this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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Just started using AnySoftKeyboard and I'm loving it so far. But I want to know if it is actually private and safe to use.

Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The obvious privacy hole of Android keyboard apps is what pushed me back to the desktop for a bunch of tasks I had been doing on mobile.

AnySoft works, congrats to them for giving us a FOSS option. But SwiftKey and company are just so much better when you're attempting the awful task of writing a whole paragraph of text with your thumbs. So my solution has been to stop attempting this task.

[–] gogosempai 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I've found this fork of OpenBoard quite useful. It enables glide/swipe typing which works perfectly imo and has great word predictions and autocorrect as well. Do try it out and see if it changes anything for you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is the best! I've wanted openboard but with swiping for a long time. I can't believe I missed this. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks. FYI others are suggesting it elsewhere today. Popular theme this week.

[–] gogosempai 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah it's not on F-Droid so word of mouth it is!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interesting, do you know if it's in F-Droid? Or did you install the APK from GitHub?

When I follow your link and tap on the F-Droid link it takes me to the original OpenBoard instead of this fork. I guess they might just have kept the original Readme file with the F-Droid link to the original app...

[–] gogosempai 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not on F-Droid, likely because the swipe implementation that they've injected doesn't have an OSS license. There's a whole discussion on it in this thread. There's no privacy issue here as the fork also doesn't have network permissions or anything, but I can see why they'd be skeptical adding this piece of code to the main repo which has a proper FOSS license.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

OK, thanks for your reply. I'll get the APK from GitHub and try it soon then. I hope there's some way of removing words that the App's dictionary has learned too. It drives me mad that OpenBoard has learned some of my spelling mistakes and now autocorrects to them.