Nova Launcher gets a new owner and... ads
https://www.androidauthority.com/nova-launcher-acquisition-ads-update-3633871/Open linkView original on reddthat.com766
Comments157https://www.androidauthority.com/nova-launcher-acquisition-ads-update-3633871/Open linkView original on reddthat.com
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
You want to use one of the much more recent nightly or beta builds.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair
Can you remove the search bar at the bottom of the home screen?
Yeah, that's what I do. It's fully customizable.
Hm maybe I'll try it out.
I used to use lawnchair. Good reason to switch back.
I ducked off the Nova train with their fishy new owners a few months ago. My one complaint about Lawnchair is that the search function is slower and less effective, otherwise it's great!
If anyone is looking to try something new - I really enjoyed
WaterfallNiagra after dropping Nova.+1 for Niagra. It takes a few days to get used to but it's the launcher every power user didn't know they wanted. Lifetime purchase options and a very responsive/passionate dev
Seconded. Looks good and I've found browsing by letter is way faster than the traditional folders (although you can still use folders with premium). I bought the upgrade after a few months.
I picked up Lawnchair when I de-googled my phone a bit more than a year ago. There were a couple launchers I considered, but honestly the name is what sold me. And I haven't missed Nova since.
Made the switch last year. Have had no issues,especially now that you can do folders.
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.
nextcloud! mariadb! libreoffice!
Fuck MariaDB, all my homies use Postgres.
Mariadb got bought by a private equity strip miner company late 2024, so it will probably be mined for every enshittification possible before thrown on the garbage heap like every company private equity has acquired before it.
(It always takes a few years of inefficient planning before private equity starts rolling out enshittification)
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.
There is something to be said about continuous community effort. Projects tend to continue even with original developers absent, sometimes for a very long time.
One of my favourite games is STALKER, and boy does it hold a story and history behind the community. The eurojank game that was modded into an AAA looking survival game that was even published to GOG (STALKER GAMMA). Such project could've probably costed millions for a studio. Coincidentally, watched this video today, which briefly tells the history too: https://youtu.be/5C80TWlTC1o
I'm getting really tired of companies pissing all over my name!
time to go super...
Shouldn't have tried to disassemble Johnny 5.
No disassemble!
No disassemble!
Newton Crosby. Jackass.
It already had a new owner which is why I stopped using it years ago.
Up until today I was happy with turning off updates (as a precaution) and restricting Nova's internet access (all phone network access is proxied through Rethink+), but this made me switch to Lawnchair and leave a 1-star review for both the free version and the paid upgrade token.
I didn't know about Rethink, looks like a cool project
It's excellent, you can filter network access per app, or per IP, or isolate an app and allow it to access only certain addresses / ranges and the interface is really intuitive and user-friendly.
Thats why you want open source software, its the only software you can trust, its the only software that won't fuck you over
Until these mfs relicense their sht and we have to fork
at least forking is an option you can choose, and someone else with decent reputation in the foss community will probably also do it before you, instead of just accepting being fucked up the ass with no lube for the third time this week
Except when it goes from open source to closed lol
At which point it simply gets forked from the last release/commit. Unless the project nukes all of the history and no one comes forward with a backup.
And, they would typically need the consent of every contributor to legally change the license, unless they had been forcing contributors to sign over rights to their code before contribution.
Ahh sonofabitch! It's already updated for me and there is no changelog. Turned off auto update.
Edit: and uninstalled. Lawnchair FTW.
Yeah. Totally correct. That one slipped by.
Annnnd TIME! About 1 hour.
95% interface and widgets swapped over to lawnchair!
Boom!
Just get the older APK form one of the mirror sites.
This used to be my favorite piece of software I paid for. Then..... 💩
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
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.
I just switched to Octopi. For me, it's an almost perfect replacement. Plus it's a local developer.
Can confirm, only one that had feature parity for most of my nova setup
I showed my wife the before and after of my home pages. She said, "They're the same."
Happy.
Is this open source?
(I couldn't find it)
If you want FOSS, check KISS launcher. Its feature rich, light on resources, and available through F-droid.
Awesome app, replaced Lawnchair. Development simply moved too slowly on LC
is it new? cant find it on the launcher comparison table https://grabster.notion.site/6671f3b62d8043c4aaaae22a241e3f05?v=91d9b664887643298f85fe18044d3560
thanks for this table!
