There's a piece of software on your phone that's spying on you
Hello fellow data overhaulers. Thank you for joining me as we break down everyday tech and help you get control of
your online data. Yes, there's a piece of software on your phone that is actually spying on you
It's called your keyboard and it's constantly recording every single thing that you type
Okay, that's a little overdramatic. Sorry about that. But let's take a look at a few options for alternative keyboards that aren't from like
the big tech names. Okay, let's break down this review into two segments. First, you have the people that like to use two thumbs to tap out their messages
And then you've got the other people who prefer to gesture twice around the keyboard. We have two people that like to use two thumbs to tap out their messages
And then you've got the other people who prefer to gesture twice around the keyboard
We have two people who like to gesture twice around the keyboard. We have two people who like to gesture twice around the keyboard. We have two people who like to gesture twice around the keyboard
We have two people who like to gesture twice around the keyboard. For those that like to gesture twice, you're going to want to check out any soft keyboard
and actually commercial Grammarly. Okay? We'll get into more of those later on in this video
First, let's take a look at OpenBoard. So OpenBoard is originally based off of the open-course version of a keyboard that Google
put out with Android as part of its original development. So you can go through the various setup processes here
So switch to OpenBoard, and then you can configure additional languages if you wanted to, but
these languages are going to be based on your installed languages on your phone
I'm going to keep it on English. And we just hit Finish. All right. So let's go inside of DocuMirror
This is a notes app that's open-source. We'll go inside of our testing note here, and we'll go ahead and hit Edit so we can
add an edit body. So you can see here, it's a very much a kind of stark, not a whole lot of features available
keyboard, but it works just fine. So this, and it has some suggestions in case you have a laptop like I do
This is a keyboard that doesn't spy. Okay
So pretty easy to understand. It's just what you see out of the box
There's not a whole lot of options involved. The next one that we can test out for your two-thumb tester guys is Hacker Keyboard. Okay
Hacker Keyboard gets its name because you can see it has a lot of options on it
It has almost every key that a hacker or a computer professional might want
So it's a little more advanced. But you can see it gets pretty crowded pretty quickly
So under the function, we have a settings option. So five row, four row, excuse me
So we'll go back to drop them here. Okay. And you can see there's a lot more room on it
This resembles more of what you normally see in a kind of an average keyboard
So this is Hacker Keyboard. Hackers. You can see you have all the other symbols and numbers
Hacker Keyboard. And you can get some type ahead suggestions as well
So that's Hacker Keyboard. Okay? So those are going to be your two best bets for two-thumb tapper kind of typists
So let's move on to those that like to gesture or swipe across their keyboard
So we'll switch over to AnySoft Keyboard. I have the English version of that
So AnySoft is, again, based on those open-source keyboard routes that Google originally provided
But they've added other features into it. So let's take a look at first how this works out of the box
So swiping is beta at this time of this recording. So this is AnySoft
So you can mess up. You can move across. You can find AnySoft
I'll just spell it out. You can, of course, type it. This is AnySoft
Soft. Keyboard. So you get a good suggestion there. It's. So it's
It could be possibly that. It doesn't look like I have that suggestion
So I'm going to have to, again, go manual. So it's. Pretty good
So you can see I'm even having to find those suggestions that do a little bit better
It's pretty good. Okay. So that was painful. So let's take a look at the settings for AnySoft
So I go back here. AnySoft Keyboard. You can see gesture typing is definitely in beta for them
But the other advantages to this keyboard is that you have themes and, of course, multiple languages and emojis
You have the ability to change some of these options that the other two keyboards from earlier don't provide
So take a look at this option. The other option for you gesture typers is to go with Grammarly
Now Grammarly is a paid service. That's a premium service that helps writers make sure that they have good grammar, good composition
Now they've integrated this into a keyboard which helps writers when they're on the go
So you can install Grammarly keyboard for free. And let's take a look at Grammarly
Switch over to that. And you can see the swipe swiping. Let's say the swipe
Ah, backbone today. The swipe. Yeah, it's really not going to like the word swipe
The swipe. Typing. Twing. No. Typing. Typing. Ringing. No. Okay. T-Y-P-I-N-G
Is a little better. Come on. Better than. Okay, so we have some good suggestions coming up
Than the other keyboards. Okay. So you have a little bit better output from Grammarly
And it could be my fat thumbs on a rainy day. So, you know, take it for what it's worth
But the advantage, you can use Grammarly without a subscription and without a license for some
basic spelling for a pretty quality keyboard. So check that one out
Now the advantage and the reason why I'm going to go ahead and suggest it's okay to use Grammarly
is because their model of how they make money is off the premium users
The premium model. So they're not going out and selling or using or mining your typing
And that's the advantage there. That's what we really want to see in even a commercial offering from something that
you use every day like a virtual keyboard. If you're interested in Grammarly, go to dataoverhaulers.com slash Grammarly
And that helps this channel grow. So if we co-balance, we'll take one more section of this
But if you really want to stay with some closed source options, let's take a look at Microsoft Swifty
Swifty was originally its own company and Microsoft bought them, I think, back in the early 2000s
And so Swifty, let's switch over to, in fact, let's go back to Grammarly
Or to DropLens, excuse me. And let's switch to Microsoft SwiftyBoard. Okay
SwiftyBoard also offers slight entry
So it also offers slight entry. But you can see that, you can tell that all of this data then starts to go to Microsoft
And that may be in the form of just a simple model of how you type. But it also may be more detailed into building a profile on you
And so use Microsoft's keyboard and Google's keyboard with that in mind
So let's do one more review. Okay. And let's go to Gboard by Google
You know, and of course, this is the default keyboard on most Android devices
So you can see, like, the prediction and the swipe interpretation is top-notch. Okay
There's no doubt about it. That is where it's the strongest. But again, it's building a model
And this one I've re-searched. And it is building a model and keeping that model local. But it's also sharing the model
Not the specific typing. But it's sharing the model of your typing to help improve the Google experience, the
Google keyboard overall. So again, think about these, the Microsoft and the Google options as ones that might
be giving those two companies more information than you care to share
So take a look at those. So those are the options. And one more thing, one cool trick is, if you do want to switch between keyboards and
use more than one keyboard, consider using ones that are open source as your primary
And if you need functions like swipe keyboarding or voice typing, use those sparingly
So compartmentalize your usage. So here, for example, in Gboard, I usually say, okay, theme, I'm going to change this
to red and hit apply. And so when I go back to here, you can see, like, it's red
It's like, okay, use this keyboard, but use it sparingly. Okay? Use me sparingly. Okay
So that gives me a good visual cue of, like, oh, I forgot to switch back
So we can easily switch back. I usually use open board nowadays
And that way I can tell very quickly, you might be giving away some information
Just a little pro tip there. For you iPhone users, what you're going to want to do is go ahead and choose one that
fits your needs. Because the unfortunate part of their operating system is that most of it's closed
And so Gboard and Microsoft Part C are available on Apple. But you want to consider those as maybe ways to compartmentalize what you type for, say
financial transactions. You might do it on Microsoft. Whereas you might daily drive on Apple keyboard
Or you might choose to install Gboard as well. So use those as ways to swap between so that no one particular keyboard has all of your
typing data involved in it. So choose a keyboard that keeps all your data in one place but just for you
If you want a complete review on these keyboards and some others, take a look at
dataoverhaulers.com slash privatekeyboards