I use Gboard.

The main things I like about it are:

  • Very customizable (I like having number row always visible, and having long press for symbols on each letter).
  • Has gif support built in.

My biggest pain point is:

  • It auto corrects words that are spelled correctly to other words. I type “our” and it changes to “out”, I recently typed “purpose” and it changed it to “purple”. Autocorrect is awesome and necessary, but I hate that it corrects words to other words and not just typos. I wish I could find a keyboard that has the things I like without this annoyance.

Am I looking for a unicorn? Let me know! 😄

  • amzd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    381·
    3 months ago

    The amount of people on here that are okay with a corporation phoning home everything you type is a bit scary. Googles Gboard and Microsoft’s SwiftKey are a privacy nightmare. Check out FUTO: https://keyboard.futo.org/

    • always offline
    • voice input
    • swipe typing
    • predictive text
    • auto correct
    • personalization
    • Paradachshund@lemmy.todayOP
      174·
      3 months ago

      I kind of hate takes like these because its such a false equivalence. People aren’t OK with it, but the vast majority of people don’t have time to fight this battle when every single aspect of modern technology is in a constant arms race to do more and more surveillance.

      It’s great there are people like you who want to promote more private alternatives, and even better that people are making more private alternatives, but the reality is most foss apps are far inferior user experiences to corporate apps. Until that changes it’s always going to be an uphill battle to convince people to switch, and it’s not because they’re “ok with corporate surveillance”. That isn’t even in the calculation to begin with and it’s not making any friends or building any bridges to imply that about people. You would help your cause a lot if you took a less judgemental approach to spreading the word about it.

      Sorry for the soapbox, but I see this attitude on here a lot and it really misses the mark and does damage to an otherwise worthy cause (spreading the word about better software). I don’t think you mean anything bad when you say this, but I just want you to understand how it comes off to people who aren’t invested in that lifestyle.

      • Yprum@lemmy.world
        11·
        3 months ago

        I can understand that some people don’t want to deal with changing keyboards even if they don’t want to be tracked. But you are literally here asking about keyboards. If this is not the place to talk about this then what is? Anyone interested enough to wonder about what keyboard they use should consider their privacy as the main aspect for a keyboard, as it is an app that can see everything you write, including passwords.

        but the reality is most foss apps are far inferior user experiences to corporate apps

        This is absolutely wrong and too often repeated as a mantra, and not because they have actually good UX, but because the corporate apps have it worse even (but they set the standard so anything that isn’t like theirs is bad). From all keyboards I have tried (many, including corporate ones, closed source, etc) the closed source ones have usually the worse UX. They start better and then worsen over time. You said you like the personalisation options, but often there’s less options in any closed source corporate keyboard. It took them years for gboard to actually let users have the number row always on top. I could have that in other keyboards long before gboard. Swiftkey was wonderful, but over the years it got so bloated that it lagged when used. There’s unfortunately not a perfect keyboard, but through all the posts in this thread there were a lot of good recommendations that allow you to choose good customisability, respect of user privacy, and also fringe use cases not often supported. And in general, the worse options are the closed source ones.

        The only real downside of Foss keyboards is that as they have more options they usually require a bit more set up time which puts many people off.

        I’m currently using Heliboard, lots of customisability, Foss, good language support and a must for me, multi language support. So far I am making less typos than with many other keyboards. The downside is no swipe support right in the app, but you can get it to work too if interested using 3rd party libraries.

        In the past I’ve been using gboard which was OK for a while but started making more and more typos and wrong corrections over time, that plus trying to degoogle myself pushed me away.

        Also anysoft keyboard, pretty nice, and was quite happy with it but again started getting tired of some typos I kept making.

        I am keeping an eye on futo keyboard too, which at the moment doesn’t support multi language support, maybe in the future when implemented I’ll try it.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
      5·
      3 months ago

      Thanks for the recommendation, I just installed it!

