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
    452·
    27 days 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
      195·
      26 days 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·
        26 days 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.

    • essell@lemmy.world
      5·
      27 days ago

      Thank you!

      I dropped gboard for privacy, switched to an open source option but struggled to get on with it .

      Now typing on Futo and immediately loving it. Much appreciated.

      If this is as good as it seems at first glance I’ll definitely be paying for this.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
      5·
      27 days 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.

    • Eiri@lemmy.world
      2·
      26 days 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.

    • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2·
      27 days 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.

    • MaggiWuerze@feddit.org
      1·
      27 days 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.

    • jetsetdorito@lemm.ee
      1·
      22 days ago

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

    • skoell13@feddit.org
      1·
      26 days 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!

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    22·
    27 days 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
        5·
        27 days 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
          4·
          27 days 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·
      27 days ago

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

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
        2·
        27 days 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·
            27 days 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·
      27 days 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.

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
        2·
        27 days 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·
            27 days 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·
            26 days 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.

  • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
    181·
    27 days 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·
        27 days 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·
          27 days 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·
      27 days 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.

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
        2·
        27 days 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

    • DiabolicalBird@lemmy.ca
      1·
      27 days 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.

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
    13·
    27 days ago

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

  • Vinny_93@lemmy.world
    12·
    27 days 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·
      27 days 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·
          27 days 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·
          27 days 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·
            27 days 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·
              27 days 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.

    • MrQuallzin@lemmy.world
      2·
      27 days ago

      Same, been using it long before it was bought by Microsoft. It has customizations I like, and (when it works properly) I can copy and paste between my phone and computer.

    • Suzune@ani.social
      1·
      27 days ago

      I’ve turned off autocorrect long time ago. Suggestions are fine. The one click more when I’m wrong is worth my time and I’m automatically educated to type correctly.

  • StorageAware@lemmings.worldEnglish
    11·
    27 days 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·
            27 days 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·
      27 days 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·
        26 days 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.

  • noughtnaut@lemmy.world
    9·
    27 days ago

    Thank you for this (repeated) question! I will try some of these and collate my experiences.

    • SwiftKey

    Long-time fan, in spite of privacy concerns. My bar for comparing everything below.

    • FUTO

    First install, looks promising.

    Indeed very customisable. What I don’t like is the (imho) far inferior swipe typing and the need to explicitly switch languages for the keyboard to use the appropriate dictionary. Also, I miss directional buttons for those single-character position adjustments (Futo only offers space-key swiping). Voice typing seems highlighted but I find it to be unbearably slow.

    Verdict: will most likely uninstall again.

    • OpenBoard

    Installation somehow defaulted to “English (Australia)”, but no biggie.

    Seems very customisable also, but lacks swipe typing (a deal beaker for me). Relies on the OS language (actually, keyboard) switcher and curiously lacks a shortcut to its settings (requiring the user to go so the rest through the Settings app (which, best-case, is a whopping 5 taps).

    Verdict: privacy aside, cannot compete with SwiftKey for features and usability.

    • Florisboard

    Strainghtforward installation. Seems extremely customisable. No swiping nor autocomplete but both festures are clearly promised for a future release.

    Verdict: apart from features promised in the future, thus seems an excellent keyboard.

    • Heliboard

    Straightforward installation. Language selection included a github redirect to manually download dictionary, which was semi nice.

    Proper big-keyed numerical keyboard. Also extremely customisable. Space-key swiping even supports vertical movement.

    Verdict: apart from lack of swipe typing, probably the best contender!

    • Graffiti

    Included because I friggin’ loved it back in the day. The (to my knowledge) only app offering graffiti input is badly broken and crashes immediately on modern Android versions. I remember it working quite well on earlier versions, but that was years ago.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    8·
    27 days ago

    Gboard is pretty good. I switched off Swiftkey because Gboard has the lil space bar cursor thing. Swipe typing is pretty great, and the predictions are fine.

    I would prefer a non-Google keyboard, but I haven’t found one that’s easy to install and works the way I want it to.

      • Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        27 days ago

        Not exactly 1:1. The main thing that I still miss is multi lingual typing. It’s not too big a deal to just switch the languages when I need to, especially since I only use 2. But that’s still more than I needed to do with Gboard or Heliboard.

  • fullflyermokoko@lemmy.world
    81·
    27 days 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.

  • Angel@ani.socialEspañol
    7·
    27 days ago

    I’m using Heliboard a few months ago, I prefer privacy over personalization

  • SamiAEnglish
    71·
    27 days 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.

  • jg1i@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    26 days ago

    I use Gboard. I really want to like the FUTO keyboard, but it unfortunately sucks for typing. Not sure what magic secret sauce Gboard has, but with the FUTO keyboard I basically mistype almost every word. Maybe Gboard has some tap target corrections or something? I’ve tried pushing through with the FUTO keyboard for about a month, but I think I’m ready to uninstall it. )`: