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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.
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.
They got a new owner years ago. No one should still be using it. Lawnchair has been great for me.
Holy shit the screenshots on Play store are depressing
Once again the "Everything that's not FOSS will turn to shit at one point or another" theorem proves true.
And if a FOSS project turns into shit a fork will come up.
One perfect example was simple apps acquisition. New owners turned it a ad ridden mess, fossify apps fork came to the rescue.
Yeah but foss has its own problems. Mainly financing. People are expected to work for free on most open source projects, and some do because they enjoy it. I do that myself too. Its fun.
But foss doesnt create products that require a lot of funding to get off the ground.
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.
Don't forget to leave a bad review before uninstalling it.
I JUST STARTED USING IT TWO WEEKS AGO CMON
I love that picture. XD
They were already acquired by a shit head like 3 years ago. This is just a new shit head.
Bit late to the party...
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'm getting really tired of companies pissing all over my name!
time to go super...
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 😭
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.
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
It already had a new owner which is why I stopped using it years ago.
Thats why you want open source software, its the only software you can trust, its the only software that won't fuck you over
This used to be my favorite piece of software I paid for. Then..... 💩
Ahh sonofabitch! It's already updated for me and there is no changelog. Turned off auto update.
Edit: and uninstalled. Lawnchair FTW.
You should really not have automatic updates on. Aside from the fact that you also should have moved away from Nova years ago when Branch first acquired them.
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!
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:
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
I've been using lawnchair (which is a great substitute) ever since the news of the buyout from an ad company was announced, but that was a long time ago... Not sure why this is coming up now.
Anyway, a few days back I found out a new launcher and I want to spread the love for it. It requires more effort to configure it at first but I'm really liking its UX and the simplicity of the screen. It is called dragon launcher and I am having a nice time making small incremental changes to personalize it more and more and has been working great for me: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.elnix.dragonlauncher
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.
I just switched to Octopi. For me, it's an almost perfect replacement. Plus it's a local developer.
But I don't wanna redesign my nice app tray and home screen. Can I just never update it?
