The only app I can't live without. Except for gboard, all of my applications are Foss. There is no competition for gboard's swipe typing, not to mention its many capabilities like as searching for gifs, stickers, being able to paste copied images, translating, and so on. I'd like to know how I can use gboard while maintaining my privacy. According to what I've heard, it sends all typing data to Google's server. If you ask me, that's a massive no-no. Do you have any suggestions?
Leaving this up because there are some good discussions here already and it's a great question. I'd just flag rule 2 in the sidebar and that we ask questions and recommendation requests to be posted in !askandroid@lemdro.id instead. Thanks!
If you're on calyxos, grapheneos, or lineageos you can disable network permisions for that app. If not, use netguard as a firewall and block it.
Give OpenBoard with gesture typing a shot. No gifs and stuff, but gesture typing works together with suggestions, unlike either base OB or Floris. Someone casually mentioned it a few weeks ago and damn how much my life changed.
OpenBoard, Florisboard, AnySoftKeyboard
THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES, PEOPLE!
I dropped gboard and started using FlorisBoard. It's a lot more crude and don't have the same features, but I'm very happy with it and will not go back.
I preffer my privacy over features, and using the software and reporting feedback helps it betting better.
We really need to ditch Google.
There's a fork of OpenBoard with swipe typing at https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard
I've found this to be better than any of the alternatives.
I use SwiftKey with internet access turned off. Works well enough though obviously the gif and stickers won't work.
FOSS is not just about privacy! Freedom is that important reason you should care about. FlorisBoard is my suggestion for you.
What's wrong with this?
I use it without giving network permission
I use OpenBoard from F-Droid.
I hate Gboard. So I use SwiftKey which is the best one.
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