I've never had the notion or urge to try a different keyboard than what came with the various Android phones I've had over the years. It looks like there are some possible privacy benefits to it, but why else should I switch? What advantage do other keyboards give or what is wrong with the default ones?
OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
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Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#42Fun fact, one of my banking app prevents me from launching it if I do not use a "certified" keyboard app. I had bad luck with any keyboard from F-Droid.
And for good reason. It's the operating system that should offer a 'certified secure' keyboard if the app requests it though. A bit like Windows' account password entry screen that is sandboxed from the rest of the OS (if I understood it correctly).
In this case, the app has its own keypad when logging in so I'm not sure what the added value is security-wise.
I'm just not able to launch the app while an F-Droid keyboard is set as default which is just annoying. There's many keyboards on the Play Store that I wouldn't trust to install and use.
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#43I use AnysoftKeyboard (on F-Droid) [1]. I's pretty good, but has issues with the French apostrophe, that's often used to combine words. It also has multiple keyboard layouts, of which "terminal" compares favorably to hacker's keyboard. I like that it is configurable, and has a lot of text editing tools when swiping space up. I admit I lost some typing speed when I switched from the alternatives, but I'm happier with…
I second the AnySoftKeyboard. It is nice alternative, however I miss the mode that resembles BlackBerry 10 keyboard, especially in case of autocompletion suggestions that popped over specific letter and I had to swipe it up [0] in order to complete the word. It was many times more pleasant to use than the "selection bar".
[0]: https://helpblog.blackberry.com/en/2013/02/blackberry-10-key...
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#44I use AnysoftKeyboard (on F-Droid) [1]. I's pretty good, but has issues with the French apostrophe, that's often used to combine words. It also has multiple keyboard layouts, of which "terminal" compares favorably to hacker's keyboard. I like that it is configurable, and has a lot of text editing tools when swiping space up. I admit I lost some typing speed when I switched from the alternatives, but I'm happier with…
I don't see any reason why someone would use OpenBoard over AnySoftKeyboard. It would of been nice if there was an explanation of what differentiated it. If someone just wanted a different looking keyboard they could just have created a new theme for AnySoftKeyboard. AnySoftKeyboard also is the only open source keyboard for Android that has gesture typing. Which is something I grew to love from when I used Gboard.
Swyping didn't work reliably when I tried one year ago, so I switched back to one of the keyboards of my phone (SwiftKey because I find it slightly better than Samsung's one.) Did they improve it in the last releases?
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#45Sadly these come and go so frequently that unless you're into constantly tinkering, it can be exhausting to keep up with which keyboard is or is not in active development and receiving updates. OpenBoard seems to be suffering the same https://github.com/dslul/openboard/issues/250
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#46I've never had the notion or urge to try a different keyboard than what came with the various Android phones I've had over the years. It looks like there are some possible privacy benefits to it, but why else should I switch? What advantage do other keyboards give or what is wrong with the default ones?
I don't know about open source privacy centric keyboards, but I bought Minuum many years ago and its awesome. It gives me way more screen real estate (particularly useful if I'm commenting and referencing previous messages). I'm really concerned about it stopping working one day.
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#47I use an old version of the Swype keyboard, that came pre-installed on my Galaxy S6. Unfortunately, I've become so used to swipe and gesture support (particularly "Ctrl"-{a,x,c,v}) that I'm waiting on a FLO keyboard that can do those things to switch.
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#48As a very long term iOS user, when I saw this headline my first reaction was why is keyboard privacy even a thing i've never even bothered changing the keyboard of iOS and would certainly be prompted for any suspicious activity like mic or camera and would instantly reject it if i ever installed one. But this is very complicated on Android. I once maintained an Android phone for my Dad and the permissions prompt on t…
I don't know if this post was supposed to be funny, but it certainly made me laugh.
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#49Well, it seems not to have a Swype functionality. Actually, on small Touchscreens without feedback this is quite essential.
We really need an full open source keyboard with some kind of Swype. Sadly I don't know any.
Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, a keyboard app just should not allowed to have a network connection, but yeah, a thing to dream in 2021.
As an Android user, not developer, I wanted to ask how are permissions on Android these days. Is "internet access" permission just granted for any app by default without asking the user? There were initiatives (probably 3rd party) for more granular permissions, but I haven't noticed this becoming common. I vaguely remember that Android started asking for some individual permissions not upon installation, but only whe…
Certain permissions (internet is one example) are granted when the app is installed, other permissions (e.g. access to photos) require the user to give access through a dialog prompt (and from Android 10(?) the user will be asked again every so often, rather than just once).
All permissions an app can use are listed in the manifest file, and are displayed on Google Play.