Hi friends. My quest to remove Google products from my life continues.
I’ve always been very fearful of swapping keyboard apps. I can think of no better way to track someone than to bug their keyboard. How can I trust any keyboard software, really? My wishlist:
Something that addresses my privacy concerns
Supports both english and portuguese dictionaries at the same time
Has a dark theme
Is available on some sort of store, so I don’t have to download APKs for every single update
Been using Florisboard for a few months and really liked it. Just a couple of days ago I discovered “Unexpected Keyboard” and I’m giving it shot. Very different.
I’ve been using Fleksy for years but there are some apps that don’t work well with it. Notably, Connect for Lemmy. Backward swiping for deletes only does one word at a time and up/down swiping for managing autocorrect doesn’t work either.
There are a few other apps with their own quirks as well. 90% of the time it’s great though.
Same, have tried openboard as well and this won out. Does some things better than other keyboards but still behind others, only thing I’m missing is cursor swiping along the spacebar but not a deal breaker.
I use Thumb-Key, which is available both in the Play Store and F-Droid. The layout is pretty unusual but I really like it, and the main developer (one of Lemmy’s creators) really cares about privacy.
The only one I see in the Play Store costs $20 and has no reviews and no description on how it works. Looks like someone stole the open source version and stuck it on the Play Store.
OpenBoard is a free and open source keyboard for Android.
If you want more Google-free software, research for alternatives on F-droid. An alternative app store for Android that specializes on FLOS software. OpenBoard is available on F-droid. An experimental fork with swipe typing is also available.
The swipe typing on the fork works very well. I would advise people to no be turned off by the “experimental” tag, as I have used this fork for a year with no issues at all.
I really like Florisboard, but the largest difference between that and Openboard is that Florisboard doesn’t have spellcheck. I leave my keyboard in permanent Spanish, which I use for English as well as there is only one letter difference between the alphabets
I use Typewise. It’s not open source but there is a offline version. Both of your needed languages are available. Unfortunately the price is very high. But the honeycomb layout is pretty good, once you are used to it.
Tried it, think it’s a great idea. I used for a week in a half but didn’t to commit to buying it for the double dictionary. I just couldn’t get used to it and it’s particularly bad with accents.
download F-droid appstore, all apps on there are open source which by nature reduces privacy concerns and if they do have features which impact privacy there will be a warning about what it does.
search through a few of the keyboard apps and find one that catches your eye, preferably one still occasionally updated within past year
I found one I liked and trust but don’t have my phone with me, think it was called ‘simple keyboard’ or something. Happy hunting!
Actually, reading through some of the other comments, someone mentioned an OpenBoard fork with swipe functionality and it’s actually working very well! Typing is responsive, prediction gets most of my words on the first go, and the backspace deletes the word instead of single letters (which is a preference I like).
First off, you have nothing at all to fear when changing keyboards, they are all switchable easily through the notification dropdown.
For something wildly different, I’d recommend Thumb-Key, it takes a while to get used to it but I’ve gotten faster and more accurate with it than with a normal keyboard.
Otherwise Openboard is really good, and there’s a fork of it too if you like swipe typing.
Holy crap do I feel left out. I’ve been using SwiftKey since before M$ purchased it and since then it has gotten better (except that stupid Bing hub AI BS). I think I’ve been using SwiftKey for like 9 years now.
Bing AI rocks! It’s so cool how it works with SwiftKey to make typing easier and faster. I love how it can suggest words, emojis, and even GIFs based on what I’m writing. It also helps me with spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Bing AI is like a smart friend who always knows what to say.
Neither did I. Pretty sure I never really looked after I got my note 8 when it came out. Only got a new phone a week or two ago. No idea when it came out.
Same here. I use it on all my devices and I am so used to it, that I can’t use another keyboard. Also, for me autocorrect on SwiftKey is way better than on gboard.
Also same. Sometimes it decides typos are things that I want in my custom dictionary and will start replacing real words with gibberish, and then I have the same dilemma as OP, trying out a ton of different keyboards before eventually reverting to a clean install of SwiftKey.
Weird typo corrections and MS ownership aside, I really like how SwiftKey works and struggle to use anything else.
Talking about autocorrect weirdnesses, my keyboard (SwiftKey) seems to have a strange fascination with apostrophe s. Whenever I type a plural version of a word which is ending in s, it will autocorrect to apostrophe s!
Lots of mentions of OpenBoard here. There is a fork that is under development now, and I am writing this with it now. It is not on F-Droid yet.
FlorisBoard and AnySoft are good, but each has enough annoyances that I come back to OpenBoard, which has its own annoyances, but for me are a bit less annoying.
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Been using Florisboard for a few months and really liked it. Just a couple of days ago I discovered “Unexpected Keyboard” and I’m giving it shot. Very different.
Since using Fleksy I literally cannot use any other keyboard
I’ve been using Fleksy for years but there are some apps that don’t work well with it. Notably, Connect for Lemmy. Backward swiping for deletes only does one word at a time and up/down swiping for managing autocorrect doesn’t work either.
There are a few other apps with their own quirks as well. 90% of the time it’s great though.
