I came across everyday topic on Techlore Discussions about free and open source keyboards for Android and discovered this little gem. It is FlorisBoard, a virtual keyboard for Android which respects privacy of the user. I can sigh with relief and finish my search for that singular keyboard for typing stuff on the go.
It has everything I need and more.
- Multilanguage support: detailed layout options, popular presets
- Swift and glide typing experience
- Customizable gestures: switch language by fast swiping the keyboard itself left and right, change case by swiping up, the infamous cursor swipe on space bar
- Emojis
- Clipboard
- Smartbar: quick actions and clipboard cursor tools
- One-handed mode
- Other look-and-feel settings
Genuine question: is there any way for any keyboard application to be privacy disrespecting if their internet access is blocked off by a firewall?
I’m going to take a guess and say that it might be possible for it to still be, for example GBoard may share info with the other Google apps who then share it with the world.
Otherwise, if it’s completely blocked from the outside world? Definitely not.
Do you know if there is any way to check and potentially also block inter-app communications like that?
I’m sure there’s some way to monitor that using ADB or another tool, but at that point you’re wasting so so much time that you should just get an open source trusted app.
This is the open source community, not the privacy community. Privacy isn’t the only reason to prefer free software. Some of us enjoy having the four freedoms.
I am not sure what you intention was with your reply, so maybe I am misreading it.
“… that respects your privacy” is most of the post title. I was simply asking whether a keyboard application could be privacy disrespecting, if it doesn’t have network access. It was genuine question that I want to learn the answer to, and I was hoping that somebody might be able to provide a sensible answer.
Strictly speaking if you can control what the proprietary application has access to and what data leaves it, you can make it respect your privacy. This doesn’t make the proprietary application equivalent to true Free Software, which respects your freedom to use, share, modify, and share modified copies, but it does reduce the harm that the proprietary application can do to you.
You could say that the privacy community is about restricting what bad actors do, whereas the free software community is about good actors making tools that serve their users. The two concerns are confused so often, I see people come into free software communities suggesting that a firewall is a substitute to software freedom. Maybe that’s why I came off as a little harsh there. If you want to learn more I would suggest reading the philosophy of the GNU project.
The reason why people say free software is privacy respecting is because it usually doesn’t do all those harmful things that you need a firewall to block. If it did, the community can create a version that does not.
Oh, this was no attempt to say “Just use proprietary software and block it”. I use a (different) FOSS keyboard myself, and as far as I am able to, I try to only use FOSS. I’m all for it.
It was just a question that emerged from the combination of “Android keyboard” + “privacy”. Keyboard are potentially very sensitive applications, and I was wondering if there were some mechanisms I did not know about that could breach privacy.
Why are the versions of FlorisBoard and OpenBoard, available on F-Droid so old? I really don’t like to download important apps from a github release page and keep everything updated manually…
F-Droid has the most up-to-date versions (v0.3.16 and v1.4.5). Both of these just haven’t seen a release in a while, although the FlorisBoard developer seems to have recently returned.
Check out Obtainium
They haven’t been updated in a while. Luckily there is a fork of openboard that is being updated and works quite well: https://github.com/Helium314/openboard You can easily install and update it with Obtainium.
It was abandoned for almost a year, glad to see commits picking up again. Though the latest beta/stable releases are still incredibly outdated and broken, so not really in a usable state with the incomplete auto correct.
Swipe typing is not great. I come back to it every few months to try it again and always end up frustrated. It’s good if you are a tap typer, though.
This is my problem with every keyboard (FOSS or otherwise) since Swype finished. Gboard is the best of the bunch now but I’m loath to use it. I have tried Floris and Open (a fork of it which has swiping) and others, and they are all painful on this front.
What you guys call “swipe typing” is actually a glide typing, right?
Swipe typing is brutal
It needs to be so precise!
Is there any way to tap on a word after typing a message (while proofreading before sending) and get alternate suggestions?
The absence of this is why I left FlorisBoard.
Doesn’t appear so in the version i just grabbed from fdroid.
I always loved swipe typing so much, its the one non foss thing i miss so much. Currently typing off of florisboard, but until we have word recommendations (next big release i think, tho probably a long ways away still) and even a little better swipe typing I cant say a gboard foss alternate is good enough.
Funnily enough i loved keypass 2 androids built in keyboard and would use that if the ui was better, plus swipe typing again. Atleast florisboard can understand most longer words.
But having tried every foss keyboard I can comfortably say, i like floris board the most.
Have you tried AnySoftKeyboard? It has solid word predictions and the swiping works great… available on fdroid
I have, can’t remember what I didnt like there lol. Its been a while
Adios gboard !
Why isn’t it on the play store, does that cost the developer?
I hope to impose a better question: why would it not cost the developer? $25 may be a steal for some, but I don’t think a proprietary store really deserves so much attention from primarily FOSS developer.
I’d like to use it by my phone is supplied by work and blocks side-loading. Oh well.
This is terrible news. :( Sorry to hear that work makes you download from proprietary store front. I suppose, expecting phones with LineageOS, CalyxOS, GrapheneOS, etc given for work purposes is a bit much at this moment, but at least side-loading should be provided if we’re to avoid monopoly. To me, it’s never healthy if organization is fixated on using only the single app kit for everything.
Why not just Simple Keyboard?
