There are many keyboards for Android, but most people are familiar with only three: GBoard (the pre-installed Google Keyboard on all Androids), Samsung Keyboard, and Microsoft Swift Key. But if you don’t want Multinational to collect data from what you type on your mobile phone, none of these keyboards are good options. That’s when you should think about privacy-focused open source keyboards.
OpenPad is undoubtedly the most popular of the open source keyboards, but it hasn’t improved as expected. It hasn’t been updated since 2022, just like FlorisBoard, another open source alternative to Google Keyboard that’s by the wayside (at least when it comes to updates).
Now developer “Helium314” has released the HeliBoard keyboard, a successor to OpenBoard (it’s actually based on the same code). It can be considered a refreshed version of OpenBoard, although it has not lost its focus on privacy, customization and simplicity. I have tried to tell you what it looks like and how it works.
This is HeliBoard: a simple open source keyboard that doesn’t collect your data and is short on customization
HeliBoard is an open source keyboard that has been in the works for months under the name “OpenBoard Helium314” (it’s here on GitHub). Why did he use this name? “Helium314” is what the creator calls himself and “OpenBoard” is because of that keyboard. In fact, it is considered a renewed fork of OpenBoard.
The most amazing thing about this keyboard is the fact that it is based on AOSP, because it does not use internet permission, it does not collect or send data to any server. That means you can use it offline without losing any of its features.
Don’t let the looks fool you, it’s a very complete keyboard.
Its interface is very similar to GBoard. It’s very minimalistic and uses Material UI to automatically adapt to your phone’s design. But from the settings you can change the pattern to “Holo” or “Round”. You can also add borders to the keys and adjust the height of the keyboard.
When you open it, it won’t show anything but the letters, but if you tap the arrow at the top, you’ll see a toolbar. From left to right, Heliboard’s standard equipment in the top bar is:
Voice input: Use a Google service so you can type text using your voice, allowing you to save and paste your copied text. You can set this option to not save anything you copy, or to have the clipboard delete itself after a certain amount of time.Undo: to undo what you typed or pasted Redo: to undo what you deleted or cut Open keyboard settings to customize.Select All: Allows you to select everything in the text box, used to select only the word closest to the cursor.
From the keyboard settings menu, you can change the position of each device, remove it from the bar, and add a key to easily enable one-handed mode.
I especially like how the bar is standard and I didn’t change anything. I especially liked the “undo” and “redo” options common to PC programs, but I had no idea how useful they were on a mobile keyboard. Now, whenever I want to delete something I’ve written or accidentally typed, whenever I want to delete a link or text, I use these options.
It has some things to improve
The keyboard supports multiple languages (including Spanish), has a personal dictionary, has an incognito mode (to avoid learning new words) and even has a test function that tries to predict the URLs you add. Now, not everything is perfect on this keyboard.
Gesture control isn’t included (you’ll have to add it yourself by downloading Google’s closed-source library), and because of that, it doesn’t offer as many options for gesture control as Gboard. I also couldn’t get the keyboard’s haptic feedback to work on my phone (Galaxy S22) while writing this article, so pressing a letter didn’t give the slightest vibration.
These are things that spoil the experience, but the developer has already confirmed that he is working to fix these details. Personally, I don’t use the keyboard for gestures very often and the lack of haptic feedback doesn’t bother me that much, although I hope they add it soon.
This is a keyboard I would definitely recommend, especially if you’re concerned about your privacy or just want a simple keyboard with “redo” and “undo” options.
Where to download Heliboard Keyboard for Android
While they promised to add it to F-Droid at some point, it’s now only available for download from GitHub via the following link:
Download APK | Heliboard
You just need to click on the file “HeliBoard_X.X-release.apk” to download. If you have questions, here is a tutorial where we explain how to download a file from GitHub. It is not known whether Heliboard will reach the Google Play Store or not, so wait and download it from the link above.