      When every fucking app is a privacy nightmare, it can be a huge slog finding alternatives for everything. Keyboard apps were on my list but you just made it super easy.

    • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2·
      3 months ago

      It’s what I use right now and it’s great in many aspects but I do still miss the graceful transition between languages that swiftkey was offering. With this I need to switch manually every time. With swiftkey I could write directly in any language and change in the same sentence and it could deal with it.

    • Eiri@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 months ago

      Thanks. I’ll give it a try. I’d never found an alternative to Gboard that works as well when it comes to swipe typing, learning words missing from the dictionary, Japanese flick / handwriting input, and one-handed mode. It’ll be big if this is finally it.

      Edit: works well for an alpha. UI is unexpectedly polished. Gesture typing needs to get better, there’s no one-handed mode yet and I need an option to shrink the UI a bit because right now it’s huge. I’m really impressed with it so far though. Really nice that you can customize dictionaries and action buttons and stuff. Not quite baked enough for me yet but I see huge potential. I bought the premium version to support them and will be cheering for them while staying on Gboard for now.

    • skoell13@feddit.org
      1·
      3 months ago

      Holy shit thanks for the suggestion… I’ve been using Swift Key for years and tried other keyboard apps but none convinced me so far, so i’ve simply used Netguard to try to block Swift Key as much as possible. I’m currently typing using Futo and while I still miss some stuff (can you show the symbols on the keys as well? See screenshot). I already like it!

    • jetsetdorito@lemm.ee
      1·
      3 months ago

      This is the first non gboard keyboard that I don’t immediately feel uncomfortable typing om

    • MaggiWuerze@feddit.org
      1·
      3 months ago

      Looks great, but without an extended QERTZ layout I’m out. Switching from SwiftKey to HeliBoard now, since it has ÄÖÜ on there by default for a german layout.

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    20·
    3 months ago

    I’ve recently replaced Gboard with Heliboard. The three main things I want in an Android keyboard are as follows:

    • Word suggestions when typing.
    • Glide typing.
    • Not being super creepy about my data.

    Hwliboard does all those things and is super customisable as well.

      • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
        4·
        3 months ago

        I don’t use the gif keyboard or autocomplete, so I comment about that. but it’s so much more customizable than gboard. Honestly surprised you found gboard to be customizable because in my experience it’s one of the least customizable ones out there.

        • Paradachshund@lemmy.todayOP
          3·
          3 months ago

          Maybe customizable is the wrong word, but I like the way I have it setup and I’ve found some other keyboards can’t replicate it.

    • muzzle@lemm.ee
      2·
      3 months ago

      It’s there a better swiping library for heliboard? The one they suggest is a lot worse than gboard’s.

  • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
    17·
    3 months ago

    I use typewise. It feels like there is more space for every button and i no longer accidentally press the space button

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
        4·
        3 months ago

        Next to f and h

        It takes some getting used to but i am pretty happy with it! You swipe up on the buttons for capitals and it has some gestures that makes deleting and restoring quite easy

        • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
          11·
          3 months ago

          Interesting. Admittedly, I’m almost always using my phone one-handed, but I know some people use two hands.

    • Don_alForno@feddit.orgDeutsch
      3·
      3 months ago

      The keyboard itself is great, I just feel like the auto correction keeps doing everything in it’s power to fuck up what I typed, more so than before I switched.

    • DiabolicalBird@lemmy.ca
      2·
      3 months ago

      I absolutely adore this keyboard, I just wish they’d add a voice input button so I could use FUTO’s voice to text with it.

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 months ago

        Its not that difficult actually! They even have a mini game and a very good tutorial in the app!

        I feel that its gotten a lot easier to type since i got this and a lot less typos

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 months ago

        It’s pretty easy to switch, es posible cambiar con una toca. You can map it to a long press or swipe or use a dedicated key.

          • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 months ago

            How would you like to switch between them? I use 3 regularly with different layouts and I’ve never had an issue. For me, a keyboard swipe is quicker than a long press and tap to select, or a tap on a single button. It could be any of the above. You can also have the switching button in the top menu or by the space bar.

