I was taking a look at the Naomi Wu situation (A Chinese DIY tech youtuber who went missing after being watched by the government) and in one part they mentioned that she was concerned about her privacy, so started using Signal, but had a default chinese keyboard that had a keylogger and the police had looked into what she was talking on there.
I’m not sure if it was a mobile only thing, but it was mentioned that the keyboard app was used in like 70% por chinese smarthphones.
Now, I use AnySoftKey and refuse to use default keyboard apps, but how far can we reach on the keyboard security thing? Is typing on a computer or using a physical keyboard on a mobile device 100% safe? I think the keyboard issue is often overlooked and would like to know what recommendations your have? Or what should be known more?
It is very wise to use a FOSS keyboard app, because if you think about it a keyboard app would probably be the thing on your phone that knows the most about you. I don’t mean that to fear monger, it’s just a thought. Plus if you look at events in the past few years like swiftkey’s little user data error it gives you an idea of how privacy invasive they could or could already be.
Good recommendations for an app?
FlorisBoard or Openboard
+1 for FlorisBoard
OpenBoard (specifically the fork by Helium314 that supports gesture typing) is what I prefer.
I can’t seem to find this on fdroid, github, etc. Mind sharing a link?
https://github.com/Helium314/openboard
Upon other recommendations here I have gone with open board. Its pretty sweet after a bit of configuring.
Gotta get used to it though, my muscle memory will take a bit to adapt!!