Configure Gboard Privacy (Google Keyboard)
Google launched the updated version of Google Keyboard for Android, now called Gboard, recently introducing new features such as search directly from within the keyboard interface.
I'm not a huge fan of the new functionality as I don't require it at all. Unfortunately, there is no option to disable it completely in the application's settings. While browsing through the preferences the app makes available, I noticed quite a few that are privacy related.
It was quite disturbing to realize that many of them were enabled by default, submitting data to Google in the process when the keyboard app is used on the Android device.
This privacy guide for Gboard was born out of this.
Configure Gboard Privacy
To get started, open any chat app on your device, e.g. WhatsApp, start a chat with someone, and tap on the G-button that the keyboard displays now when the keyboard is opened.
Select the preferences icon then to open the Gboard settings.
The main privacy settings that the app provides are found under Text Correction, Search, and Advanced.
Text Correction
Tap on Text Correction first. You find automated text correction and suggestion options there for the most part. For instance, you may enable or disable the showing of suggestions while you type, or the blocking of offensive words.
Personalized suggestions is enabled by default. Gboard "learns" from other Google apps and services, to improve suggestions.
Search
Search displays only two options. One to hide the G-button (but not to remove it completely), anothe for predictive search.
This feature analyses what you type while you do so to suggest matching Google Search queries. What this does is send anything you type to Google Search for processing.
Advanced
Most privacy related options are found under advanced. There you find that the sharing of usage statistics and the sharing of snippets is enabled by default.
Share usage statistics sends keyboard usage statistics to Google automatically. Share snippets on the other hand what and how you type in Google apps to Google.
Clearing data
If you use Gboard with suggestions, you may have noticed that there is no option to delete suggestions either completely or individually. You can clear the data of the application in the Android settings, but that removes all custom settings and customization from the app.
Closing Words
I dislike the extra line the G-Button or >-Button take when you use the keyboard. Since I have no use for search or suggestions, I decided to install a different keyboard instead on my Android device. My choice fell on Hacker's Keyboard, a free keyboard app for Android that requires no extra permissions.
Now You: Which keyboard app do you use?
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?