            Is there a better switching method for you?

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 months ago

        I don’t think there is a free/private keyboard with gifs or stickers. There’s gboard, SwiftKey, Samsung keyboard, and increasingly sketchy keyboards from there on down.

          • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 months ago

            Oh, I meant free as in not proprietary. Free as in freedom.

            I remember hearing about Fleksy keyboard years ago, although I can’t really attest to it. It seems to have far fewer trackers than most proprietary keyboards, and just for analytics. Most other keyboards you find will send your data to advertisers or worse.

            So far, most of the ones suggested here are free and private, meaning that they belong to the community and not to a company, and they do not collect or sell your data. That may be a factor for you or it may not, but I think a lot of people on Lemmy tend to care about it.

          • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 months ago

            Samsung does, and lots of others. But IMHO, they get pretty sketchy pretty quickly. Ginger has 12 known trackers, Bobble AI has 8, GO has 17, etc.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 months ago

      I’ve heard people say that the gesture typing is not great, but I’ve never had an issue.At least not more than any other keyboard.

      For me, the voice typing is literally the best I’ve ever used.

      I don’t think there is a free and private keyboard that has gifs, stickers, etc. but I do like the way FUTO handles emoji.

  • StorageAware@lemmings.worldEnglish
    11·
    3 months ago

    Thumb-Key

    It took a few weeks to get used to it and a few more to get comfortable, but now I don’t think I can go back. Before when I messed up, I would keep repeating the mistake until I was forced to slow down. Now I can get 40-50 WPM when I try.

    I do miss some things but they really aren’t deal breakers:

    • Clipboard History
    • Emoji Search
    • Autofill Integration
          • Linssiili@sopuli.xyz
            2·
            3 months ago

            Yeah you can’t really “infer” where a letter is, it just takes time to learn the loiations by heart. I think I have used this for 6 months or so, and I’m able to write 40wpm without looking at the keyboard. But damn was it slow in beginning

    • Player2@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I have been using Thumb Key for a few months and while I generally like it, I have not been able to figure out how to remove things like the voice typing, pasting, and undo shortcuts. Every so often I accidentally hit undo while typing, which just erases my whole message irrecoverably since my other thumb hit the next key right after. I wish I could remove all those swipe controls on the side altogether since I never use them.

      • StorageAware@lemmings.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        I actually did try it! Though I don’t use numbers enough to justify the smaller hitboxes for the letters so I went back.

  • Vinny_93@lemmy.world
    9·
    3 months ago

    Did you know you can turn off autocorrect?

    I’ve been using Swype since its inception and I’ve stuck with it after it was called SwiftKey and still use it now it’s owned by Microsoft.

    Gboard is okay enough but I’ve gotten more used to SwiftKey.

    • Paradachshund@lemmy.todayOP
      3·
      3 months ago

      I like autocorrecting typos, I don’t like autocorrecting words into other words. As far as I’ve found you can’t have one without the other. Correct me if I’m wrong though.

        • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
          1·
          3 months ago

          If you type the wrong word, it will underline it and you can click on it, then tap on the correct auto suggested word. Very easy

        • Paradachshund@lemmy.todayOP
          1·
          3 months ago

          It’s a shame. It doesn’t seem like it would be hard to implement one that doesn’t change correctly spelled words at all.

          • Vinny_93@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 months ago

            Well SwiftKey advertised with some AI (actually just algorithm) that could analyse the words you typed before and glean from context what you are trying to say and correct accordingly. I find it’s wrong more often than not so I keep autocorrect off. Also I use SwiftKey in two languages, English and my native language, Dutch. It does not anticipate in which language it should predict at all. It mostly just favours English.

            • Paradachshund@lemmy.todayOP
              2·
              3 months ago

              Yeah that’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want. If I wrote a word and it’s spelled correctly, I wish autocorrect would leave it alone instead of incorrectly guessing a different word. Oh well, one can dream.

