Keyboard Options
So, I'm not sure if anyone knows the answer to this, but can Google know what I'm typing or has any triggers if certain words are spelled out or my passwords are being typed out?
Basically, I'm trying to see if the Google Keyboard app needs to be replaced, since this is something I've been using for the past 9 years.
I doubt they see what you're typing as that would've been observed already.
Yes, you should replace the keyboard. I'm running FlorisBoard myself, but there are plenty of other options.
I like the idea of using FOSS, thanks for the suggestion.
FlorisBoard is wonderful in my opinion, there hasn't been a release in a while but it has a pretty good design, and some useful features like arrow keys (only left and right) that you can enable. It's been my favorite keyboars for a couple of years now.
I've fairly recently found out that swiping the spacebar does the horizontal scrolling across the characters! Thoroughly enjoyed that :)
Oh really? I never knew that. That makes it even better in my opinion, I spend too long trying to click in a semi-correct place before I highlight text.
Here is a thread with a lot of options
If you have some trust in Google, you can turn off all the privacy options in the keyboard settings. If you don't, you can use a 3rd party keyboard.
Somehow, I missed to do this earlier, but thank you!
Yes, Gboard does log what you type, unless it's in incognito mode, which you can see by the incognito watermark in the background of the keyboard (to test this, open up an incognito mode tab in your favourite browser).
You can quieten it's need for communication by using a per-app firewall like Netguard (use the Github- or F-Droid version, since the Google Play Store version cannot filter the network traffic for ads, but only allows filtering on a per-app basis).
If you want to have a really clean keyboard that physically cannot log anything, checkout this: https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry
That seems like a lot of opt-out to turn off what amounts to a keylogger.
Is that on Fdroid?
Just a heads up if you're using Jerboa and switch to a FOSS keyboard: https://github.com/dessalines/jerboa/issues/194
TL;DR: AOSP keyboard (and maybe also OpenBoard too) may have some glitches when entering text in Jerboa. If you do change to another keyboard, you might test that and add a comment to that issue to help with finding the root cause.
Use Openboard.
Anysoft Keyboard on F-Droid. Lots of button customisation options to cater to individual needs.
G-Board almost definitely logs all keystrokes. Ditch it!
FYI Gboard algorithm for auto correct uses federated learning https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/04/federated-learning-collaborative.html
Multiling0
It's a very customizable keyboard. Which means that you can duplicate the layout you're used to from most others, as long as you have the patience. Alas, you have to have the patience lol.
Use Openboard.