OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#61

Post by stiray » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

older wrote: post #4

Is it better than Hacker's Keyboard? https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard

For me hackers keyboard is still far best keyboard found, the only thing that annoys me is that it has no smileys button, for everything else it fits great.

I use ssh a lot and all the suggestions and other bells and whistles of other keyboards are more annoyance than anything else, but i need access to all the keys that normal keyboard has.

And '/', tab and enter must be accessible all the time this is absolutely primary requirement for me to use any keyboard.

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#62

Post by wizzwizz4 » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

aargh_aargh wrote: post #33

darkwater wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I hate ads and I think one should be able to ban them forever on their devices, Android could just add an "Internet access" permission that only counts for Internet access required outside the Ads API, so they would keep their ads and users could be a bit safer on the "this app is snooping my data" side.

I agree that it would be nice to separate the privileges if it were possible. I suspect that allowing internet access even in the form of ads opens the possibility for data exfiltration in principle. But I'm not familiar with the Android case at all.

It allows for expensive, obvious data exfiltration. (Expensive in the sense that somebody else could take the data, unless you're the highest bidder for those categories – assuming Google Ads still shows ads with a bid of 0, which I'm not confident in.)

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#63

Post by Kelamir » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

ktm5j wrote: post #60

Holy crow, the feature where you can move the cursor by swiping back and forth on the spacebar is AMAZING. Seriously, I have always struggled with moving the cursor in text on either android or ios. This is great!

Not only that. You can also erase text by swiping left starting from the delete button.

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#64

Post by Kelamir » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

tumblewit wrote: post #28

As 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…

> and should be as easy as flip of a switch in settings from not allowing it but it's a lot more complicated than that on Android.

One can just check the permissions of a keyboard to see if it includes internet access. If it does, don't use it.

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#65

Post by whalesalad » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

ktm5j wrote: post #60

Holy crow, the feature where you can move the cursor by swiping back and forth on the spacebar is AMAZING. Seriously, I have always struggled with moving the cursor in text on either android or ios. This is great!

On iOS hold down the space bar and it becomes a mouse cursor.

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#66

Post by akvadrako » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

ktm5j wrote: post #60

Holy crow, the feature where you can move the cursor by swiping back and forth on the spacebar is AMAZING. Seriously, I have always struggled with moving the cursor in text on either android or ios. This is great!

Yes, it's amazing. And this also works on the default Android/iOS keyboards too.

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#67

Post by kelchqvjpnfasjl » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #27

est31 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is "internet access" permission just granted for any app by default without asking the user? IIRC it was changed because people complained that a lot of apps required that permission despite the functionality not needing it. E.g. calculator app or whatever. Turns out that you need this permission if you want to display ads. So Google just sided with the advertisers and removed the permission from the display. Gener…

Even if I hate ads and I think one should be able to ban them forever on their devices, Android could just add an "Internet access" permission that only counts for Internet access required outside the Ads API, so they would keep their ads and users could be a bit safer on the "this app is snooping my data" side.

> outside the Ads API

Presumably these Ad APIs would be for access to Google Ads. That would seem like an anti-trust issue.

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#68

Post by helmholtz » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

CarVac wrote: post #59

I use MessagEase, which has a wacky layout that makes typos much less frequent, and thus doesn't need autocorrect. Not open-source, unfortunately.

Oof. Just looked it up and it immediately gets my fancy. How was the learning curve? And any downsides that you now have?

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#69

Post by ktm5j » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #66

ktm5j wrote: post #60

Holy crow, the feature where you can move the cursor by swiping back and forth on the spacebar is AMAZING. Seriously, I have always struggled with moving the cursor in text on either android or ios. This is great!

Yes, it's amazing. And this also works on the default Android/iOS keyboards too.

oh.. really? Now I feel silly haha

Re: OpenBoard – FOSS Keyboard for Android which respects your privacy

#70

Post by troyvit » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

smichel17 wrote: post #47

I 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.

I haven't seen Multiling O Keyboard (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kl.ime.oh) mentioned yet. It's not nearly as accurate as Gboard out of the box but once you get used to it and train it well it's not bad. It is insanely configurable.