this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
289 points (99.7% liked)

Privacy

32471 readers
266 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

If you use the privacy respecting Gboard alternative called FUTO keyboard, you've probably noticed that the built in swipe typing is HOT GARBAGE. (Typing this currently with two thumbs for this exact reason.)

Most keyboards improve their swipe algorithms by simply spying on you and logging your typing data. FUTO isn't about that, so they have built a simple webpage based typing game that you can use to improve their system in an ethical and voluntary manner! Just swipe the website's keyboard to type a provided sentence.

I love this, they can crowdsource the improvement without invading privacy!

Share with any relevant communities you're a part of. The more data, the better this gets.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I thought so too! FUTO is a project worth supporting in my opinion.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Pitched in 100 words! Definitely some open source swiping keyboard gesture databases would be helpful for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Agreed! I use Heliboard but am glad you pitch in some words.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I just gave them 500 new data samples. :) My thumb is sore.

[–] Chais 6 points 2 months ago
[–] akilou 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm trying really hard to not revert back to Swiftkey (again, as I do every time I run out of patience with a new privacy respecting keyboard), and I don't even use swipe typing. I'm still hoping that the more I type the better the predictions will get but after using it for a few months I feel like I'm just adapting to bad predictions rather than the predictions getting better.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I'm using this one. https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard Once I downloaded dictionary for my native language+ English that came preinstalled, and granted permission to learn from my typing, it's pretty good.

Not as good as swift key, but enough for my needs. I don't use swipe typing but someone I know said it is alright.

[–] akilou 5 points 2 months ago

I tried it a while ago but found the predictions were bad. Maybe I'll give it another shot

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I was skeptical first but after a day or two or became good and now after a month I can't explain why I didn't make the switch earlier it's perfect for my use and I feel more in line with my values

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Do you have the LLM fine tuning enabled? Mine is pretty good after a few months of training it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Wait you can train the Futo keyboard? I tried it a while ago and noticed the poor accuracy and decided to shelve it for a while.

[–] akilou 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah, it's been on and to answer questions below, no it doesn't affect my battery.

I'm having small problems like suggesting capitalized words in the middle of a sentence and suggesting capitalized words as a different word than the non capitalized ones. Like it'll suggest "That" in the middle of a sentence and also "that" at the same time, so two of the three slots are taken up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Does that affect your battery much? The warning pushed me away from trying it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

No noticeable difference.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Does it eat a lot of battery for you?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Please everybody do this. This is sure to help other keyboards, too.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Is it? The FTL is restrictive about who is allowed to redistribute and modify anything covered by it. Is this data covered under a different license?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

FUTO was the joke naming we'd use for files in an old job as there was this one guy who's files were always "FileName-Final" or "FileName-Final2" or "FileName-UseThisOne". So FUTO (Final Use This One) became the name for the most up to date versions

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

What a cool idea! As an avid swipe user, I'll try to send as many samples as I can!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Are they going to share this data with the open source community or is this just for their proprietary keyboard?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I've never used swipe typing, so my data is probably garbage, but its kinda fun.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Data is data! You're a use case, regardless of swipe ability.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

As are a bunch of other people. It helps.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

This is amazing. I really want to ditch Gboard. I hope this Futo can replace it completely.

[–] Ashyr 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm on iOS, but I gave it a few minutes of swiping to help out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah I love swiping to type so I use Gboard but I gave them 101 words to help. I'd gladly switch if they can make it this good.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Would love to help, but they need a way more optimized site or a faster server, whichever is causing the slowness. Waited a full minute and barely got the keyboard to load.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure I hugged it to death with the post. Was working fine for the last couple of days.

[–] Chais 2 points 2 months ago

Worked fine for me. Might just have been the first rush.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (9 children)

They should simply allow collecting this data via opt-in. I'd gladly provide it, but I don't want it to be opt-out, because then this feels sneaky.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

That would require a lot of data privacy concerns to be addressed. Even if it's an explicit opt-in. The current method uses sample text which can't include PII. Using user supplied text would almost guarantee they'd get names and other PII in their data set.

I also imagine it's harder to train the model when you don't know exactly what the user was trying to type. I.e. Was the swipe detection wrong, or did the user delete the word because they changed their mind on what to write?

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Feel like I'm destroying the dataset with QWERTY so I'll wait until QWERTZ is available :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Cool, I will help too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

And I've just gotten used to Dvorak...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

They're probably getting this part of the project started, and might go for more once this works

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The one thing I really don't like about it, that really prevents me from using the keyboard is that when I misspell something, and it autocorrects, and then I want to add something else to it, hitting the backspace key removes the autocorrection, with no way to disable it (at least from what I've seen), I cannot stand that, which is why I've still been using gboard, but without network permissions because I'm on GrapheneOS.

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

Try Heliboard! It allows you to customise that

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Now at this point I think I'm just being picky, but I don't want the toolbar either.

Edit: I have still yet to find an open-sourced keyboard app that does exactly what I'm looking for.

[–] LouisGarbuor 2 points 1 month ago

Just did 1,010 words!

Found out that the skip button skips the word, not the prompt.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Although I don't use FUTO keyborad, I don't think collecting typing data is a problem, as long as it is done locally. There shouldn't be a binary choice between privacy and better user experience.

load more comments
view more: next ›