Nova is rated as advanced customisability, and in this table Bridge Launcher is the only FLOSS launcher that has advanced customisability and is not discontinued, but based on the app page it's basically a programming platform, not an actual launcher :c
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 got scared, I thought that was the one I'm using but I switched to Niagara Launcher long ago
I switched to Niagara a few months ago and bought it. It's been working great for me. No regrats.
Yeah same here. Text based launcher really has helped me put phone down more which is great.
Niagara with minimalist black and white icons is just awesome
Niagara Launcher is great. I have been using it for a few years now
Yup, Niagara is a dream. I hope it stays this way forever, but even if it doesn't I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
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!
Hyperion seems like a good drop-in replacement.
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.
But I don't wanna redesign my nice app tray and home screen. Can I just never update it?
That's my plan...
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
I just switched to Lawnchair recently, and I really like it. I'll definitely give Dragon a look.
I also went from Nova Launcher to Lawnchair and it's been great. I'll check out Dragon some time but I'm glad I found a suitable replacement for Nova.
I recommend Kvaesitso, very snappy with lots of functionality.
That's my second favorite after Smart Launcher
Am I just not seeing it or do they not seem to allow icons on the desktop?
they do? you go to the settings, home screens, and increase the dock rows.
It just looks like none of the screen shots are showing desktop icons which is weird
if you think its a bug, i think you can create an issue here https://github.com/MM2-0/Kvaesitso/issues
I did try that when switching from Nova but it ran quite horribly on my phone. I've since switched to Olauncher and while the absolutely minimalistic style took some time getting used to, I don't want to go back anymore.
Fuck. I bought this forever ago, either for my Droid 2 or my Galaxy S3. Skipped it on my first Pixel and came back on the Pixel 7.
Haven't really heard any talk about it, didn't know about the owner/dev drama until seeing some comments here.
Haven't noticed any ads myself yet, but maybe that's a "coming soon" thing.
Time to go launcher shopping again. This thread mentioned Lawnchair and Niagara, so I'll check those out first.
I was a longtime nova user. Switched to octopi launcher. It has all my favorite features from nova.
I bought it back then in the Android... 2.x or 4.x days as the launcher on my phone sucked. Hadn't much complaints about the stock launchers of my next few phones and forgot about it until I got a Pixel. Wow, the pixel launcher was a complete letdown. Especially the forced unremovable search bar that's completely useless for me and takes up so much real estate on the screen. Then I couldn't remove the at a glance widget either (IIRC a big back then, but.... Yeah...). I get it, that it's nice, but... Again: Too much real estate for a clock, a totally unreliable weather info (at least in my area?) and info about the currently playing song.
Searched launchers, remembered Nova and was surprised it was still around and had all the features I wanted. Bonus: it allows me to resize widgets.
I tried Octopi, when the owner change news for Nova hit, but was so used to having folders on the dock from my previous phones and Nova, that I couldn't use it without that feature. So I tried lawnchair which is basically the pixel launcher but with exactly the features I missed in the original. I can get rid of spotlight and can get rid of the search bar. Widgets are resizable. Also the dock features folders. And I can control the grid size and adjust it to my liking.
Niagara was also recommended to me, but... IIRC in the end it felt to opinionated about the workflow and immediately lost me. Not what I'm looking for in a launcher. (Not saying it's bad - just that it's not for me).
I'm using Niagara in the free tier and I'm very happy with it. it's snappy and good looking and I spend so little time hunting through my apps for the ones I need thanks to the favorites section on the home screen. good stuff
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.
https://f-droid.org/packages/org.elnix.dragonlauncher
Its on Github.
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 😭
I'm not familiar with Nova launcher, it seems to have some USPs to it.
But these days I always recommend Lawnchair. It's built on top of the Pixel launcher, which in itself is a very good launcher IMHO, and refines it to be more customizable.
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
Fossify Launcher works well, that's what I switched to.
i like lawnchair launcher :3
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.
I ditched them years ago after they got bought out the first time.
Glad I read the writing on the wall and switched a few months ago
Seems like all of our concerns have come true. I'm glad I switched earlier when the main dev bounced.
Been using Smart Launcher and haven't looked back.
I also liked Niagara too.
I dropped them back then too. I have been using lawn chair and I really like it. Could have a few more options but still quite nice
I wanted to like lawn chair and gave them an honest try but so many features I have come to rely on weren't quite there.
