I briefly tried FUTO a long time ago but it nowhere approached what I needed.

Well, I don’t use swipe, regardless which keyboard I’m using or even which device I’m using. I use about twenty different devices depending what I’m doing. Don’t ask lol. The frank reality is nothing whatsoever beats the iPhone when it comes to knowing what you meant to type. Even though the iPhone has recently had some really weird problems with autocorrect, I have sometimes been so shaky (Tourette’s) and I’ve typed some of the most incoherent drivel, and yet my iPhone got everything 100% corrected to what I intended to type. It’s just frankly astonishing.

But on Android my goal was to avoid Google products when possible. That’s why I went with Heliboard. FOSS, very customizable, backup and restore all settings (MAJOR help when adding to a new device). There are truly an impressive and elegantly functional features, anticipating a wide variety of needs.
BUT I have to erase and retype well more than half of my input. And that’s not including any shaking just for the record.

Meanwhile, gboard does about 85% as good a job as iPhone. I mean, I’ve got shit to get done, ya know? So, for now I am using gboard most of the time and I’ll change back to Heli once in awhile to see if it’s any better after there’s been an update.

Cool.

I really like Heliboard but Jesus does it suck at autocorrect and detecting what key I meant to hit. Gboard is a thousand times more accurate in these respects and so I default to Heliboard but I’ll occasionally switch to gboard if I have a lot to type and Heli is just wasting my time.

Is that actually your name? As in, גדליה? Juuuuust curious.

I buy slightly older phone in Lots. I clean them, test them and then I change them over to a ROM that runs nicely. Then I sell them at a modest markup. I’ve sold about like twenty so far in the past year and I have about forty waiting to be finished. Due to chronic illnesses I have, I often have weeks during which I can’t make any progress.

I know there are plenty of enthusiasts who would like to run a smoother OS that doesn’t spy on them or waste sys resources on bloatware, but oftentimes those people are afraid to do their own hack for concern they’ll mess up. That’s basically my customer base and I’ve been very happy to help get these devices to folks who want this experience.

I like crDroid, ResurrectionRemix, BlissOS, Lineage, Havoc, /e/, Iodé, and like a dozen others such as generic AOSP based etc. There are like a hundred. I just discovered SuperiorOS I put onto a Moto X4. Superior is quite an apropos name, it’s really sweet!

Samsung and Motorola are a smooth process (provided not restricted due to carrier or because it’s a prepay). Some LG are very good as well, but too many are not accommodating and also lots of them crap out. I do like my G4. I have about thirty devices I use somewhat regularly for this or that.

There are plenty brands, though, that I’ve not yet tried out.

I suppose. Hey to each their own. I personally toy with the other ROMs a lot but I don’t yet have anything running a custom brew that accesses anything very secure etc.

That’s not the single solution. You can put dozens of ROMs on dozens of other devices. I buy older devices at cheap prices and put custom ROMs on them and then sell them. It’s fairly lucrative; more so as time goes on. Plenty of people want this kind of privacy but don’t have the skills or confidence to modify their devices. Motorola and Samsung the most by far, but also LG and various others occasionally.

I’m gonna stick to pre-owned devices with alternate ROMs like Lineage, Cyanogen, RR, Havoc, Bliss, cr, Viper, AOSP, KP, ISP, etc. or any of the other hundred brews. I don’t anticipate getting a phone that runs android and is not able to be modified EVER. Eventually if the time comes that the tech changed so vastly that they’re not usable anymore (like 3G now) by then hopefully there will be full Linux phones or some other varieties. Maybe many.

But the thing is the mainstream masses just don’t give a shit. Their rights and liberties have been getting chewed away at for decades and they just can’t seem to care. As long as they are entertained enough and the culture like ours - ie geek subculture / hacking community continues to be mocked and vilified, they’re certainly not gonna listen to us.

But what’s new about that? Nada.

We are forever going to remain a fringe community and I just accept that. When a family member has Alexa devices and I show them all the analytics and tests and records from all the various sources that provide empirical evidence of constant surveillance and spying and uploading of eavesdropped audio and the folks just go eh oh well eh yeah but ah useful eh I have nothing to hide ehhh urrrgh … I start to see them with sunken eye sockets and protruding brow ridges. They are the fools and the suckers and the sheep. They’re the ones who will line up to be implanted with a chip, they’re the ones who will pay to have their brains mapped and catalogued. You can’t cure fucking stupid. Meanwhile people like us will remain the fringe “undesirables” as long as our hearts beat.

I’ve said on a few occasions when this subject came up about them closing off the ability to install whatever you want - the only reason Android has been what it is until now is because they needed an “in” to compete against iOS and Windows. Gaining a foothold was the priority, but now that they’re huge they can do what they’ve always wanted, to follow Apple’s example of mandatory middle-man.

It’s sickening. What people need to do is only buy second-hand and use devices that can be ROM-ed. I have a couple dozen that I tinker with and test stuff on. I also buy older models, put custom ROMs and Recovery and then sell them at a small premium, but I digress.

There’s only one way to get what you want as a consumer: unite and don’t buy.

In the current age, antitrust laws don’t apply to major shareholders of the Corporation of America.

First game I ever played that had that had an arena where you’re running around fighting enemies and the emcee bad guy was like the dude from The Running Man, and he would yell “TOTAL CARNAGE! IIIIIIIII LOVE IT!!!” damn what was that game called? SMASH TV!

Wow I’ve never seen anyone actually argue their own hypocrisy with hypocrisy.

Motivations are irrelevant. Equality is equality, you can’t give rights to one demographic and deny to another because you think the other is ‘icky’. That is discrimination. Kinda the very thing we’re trying to argue against, and yet you used it as part of your reasoning.

Verbatim in my experience have consistently been the best of everything they’ve made. Also usually the most expensive so they’re not really what most people will buy, unfortunately. Memorex has been a pretty good mid-range, I’d even put it just below Verbatim. But when people buy these shit TDK stuff… you’re not gonna be happy.

Anyway these days you can stick what… 2TB yet? on a microSD. I know that discs offer the not subject to magnetic damage but still… they fail after age far earlier than promised when they were sold.

Fault tolerance is the best for anyone who can afford it. Only way to make sure stuff lasts.

Yes! Damn I knew it sounded weird. Thanks.

Nice! I only played one of them. Whichever one has him say the line “The price of peace freedom is eternal vigilance.” It’s been a loooong time but I remember that very cool quote.

Tom Wilson, and John Rhys-Davies.

I remember one of them had Malcolm McDowell as Admiral Tolwin.

Yes, I’m aware of the ability to manually hide a directory. Thank you anyway for making the suggestion. I do wish the app properly respected the .nomedia file. Ah well.

Meanwhile I have another crash Android dilemma going on as well. Most of the time Android is freaking amazing to me, and then there are times I wonder how something fundamental and basic has been overlooked.

I don’t see any setting that would affect it. Is it possible I have to enable some setting? No matter how I configure it, it’s displaying images within folders that have a .nomedia file.

I’d like also to ask is there any difference between Aves Libre and the Aves Gallery app in the Play store & Aurora store?