Your smartphone keyboard is an astoundingly sensitive piece of -software. You use it to type everything from the most innocent of -messages to the most crucial passwords. In terms of messaging on -encrypted chat applications like Session or Signal, your smartphone -keyboard bypasses encryption. They could know what you are searching -about even on private search engines like SearX. This is because your -keystrokes are unencrypted. With respect to passwords, your smartphone -keyboard, if invasive, can potentially view your bank account details. -This means that an individual who can access your smartphone keyboard -does not need to utilize advanced techniques to view your data. -Therefore, in terms of trust, you should make sure you absolutely trust -your smartphone keyboard not to store your written text.
-When you keep the above statements in mind, it gets unhealthily -fear-inducing when you read how SwiftKey -had a cloud syncing glitch which led to users being able to view other -users’ email addresses. It is also scary how SwiftKey -that shipped by default on 600M Samsung Galaxy smartphones had a -vulnerability that allowed hackers to setup a proxy server to access -sensors and install apps without the user knowing. There was also a -keyboard called ai.type that had over 40M users. Out of these, 31M -users had their data leaked because the MongoDB database had no -password. This included information like phone -numbers, full names, device names and models, screen resolution, Android -version, IMSI and IMEI numbers, email addresses, country of residence, -social media profiles, IP addresses and even locations.
-What is the solution to this madness? Fortunately, if you are on -Android, you have free software options. By using free software -keyboards, you can ensure that none of your keystrokes are stored or -sent to a server. This brings us to AnySoftKeyboard. -AnySoftKeyboard is a free, libre and open-source keyboard for Android -that has multiple modes, layouts, theme customizations and more. It has -all the features you would expect. Gesture typing, keyboard effects, -corrections, emojis, you name it. Most importantly, it does not track -any of your keystrokes. I have been using it for almost an year. It has -been fast and efficient due to the minimalism and has saved me a lot of -time. It has many niche features like a terminal layout that has arrows, -tabs, pipes and forward slashes for ease of use in Android terminal -emulators like Termux.
-If you are on an iPhone, the best option is ironically Gboard. You -can block Gboard’s tracking using iOS’ tracker blocking. Gboard does not -log the text you store and instead uses federated learning to improve -its autocorrect. There are no private options for an iPhone so it is -better to choose the best out of two evils.
-All in all, the keyboard you use should be a factor for everyone. Use -a different keyboard and do not use the default one unless you are on LineageOS or GrapheneOS.
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