What is the best privacy-respecting Android keyboard?
I have been using AnySoft, but its so buggy at this point, its effectively unusable. Judging by the github, its been in this state for at least a year now. I tried to downgrade to an older version in the hopes of fixing it, but couldn't get it to install. Is there any better options?
61 replies
Heliboard is what you seek.
+1 for Heliboard. Open source to boot. Available on F droid
FlorisBoard and FUTO both don't require network permission IIRC. I used to use FlorisBoard and then moved onto FUTO because it had swipe keyboard and better Korean and Japanese support.
I'll piggyback onto this comment and advocate for FUTO. I have it installed on my Pixel 7 running Graphene and also an old LG G7 ThinQ running LineageOS. Works like a charm, has every feature I could want, and it has support for every language I speak (English, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, haven't looked to see if it has Hindi support, however).
It's also one of the few that has decent swipe support.
I can vouch for FlorisBoard. I like that it is customizable but not overly complex like the Unexpected Keyboard.
The futo software does seem to work fine. But I removed it from all my devices over their shadiness of the group behind it.
FUTO Voice as well for local voice to text
futo keyboard has been great. bonus points for being able to swipe with two fingers simultaneously
I use futo, didn't know it had 2 finger swipe but now i try it, how do you type like this?
Im trying it now, do you use one thumb for each side of the keyboard?
yup, one thumb left and one right
Thats going to take some practice 😁
Maybe Fossify and HeliBoard?
I just started using Fossify Keyboard and it's great, but unless i'm mistaken, it does not have support for dictionnaries / word suggestions. While it's perfectly fine for me, i guess it can be a dealbreaker for a lot of people.
For me, Heliboard is the best option. FlorisBoard is cool too if you like their interface, but Heliboard is super customisable. You can change the symbols around, padding, colours, etc., and it supports plenty of languages and can work well with Whisper for TTS, and the auto complete suggestions is quite accurate in my experience. You can also change the toolbar to include copy paste, undo and redo, left/right, etc.
Heliboard also has glide typing, which requires the installation of a proprietary library, which I just tried out and it works really well! There's also a tab to "train" the glide typing so that the Heliboard team can help develop a fully FOSS library (basically, it gives you words and you glide type. It's like an opt-in quiz)
Seconding Heliboard. Been using that for about two years now and save for the autocorrect being noticeably worse than gboards there's nothing I'm missing.
Holy shit, thank you! Heliboard looks awesome
Unexpected Keyboard is my recommendation. Now that im used to it, everything else feels slow. You swipe the corner to get the alt/symbol/capital, so much faster than holding a keypress, even for 1 second. Very customizable.
+1 It also works with Futo Voice Input for quick access to local STT (I swipe up-left on Return key).
I love the Compose key! Just like
xkb! Capitals aren't swipable in the Czech layout but that's fine as long as diacritics are. The 1 (left-top ofq) is a bit hard to swipe to if you reduce the margins and sometimes causes me to discard the input because there'sEsc(right-top ofq).Edit: I just found it's easy to edit the layout so I'll just do that
FlorisBoard and HeliBoatd. Both available in F-Droid. Both are excellent. I lean toward HeliBoard but will switch between them occasionally.
I have been using heliboard, but I'm forced to use teams, so I have to keep switching back. The swipe gestures require much more precision than Gboard.
I use HeliBoard with Teams. What problem are you having?
I believe my org has restricted what keyboards I can use, if you check my other reply here.
FYI - You can add swiping libraries to Heliboard very easily.
I did add one and it's made things much better. What I'm saying is that it has much tighter tolerances. Also, I keep catching backspace when I begin words with m, and there is no immediate undo option after I erase half my typing.
It's mostly the fact that I'm swipe lazily, and Gboard does a lot of heavy lifting translating my languid gestures into coherent speech. Bonus points for the fact that it knows I misspelled something and put the correct spelling in there. This means that I could do better if I paid more attention to what I was doing.
The real hurt IMO is being forced back into Gboard from teams.
I'm not sure I follow you regarding Teams: Heliboard works fine in mine? I have Gboard completely disabled on my phone and it doesn't even show up as an option in my Teams client on Android 16. What's happening on your phone? It just doesn't allow you to select it as an input when you're using Teams?
Here is what I am seeing. I can select Samsung keyboard and gboard, but it appears that Heliboard is not on an approved list.
I'm not in an influential position in my company, but I was directed to someone to discuss it. My guess is that there may have been a compromise using a keyboard app in the past and this is their mitigation.