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    3 months ago

    Heliboard, very customisable and doesn’t send all my typing to a MAGMA company’s servers.

  • Sami@lemmy.zipEnglish
    61·
    3 months ago

    OpenBoard. Has what I need in terms of customization and I can turn off word prediction/correction (not sure if it even has it to begin with). Used to use Swiftkey several years ago but i like OpenBoard more nowadays.

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
    5·
    3 months ago

    Heliboard!!
    (also on F-Droi & Izzy)

    Its amazing & completely open sauce.

    Extremely configurable too, which I like (and with built in help that guides to eg where to find other libraries).
    And if it helps someone - it’s the closest experience to gboard, I only use this keyboard on my devices now. Works with multiple languages at the same time too.

    Tho for gesture typing I did load Googles library (still offline).

    • Paradachshund@lemmy.todayOP
      2·
      3 months ago

      This seems to be the winner across all the comments so far. How does it do with the correcting words to other words thing I mentioned?

      • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
        1·
        3 months ago

        Yeah, I don’t understand what you meant by that - if I understood correctly it’s the matter of sometimes autocorrect working as intended and sometimes not? Afaik that is just how it works.
        Or if you meant correcting grammar (or sentence prediction?) vs correcting just the spelling … I’m not familiar of any keyboards have that distinction.
        (Never had this issue, including on Heli)

        I have never used autocorrect, not even in T9 days.

        I always use gesture typing with alternative words shown I can select if I want.
        I have autocorrect set much the same way, to display alternatives I can select or just continue.

        I like to misspell words for cumedic effuckt so autocockerrect wouldn’t work anyway.
        But basically with any keyboard you can set it to remember new words (with Heli either within app or in the phones personal dictionary). I have it that if I write something 3 times it automatically goes to the dictionary.

        • Paradachshund@lemmy.todayOP
          1·
          3 months ago

          The thing I wish existed is to prevent autocorrect from changing words that are correctly spelled. Basically it should correct misspellings, not change a correctly spelled word at all.

  • fullflyermokoko@lemmy.world
    51·
    3 months ago

    SwiftKey. Yes, I hate it being from Microsoft. But has most of the pros already mentioned in this thread and a some important features (for me) that I haven’t found with other keyboard:

    I text a lot in Spanish, Portuguese and English; sometimes in French. I can use any of those languages with any preferred layout (qwerty, azerty) or as I do, Spanish layout as a base but from there, I get all characters needed to write properly such as ñ, ç, æ, ê.

    Prediction is outstanding, I can start a phrase in one language and continue with other and still get very accurate suggestions. It has been my default keyboard long before Microsoft acquired the company and, for now, big corporate enshittification has been slow. En conclusión y para sumarizar: j’aime bien le SwiftKey clavier, ele tem funções que nenhum outro tem.

    • Linssiili@sopuli.xyz
      1·
      3 months ago

      That seems interesting, but it feels like it would be slower than thumb-key? How long have you been using it, and how high wpm do you have? For reference, I have used thumb-key for 6 months or so, and can achieve 40-45 wpm

      • Imhotep@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        thumb-key

        I’ve used Thumb-key a little while too. 40 wpm is quite impressive!

        I’m still very slow with 8Vim. Not sure if with more training you can get to decent speed, time will tell.

        It’s really cool and well made though.

    • seaQueue@lemmy.world
      7·
      3 months ago

      I just installed the floris 4.0 beta earlier. I think once they ship 4.0 and offer a type-ahead suggestion model Floris’ll be worth considering as a serious Gboard replacement.

      So far Floris is the best Gboard replacement candidate I’ve found.

      • hash@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        Thanks for mentioning this. As a current florisboard user I didn’t know I have so much to look forward to!

  • asudox@lemmy.worldM
    3·
    3 months ago

    I use FlorisBoard Beta with the Material You theme. It looks amazing.

    FUTO Keyboard also looks very pretty, but it’s a bit bloated.