napper ( @library_napper@monyet.cc ) 2•10 months agoAnyone know if it’s actually open source or if it has blobs?
DengueDucky ( @DengueDucky@lemmy.ml ) 4•10 months agoGboard isn’t open source, which is why I disable internet access for it.
1984 ( @1984@beehaw.org ) 2•10 months agoI can’t do that on my side, perhaps because it’s a system app on my Pixel phone? Or do I need to be rooted for that?
DengueDucky ( @DengueDucky@lemmy.ml ) 2•10 months agoIt isn’t a system app for my phone, so maybe. You could still use something like InviziblePro or RethinkDNS to disable its internet access without root though.
L3ft_F13ld! ( @Contort3860@links.hackliberty.org ) 8•10 months agoJust adding Simple Keyboard here as well. It has no features besides typing. It’s literally just a keyboard. Been using it for a bit and like it, but it won’t be for everyone.
TheBestAdmin ( @TheBestAdmin@social.pluto.lat ) 3•10 months ago+1. Took some time for me to adapt, but since then it’s been a good experience. Been using since 2022.
ashtrix ( @ashtrix@lemmy.ca ) 7•10 months agoI use an OpenBoard fork with gestures after giving up Gboard.
https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/releases/tag/v1.4.5-gesture-typing
strawberry ( @strawberry@artemis.camp ) 3•10 months agoholy shit this is perfect
And009 ( @And009@reddthat.com ) 3•10 months agoDoes it support ota updates by any chance?
Coeus ( @Coeus@coeus.sbs ) 3•10 months agoThis was a one off that hasn’t been updated in almost a year. I doubt it’s getting any more updates.
lea ( @lea@feddit.de ) 3•10 months agoMight want to look into Obtainium, automatic updates from any git repo.
And009 ( @And009@reddthat.com ) 1•10 months agoLooks good
Pantherina ( @Pantherina@feddit.de ) 6•10 months agoAll good but Florisboard has an internal clipboard with past entries. If you use its buttons (change in the settings, top row) and not the android ones, the system never gets your clipboard
moosetwin ( @moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English6•10 months agomy dumbass thought you were referring to a physical keyboard
Coeus ( @Coeus@coeus.sbs ) 3•10 months agoOpen source physical keyboards do exist though
hottari ( @hottari@lemmy.ml ) 5•10 months agoAny keyboard that doesn’t have an internet connection.
Metalero ( @metalero@feddit.de ) English1•10 months agoUnexpected Keyboard, or any other keyboard and use a firewall (Netguard, Invizible Pro) to block internet access.
7heo ( @7heo@lemmy.ml ) 5•10 months agoexpired
Samsy ( @Samsy@lemmy.ml ) 10•10 months ago 7heo ( @7heo@lemmy.ml ) 2•10 months agoexpired
Samsy ( @Samsy@lemmy.ml ) 2•10 months agoYes, that’s annoying. I stay away from Jerboa because of this error.
I use open board since forever and always hoped they get gesture… Why would I need to find it this way haha… Thanks
Samsy ( @Samsy@lemmy.ml ) 2•10 months agoBecause this fork uses a propetary library. That’s the only downer here. Florisboard and AnyKeyboard try to reinvent it OpenSource.
Thanks! Giving it a try, so far it’s my favorite.
mat ( @mat@linux.community ) English5•10 months agoAny keyboard with no internet permission should be “privacy-respecting”, as it can’t (as I understand it) send any data back to the developers. I’m personally a big fan of Unexpected Keyboard, though it’s definitely something to get used to.
Zacryon ( @Zacryon@feddit.de ) 5•10 months agoPrivacy respecting, but not open source:
Typewise
(Also a lot less typos and faster writing once you get used to it.)
nottheengineer ( @nottheengineer@feddit.de ) 4•10 months agoFlorisboard is my daily driver and I have unexpected keyboard so I can do proper VNC sessions from my phone.
strawberry ( @strawberry@artemis.camp ) 4•10 months agoI’m using openboard rn
strawberry ( @strawberry@artemis.camp ) 4•10 months ago@ashtrix shared a link for open board with gestures, this is what I use now
randint ( @randint@lemm.ee ) 3•10 months agoTry Thumb-Key. It’s a keyboard made by Lemmy’s main developer. It uses a rather exotic layout, but once you get used to it, it is so much better than qwerty.