Oooh, ok, that looks like a policy setting your employer has. Looks like you might have to get them to make an exception. It works fine on my Pixel 8 and where I work but they may not have the inputs locked down.
There might be another way around it if they refuse to allow Heliboard, but if it's a company issued device, it's not worth getting in trouble over.
Well, it's my phone, so I feel I ought to be using whatever keyboards I want. My guess is my org isn't differentiating between company assets and employee property.
I use HeliBoard. It's fine, but I don't have any special use-cases/needs; I just wanted a normal keyboard, which HeliBoard is fine at. If you have anything specific you need, I'm not sure if HB does it.
I use one called Urik Keyboard. Words turn red when you misspell something, its an interesting keyboard, still getting used to it.
thumb-key by one of the creators of Lemmy. It's also very lightweight and snappy.
It took me a few days to learn though. Now it has become my 2nd nature. I type fast and effortlessly with it. I don't even look at the keyboard anymore while typing.
Flickboard is also worth checking out if you like this style of typing. It's on F-Droid.
The dev compares them like this in the README:
I have used Flickboard too and I like both of them.
Flickboard is more advanced and supports a lot more customization. For example, it has macros which expand to symbols and text. You can create shortcuts for your email, math and currency symbols etc.
IME thumb-key is minimal, updated more frequently, and looks better out of the box. So I prefer it.
Oh, thank fuck, a Message Ease-style KB without a subscription and a persistent nag screen even after you buy it. Thanks!!!
I used thumbkey for a couple months. I could use it, but it was never fast. YMMV
By fast I mean by touchscreen keyboard standards about 20-30 wpm.
I liked heliboard. It doesn't require network access, has gesture typing that works well, though you have to manually add the library, lots of configuration, and some stuff I use all the time like slide on delete to choose how much to delete and slide on space to move cursor.
Basically it is both private and a pleasure to use (after configuring)
I tried a bunch to replace what wa the default which is something google stuff I guess and they all behaved very weird or didn't feel right. After configuring a bit I finally made HeliBoard work well enough. I like it.
There's just a really fucking weird thing that is making me maybe look for something else: when there's a typo in an input and pressing on the red squiggle if opens an horrible popup which I have no idea how to turn off and I tried everything.
Not really sure if it makes internet calls, but really hope not.
For looks, customized it enough to look basically the same I had before.
I hate that fucking pop up, there's no way to turn it off! Just let me use the suggestion bar for corrections. Everything else I love about this keyboard but honestly that bit is making me want to go back to gboard.
I have been too accustomed to gboard so I just keep using it but have literally disabled all the permissions for it. It gets no internet access or anything.
It's really horrible. Everytime it appears I go wtf. It's not even consistent on exactly when it appears. Really wish to turn it off. Sometimes I just jump to the old keyboard because of that specific issue.
I like futo but there's heaps of options
AOSP keyboard. No fluff, clean, just works.
Question, how much is being stolen using stock Samsung or google keyboards?
I also use heliboard.
What do you think?
"All of it" would be my presumption
Oh I'm sure, I'd just like proof.
I use the fossify one, its everything I need. No permissions and can show clipboard and delete with ease. Only thing I hate is that the standard keyboard remains an option and loads in with a mis touch nut thatnisnt the apps fault.
Right now I'm fucking with OpenBoard, it's alright. I'm watching Florisboard for the day they finally implement glide typing again
Do any of these keyboards people are suggesting have the voice to text button available? I use the voice to text about 90% of the time when I'm typing anything because it hurts my hands to use the keyboard. That's why I can't really use duck duck go because they don't have a voice to text option
Maybe I've overlooked it, but I haven't seen https://f-droid.org/packages/juloo.keyboard2 mentioned so far.
Thumb key is the best for me. Its awesome once u learn the basics. Give it a try!
I use flickboard. After a few months I've decided I'm always going to be slower with it, but I make far fewer idiot mistakes. I pair it with Whisper+ for voice to text. I'm not completely satisfied with this setup, but good enough. For now.
it's the kind of thing i would enjoy, but i just fundamentally do not understand how it's supposed to be better.
The way it works just feels literally painful and absolutely isn't faster or easier than just pressing buttons.
Because it has bigger buttons and swipe actions, you can type very fast without looking at the keyboard.
Thumb-key is good enough that it's keeping me from switching to Sailfish 😝
Cant blame ya, its awesome!
Keychron k6, and a separate phone stand. That is a full size (60%) mechanical keyboard connected with bluetooth. I have and use others (see the other replies) when I need max portability and a quick comment. However a real keyboard beats anything you can do on a touchscreen. I recommend you get one.