I am using Florisboard which is not up-to-date as the last update was on 17/6/2023 but the beta version is getting updates, Anyway I am searching for an alternative with some features like words prediction and supporting languages like arabic and ofcourse supporting emojies, The miserable thing is this keyboard iam using is consuming 1.5 GB of the storage and lacks spell check and words prediction!, Any good foss offline alternative?
Great but how do you trust him?
Gboard and disable network access.
Itās open source and doesnāt require any permissions to function.
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Not thrilled about it, but I use Samsungās keyboard with network access disabled. It has the best UI/UX of any keyboard Iāve tried, so I canāt justify switching to anything else with such a big drop in usability for me.
I tried Helium314ās fork but the swipe typing didnāt work.
Been using another openboard fork from Erkserkserks. Hasnāt been updated in a while but does have the swipe.
I would still not trust Gboard , as on a normal android i feel that all google apps could still feed āanalyticsā data to the play services via some intent. So i would be very cautious about this decision and wonāt like to be in a false sense of privacy of your data.
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Yeah, this keyboard (openboard by Helium314) is quite good and very actively developed. Can only recommend.
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Hopefully not. Iām using GrapheneOS, so there is a bit of trust bias most likely.
Iāll look into others suggested in this thread.
I use Gboard. Tried the popular privavy-respecting alternatives, but nothing comes close, if you do a lot of multi-language communication and you need to switch a lot between them. Also the auto-correction of the alternatives was terrible and most needed to manually switch between languages which is a big no in my case. Gboard is reasonably private if you adjust settings, so I donāt see a compelling reason to use a inferior solution.
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I also used to use FlorisBoard but it was not up to date much and I didnāt want to many apps. I just use Samsung Keyboard which obviously isnāt private but I disable internet access using split tunneling. I might downlaod another one because I miss the feature FlorisBoard had to clear clipboard history
I switched back to AOSP keyboard on GrapheneOS. I had issues with the keyboard often crashing on GOS 14 but those seems to have been solved. Used OpenBoard fork in the meantime.
Beside Florisboard, Iam using Samsung board too and they have some cool features including clearing Clipboard, But i think i will check Openboardās fork as it looks promising.
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I am currently using SwiftKey keyboard. I have disabled itās internet connectivity using rethink. But occasionally, during phone restart or when I have stop restart rethink, it connects to internet.
I wanted to know : 1. Between SwiftKey and Board which is better from privacy pov
2. Most of famous open source keyboards (Florisboard, Open Keyboard, et) arenāt updated since last 2 years on fdroid, so are there any other good open source keyboard that someone can recommend.
My threat model is basic. I just want to avoid sharing my data with large corporation.
TIA.
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I really like HeliBoard, an OpenBoard fork, which has replaced GBoard for me because it works as well and has multilanguage support. It is also updated regularly, is open-source, and works completely offline.
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Keyboards are keyboards. I mean I am good if they claim they are feature complete and on maintenance mode for any privacy/security issues. If no one posted issues regarding this (I havenāt checked though). I would still consider them be considered āup to dateā
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Yes, I use it too. Itās really good. You can also add swipe typing if you are are willing to load the required proprietary Google library for it. (Note that Heliboard is 100% offline, so this is not a privacy issue, just a software freedom issue.)
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How did I miss this? Iāve been looking for a decent alternative since the end of OpenBoard. Iāve been a fan of the simplicity. Iām installing HeliBoard as we speak. Thanks!!
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there is now an apk variant given which disallows user installed libraries. though it will still load that library from the system if swypelibs, which i think is in google play services or google apps is installed
Where is the best place to get Heliboard? Iāve noticed itās not on F-Droid, but itās on IzzyOnDroid, which Iāve not used before.
Also, will it get automatic updates?