this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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Privacy

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Hello, could someone recommended a keyboard for android that is a bit smart in predictive typing? I used to like swiftkeybefore it was bought by microsoft. Not that swiftkey itself was much better but I was not so privy conscious at that time.

I recall swiftkey would require access to your texts and emails to train itself to your predictions.

Is there some similar foss keyboard where all the data then remains local?

I know swiftkey has an incognito mode, but then it stops learning from your typing.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True but ROMs like lineage os are much better. They still ship a ton on proprietary software but at least there's none in user space.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same with Graphene, there's no way around that if you want the phone to work. But I can't agree with Lineage being better. They're user debug ROMs, the dev's are never willing to call a release stable, don't even remotely have the hardening that Graphene does, and walking around with an unlocked bootloader is a huge security threat both from a physical and remote exploit that would attack the boot partition/space. Add to that you don't have verified boot working, so you'd never even know it's happened, or attempted.

Then there's the microG problem of apps that need the play store verification to work, banking apps that won't work, even apps that don't do license checks and simply need to prove they've been paid for will be dead most of the time. Plus, Lineage out of the box is still contacting Google, yes, you can undo that, but how many are aware of that and actually finish de-googling it? If I was stuck with a phone that wasn't a Pixel I (may) use it, but given a bunch of apps I want to work wouldn't, would probably just sell the phone and get one that'd run Graphene. If you take user bias out of hit and logically compare them, saying Lineage is better than Graphene is basically impossible to do. You can run Graphene and have a phone that in most cases runs 100% normally, most apps that bitch about modified phones are perfectly happy running on it and the user gains the security and privacy upgrades, without the downsides. Clearly they still need to make smart app choices, but they also don't have a phone that isn't a constant pain in the ass.

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

I've never has a libre app need play services. That would be bad programing by the developer

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

OK, I never claimed one did. We're talking the masses here, including the masses of people who still like privacy. Not one off use cases where people are content with F-Droid only phones, most aren't. Most want the line of Privacy, Security, but also still have smartphones that are smartphones and not a bunch of outdated many times abandoned apps that look like they're from the KitKat days. If you're OK with that cool, but the majority typically isn't.