I think that Gboard would still find a way to connect to the mothership.

So one of the suggestions was to use Invizible Pro to block it's access. Do you use the same method?

This fork is actively developed, supports gestures amd many other features. Try it!

I tried openboard but am missing swipe.

I forgot to mention, ASK also has a very wide selection of languages.

Ive been using this keyboard for around a year now, and compared to Swiftkey and gboard, I absolutely hate anysoftkeyboard with a passion. However, its the best FOSS alternative I've come across.

Also, my dogs name is Bowie, so whenever I type his name, the keyboard just starts spitting out David Bowie lyrics across the bottom of the keyboard, so thats kinda cool I guess.

I tried ASK and wasn't a fan. Unless I'm missing customization options, it lacked the ability to change long press times, there's an obnoxious empty space above the keyboard, and it was quite poor at auto correcting words that were supposed to have apostrophes. You'll have to change your bottom row to get the space bar a similar size to Swiftkey (I missed it a fair bit before doing this), and it doesn't have the hold space bar to move cursor either.

I get that using a different keyboard is going to be an adjustment, being a convert to Colemak, but this one seems just a bit too rough around the edges for me.

E: found the long press adjustment, but now can't find how to add long press symbols to the keys...maybe I'm just too dumb for this keyboard

E2: Actually, after more messing with it, I'm going to give it another go. Still missing the long press symbols, autocorrect apostrophes, and auto space placement after adding commas and periods though. We'll see how long I can put up with that.

For anyone who wants it: https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard

Agreed, it's a fantastic alternative.

FlorisBoard is feature rich.

Hahah, that's hilarious! I tried ASK as well but gave up after 10-15 minutes of using it.

One of the comments has a link to a fork of OpenBoard that includes swipe (version 1.4.5 or something), and it works really well. The auto correct isn't as great as Swiftkey (I'm hoping it gets better with time), but the swiping is absolutely solid.

Been using this for about a day now and I don't see myself going back to Swiftkey. Typed this comment with it, hahah.

I'll check this out, but on their Git they haven't updated since September 2022 :/

So I do appreciate that they have swipe to type, but it doesn't have a word suggestion feature / autocorrect.

Ok, I am typing this with that keyboard now, and can see how this could be rather neat once one learns all thkey locations.

I started using it about a month ago, and I'm now having a pretty good muscle memory. I like how having larger keys makes it much easier to "touch-type" (even thought I can barely do it, but I see the potential).

The only thing I'm missing is auto-completing my email and home address, but oh well.