I realize that they were designed as a replacement of pixel's launcher but still... I would have loved to keep using them.
I am now using a paid version of Smart Launcher and praying to God that they won't do what Nova did.
Not just designed, lawnchair is a fork of the AOSP launcher which is why they look so similar. It's also partially why they have a comparatively slow development cycle, because they spend a lot of effort rebasing whenever AOSP's launcher has significant changes.
Upvote for Smart Launcher
Is it OSS? If not I wont bother anymore
I switched to SmartLauncher about 4 months ago and have not looked back. It's fine for what I need. I was a nova launcher user for a decade.
SmartLauncher meant I had to make some changes to how I use my launcher, but in the long run it's miles better for usability. Never looking back.
Same here, I jumped ship as soon as they got a new owner. SmartLauncher has been fantastic so far.
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.
Dumped Nova as soon as the sellout was announced. Replaced it with Octopi, which I found to be better anyways.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopilauncher&hl=en_US&pli=1
I'm glad that the original developers have made some money.
I'm more glad that the new owners will lose all that good will, trust and activity. At the risk of sounding too much like Picard,....... "make it so"
Does a launcher need network access at all?
I have disabled network for this app now. Let's see what happens.
It doesn't. I've also disabled network access to Nova years ago (GrapheneOS FTW). I'm gonna go ahead and disable updates for Nova and try to fully commit to switching to Lawnchair.
I can report now: it complains once every morning that it has no network access. But no further problems.
this last week i finally bit the bullet and switched my default launcher to smart launcher once they finally got infinite scrolling working.
i think 2 days later nova updated to this latest version. i'm not going to see ads since i paid for it more than a decade ago. but that fb tracking (that i was not made aware of) i really don't like.
i hope nova gets open sourced soon.
I often forget that I use Action Launcher. It has a feature that I love called Covers where an app icon is both an icon and a folder depending if I tap or swipe it.
I still miss my smart launcher 3. It was just so smooth, tidy and easy to navigate, but unfortunately pretty much every 3rd party launcher breaks on foldables
Interesting. That's the one thing I would miss the most about bailing on Nova. I'll have to check this out.
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!
Is it not possible to have a launcher that modifies the menu that appears when you slide down from the top of the screen (brightness and notifications menu..)?
I would really like a separate menu for quickly changing brightness and volume
I believe that is all part of the OS and not anything a launcher can do. Unless you disable it at a system level and then have a launcher that was setup to display a custom similar menu when you did the swipe gesture. But I still think it would only work on the home screen and not inside any apps.
I see, sad stuff
Hopefully Graphene gets custom UIs one day
Thanks for your answer
I blocked the app from updating itself.
KISS
I stopped auto-updates when the last death happened. Now I'm exploring Lawnchair.
Luckily I bought the prime version in 2018 or so for a few cents. Means I only have to configure Lawnchair when I get a new phone. Win for laziness.
Damn. Time to get rid of nova launch.
Damn.
I use Total Launcher, even if it's not Foss, since it's the only launcher I found that give me the tools to do anything I want, even in it's free tier. I never had issues with it. But I hope to find a foss alternative one day.
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.
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.
Bought it so many years ago. Moved to action launcher and since that was abandoned, I'm now using lynx launcher which works perfectly for me.
That's capitalism we all know consumers demand adds overloading everything. /s
Thanks for this post, I quickly turned off auto-updates 👀
I only started using it half a year ago, but it was still the best from all the launchers I've tried 😔
I switched to Action Launcher years ago and have been very happy with it.
So, i don't need much from a launcher but gestures, custom icons and folders have been apart of my smartphone for so many year they're a must.
If they stick with ads only for unpaid use, I'm okay with that. Software authors need to make a living.
Overall, I'm happy to see Nova Launcher getting support again. I've tried a half-dozen other launchers without finding one that really does everything I want.
I switched from nova to Niagara a few years back and after the break in period, I love it.
Also swapped to Niagara a few years back and paid for the pro license last year or so
Been pretty worth, though I kinda miss the customization options of using kwlp+nova
AFAIK the app is the same in both free and paid case. Which doesn't necessarily mean paid version gets the adds as well, but it's more likely the case. 🤷♂️
You're right, but a lot of apps work the same way, and only serve ads to unpaid users. I'm hoping for the best.
Laughs in iOS
You're only laughing because you'd cry otherwise