Does anyone know of a FOSS launcher that actually does the one thing from Nova I haven’t been able to see anyone replicate: empty pages
No I don’t want you to automatically delete my pages when I delete all the icons from a page— I have a KLWP I built with the page count in mind.
It seems like such an easy thing that I have such a hard time finding.
I just want an app drawer and two empty pages.
Nova Launcher was acquired by analytics firm Branch Metrics in 2022 . Barry initially stayed on to continue development, but the situation deteriorated. After being the sole developer for the past year, Barry announced he had left Branch and was no longer involved with Nova Launcher . The Broken Promises: Branch’s then-CEO and founder Alex Austin made public commitments to the community about open-sourcing the code if Barry ever left . However, Barry was ultimately asked to stop working on Nova Launcher and the open sourcing effort he had been preparing . The Irony: Nova Launcher is now owned by Swedish company Instabridge and already contains code for Facebook Ads and Google AdMob trackers, with ads being integrated into the app . This is exactly the kind of enshitification that the community feared when an analytics company acquired it in the first place. In Barry’s actual statement, he was more restrained—just expressing that he was grateful for the community’s support while confirming he’d left. But the community response on Reddit and elsewhere absolutely used the word “enshitification” to describe what happened to their beloved launcher.
Pure fucking bullshit.
I JUST STARTED USING IT TWO WEEKS AGO CMON
They were already acquired by a shit head like 3 years ago. This is just a new shit head.
Bit late to the party…
I love that picture. XD
Don’t forget to leave a bad review before uninstalling it.
I recommend dragon launcher or lawnchair
dragon is now my favorite, the ring design is awesome and the dev is active, but lawnchair is the most like nova but open source.
Where do I find this dragon launcher? I searched for it in the Play store and didn’t see it.
Its on Github.
Nova launcher works great for me, I haven’t let it update in years. Looks like that isn’t going to change.
I’ve been burned so many times that I’ve finally learned my lesson. When I find that I like an app, that it does everything I want, the first thing I do is turn auto updates off. It can stay frozen in time forever, just working normally.
Understand where the thought comes from, but do you know what zero days are
No one is going to waste a zero day on a random guy using Nova launcher. Zero days are used against governments & other militaries.
But if you’re not installing updates to patch out a zero day, the vulnerability is still there.
when are you nerds going to learn that software is religion , developers are prophets, and users are following the words of God?
Yeah sure, the os gets regular updates, banking apps get updates.
But when it comes to digital devices, convenience and security are in a constant tug of war, ultimately we have to make a choice. And when I make that choice I remember that this isn’t a company phone, there’s no customer data at risk, no important info to be breached. And still the number of times I’ve been hacked: 0
They’re talking about app updates not firmware and system updates
Apps can have vulnerabilities too. What happens when something you install can make changes to your launcher because one of it’s libraries has a known hole? Launchers get a decent level of unchecked power.
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Maybe after the big changes with the Linux desktop in the last year we might start to see renewed focus on a truly open source phone OS
There already is one.
Not much focus yet 😭
On 3, 2, 1,… Everybody Juuuuuuump to any other good launchers
I like this one https://kvaesitso.mm20.de/
This is what I’m using too. Was a little different, but simple enough, out of the way enough and easy too. Goldilocks zone launcher
This one is the best!
Yep. Kvaesitso is the goat!
Can’t recommend KISS Launcher enough.
I am NOT a power user of my phone. That said, I’ve liked YAM Launcher for a while. It is minimalist and does everything I want in a launcher.
Hyperion seems like a good drop-in replacement.
Lawnchair is pretty good.
Yup. I’ve carried it over several phones, have the paid version.
Lawnchair doesn’t have a paid version, it’s open source
Might be a different launcher I had before then.
Wow, I’ve been using Nova Launcher. I paid for it and everything. Guess I’ll uninstall. The ads wouldn’t affect me, sure, but enshittification knows no bounds.
Dang… I saw this a while ago, but thanks to this post I looked again and it turned out that mine had automatically updated to the new version on Play Store. Went ahead and uninstalled it and then installed the latest Beta from before, and I was lucky that my email license still worked - don’t know for how long though (not sure if the check is hardcoded in some way or if it makes an API call).
It’s had a great run, but it’s just sad that it has to end like this. Would’ve been spectacular if it was open-sourced as promised.
I started looking into alternatives and it seems like no other launcher is quite there yet, but Lawnchair looks promising for my use. The whole situation started looking like the appropriate time to learn some Android development; a while ago I was thinking of forking the AOSP launcher and trying to implement some stuff by myself, but now it seems like contributing to Lawnchair would be a better idea.
I’ve installed Lawnchair and I’m quite happy with it.
I’ve tried it, but it’s missing some things I’m used to - both functionally and visually.
For example?
Off the top of my head:
- complex gestures (tap + swipe, two finger swipe/rotate)
- frequent/recent/new apps in app search
- app drawer tabs
- icon customisation for folders
- creating home screen shortcuts for activities (or if that’s possible, I couldn’t find it).
Of course this shouldn’t sound as a blame - I know Lawnchair is relatively young - those are a bit more advanced features that I grew used to over more than 10 years with Nova. When I manage to get a development environment running and some knowledge about Android, those are some of the first things I’d try to implement in Lawnchair.
Octopi Launcher is the best replacement. The developer is very active and listens to suggestions. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopilauncher
Yep. I recently bought a used Pixel 8 and wanted to install a new launcher - my googling turned up Nova launcher, but the app said it had ads, so I looked a bit further and installed Lawnchair instead. Does the job!
Finally removed it from my phone, octopi launcher does most of what I need even on the free version I do intend to pay for the extra functions when I can.
But yeah just remember you can sort the app drawer by tags and it’s almost there.
Fossify Launcher works well, that’s what I switched to.
