Hello, could someone recommended a keyboard for android that is a bit smart in predictive typing? I used to like swiftkeybefore it was bought by microsoft. Not that swiftkey itself was much better but I was not so privy conscious at that time.
I recall swiftkey would require access to your texts and emails to train itself to your predictions.
Is there some similar foss keyboard where all the data then remains local?
I know swiftkey has an incognito mode, but then it stops learning from your typing.
It may depends on your rom/os brand. On my device (oxygen os 13.x), I can restrict access somewhere deep into mobile network settings (the translation may not be good as I have it in French) :
Settings > mobile network > data consumption > network access.
And here I see all apps. I can restrict mobile network, WiFi or both.
If you do not have an LSposed framework or similar (formerly knows as Xposed Framework) you can either use Adaway for blocking the phone from reaching websites (keep in mind that this is globally, though) or e.g. AFWall+ for preventing single Apps to connect to the internet (Apps that don't try to get internet access are not shown is the list provided by AFWall+).
If you have LSposed or similar I believe it is possible to install XprivacyLua. This was/is(?) a very powerful tool to manage every single access an app is trying to get. Why would a sketchy chinese calculator app need access to the contacts and the internet even though this was never allowed in the system settings?
I'm in the same boat as OP (I have a device without root for the first time in a long time) and I miss both apps. I do use a pihole+VPN for what adaway does. But there's no real replacement for AFWall/iptables without root. As pointed out, though, you can block individual apps in some modern versions of android. Fortunately, I have that.