I use AnySoftKeyboard. It’s open source and has gesture typing as well as a lot of UIs. It has a lot of languages.
Same, have tried openboard as well and this won out. Does some things better than other keyboards but still behind others, only thing I’m missing is cursor swiping along the spacebar but not a deal breaker.
This is a treat to see is gesture touring on that keyboard actually works. In not correcting and errors that it makes.
Hmm, seems kinda mid.
@pathief Openboard is awesome ❣️ Also just resize the keyboard around 106% and it will be more comfortable😺
I use Thumb-Key, which is available both in the Play Store and F-Droid. The layout is pretty unusual but I really like it, and the main developer (one of Lemmy’s creators) really cares about privacy.
The only one I see in the Play Store costs $20 and has no reviews and no description on how it works. Looks like someone stole the open source version and stuck it on the Play Store.
Oddly, it links to the git hub.
I’ve been trying out Thumb-Key for a few minutes, and wow, that would take a while to get used to.
This comment was written with Thumb-Key in just 3 minutes!
Haha yeah, it did take 2-3 days for me to get up to speed with it, it does not work like a typical keyboard at all.
OpenBoard is a free and open source keyboard for Android.
If you want more Google-free software, research for alternatives on F-droid. An alternative app store for Android that specializes on FLOS software. OpenBoard is available on F-droid. An experimental fork with swipe typing is also available.
The swipe typing on the fork works very well. I would advise people to no be turned off by the “experimental” tag, as I have used this fork for a year with no issues at all.
I am trying it now. So far so good. Def better than I remember it. Will see after it learns some more
I really like Florisboard, but the largest difference between that and Openboard is that Florisboard doesn’t have spellcheck. I leave my keyboard in permanent Spanish, which I use for English as well as there is only one letter difference between the alphabets
well you could block access to internet for gboard
I use Typewise. It’s not open source but there is a offline version. Both of your needed languages are available. Unfortunately the price is very high. But the honeycomb layout is pretty good, once you are used to it.
Tried it, think it’s a great idea. I used for a week in a half but didn’t to commit to buying it for the double dictionary. I just couldn’t get used to it and it’s particularly bad with accents.
Actually, reading through some of the other comments, someone mentioned an OpenBoard fork with swipe functionality and it’s actually working very well! Typing is responsive, prediction gets most of my words on the first go, and the backspace deletes the word instead of single letters (which is a preference I like).
I use anysoft keyboard its pretty good
deleted by creator
I assume this is what you’re talking about? It appears the “Multi-locale typing” functionality is still not available :/ Play store link seems dead.
First off, you have nothing at all to fear when changing keyboards, they are all switchable easily through the notification dropdown.
For something wildly different, I’d recommend Thumb-Key, it takes a while to get used to it but I’ve gotten faster and more accurate with it than with a normal keyboard.
Otherwise Openboard is really good, and there’s a fork of it too if you like swipe typing.
I enjoy that it can only be described as “wildly different” lol
Holy crap do I feel left out. I’ve been using SwiftKey since before M$ purchased it and since then it has gotten better (except that stupid Bing hub AI BS). I think I’ve been using SwiftKey for like 9 years now.
Bing AI rocks! It’s so cool how it works with SwiftKey to make typing easier and faster. I love how it can suggest words, emojis, and even GIFs based on what I’m writing. It also helps me with spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Bing AI is like a smart friend who always knows what to say.
Sounds like Bing AI wrote this 😂
It did, I wanted to see if anyone would catch on 😄
Lol good one
Swift key is honestly the best one I have used. Plus now I found the adaptive theme
I didn’t even know it had an adaptive theme! Now I gotta look for it and give it a try.
Neither did I. Pretty sure I never really looked after I got my note 8 when it came out. Only got a new phone a week or two ago. No idea when it came out.
Honestly I’m surprised SwiftKey still uses those super basic themes. Looking at the adaptive theme it reminds me of the stock theme
I never really looked for anything crazy. Basic material was fine for me
I just imagine a world where the material folks and the over the top theme folks can coexist on the same keyboard app lol.
Love SwiftKey. this is the way.
Same here. I use it on all my devices and I am so used to it, that I can’t use another keyboard. Also, for me autocorrect on SwiftKey is way better than on gboard.
Also same. Sometimes it decides typos are things that I want in my custom dictionary and will start replacing real words with gibberish, and then I have the same dilemma as OP, trying out a ton of different keyboards before eventually reverting to a clean install of SwiftKey.
Weird typo corrections and MS ownership aside, I really like how SwiftKey works and struggle to use anything else.
You can just long press on the gibberish and it won’t suggest it again.
Talking about autocorrect weirdnesses, my keyboard (SwiftKey) seems to have a strange fascination with apostrophe s. Whenever I type a plural version of a word which is ending in s, it will autocorrect to apostrophe s!
Lots of mentions of OpenBoard here. There is a fork that is under development now, and I am writing this with it now. It is not on F-Droid yet.
FlorisBoard and AnySoft are good, but each has enough annoyances that I come back to OpenBoard, which has its own annoyances, but for me are a bit less annoying.
I’m getting frustrated with OpenBoard