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Futo Keyboard for Android

The FUTO Keyboard distinguishes itself through a philosophy of "user sovereignty.” Mainstream competitors like Gboard (Google) and SwiftKey (Microsoft) focus on cloud integration and personal data collection. FUTO is different. It offers high-end AI features with zero data leakage.

Here are the primary factors that distinguish FUTO from its competitors:

1. Privacy

Unlike its competitors, like Microsoft with SwiftKey and Google with Gboard, Futo is private. Nothing is sent home to the parent company to be collected and sold. You don't need Internet access. Your passwords, and credit card numbers are safe. Their source code is available for inspection, unlike Google or Microsoft.

Rather than offering it for "free” and then selling your information, Futo is Honorware. No data collection, no ads. They request a one-time purchase, but whether you do that or not is up to you. The software is free whether you pay or not.

2. Top Technology

Google and Microsoft send your typing to their servers and use their large language models to give you smart next-word predictions. I find this idea of sending everything I type to Google or Microsoft a basically bad idea. By contrast, FUTO uses a local small language model on your device to determine the intent of the sentence and make intelligent predictions. I find it equivalent to Google, but faster, since it doesn't go up to the cloud. It learns how you type and what words you use but keeps that information local. To preserve it when you get a new phone, it is necessary to use their export backup function in their settings menu and then copy that file to your computer or cloud storage. You can then import it with your new phone or tablet.

But what about voice input? Doesn't that get sent out to Google's servers? OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, created an open-source text-to-voice module called Whisper. Futo uses a local version of that Whisper model to do excellent text-to-speech on your device.

3. My favorite features

1. Full clipboard archive available. I can copy many items and then paste them to another app in any order.
2. The keyboard size is easily and quickly adjustable.
3. Functional configuration. I can move the cursor by sliding along the space bar or delete multiple words by sliding along the delete key.
4. There's an undo key as part of the clipboard manager for when I really screw up.

Give it a try.

Links

• Their website: https://keyboard.futo.org/
• A nice 1 year old 8 minute Youtube video review. It is old, and has improved since. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL7_DmHcUe0
• Google Play Store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.futo.inputmethod.latin.playstore&hl=en