- cross-posted to:
- android@lemdro.id
- cross-posted to:
- android@lemdro.id
So, anybody know a good launcher to use once Nova goes offline?
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PSA: Nova Launcher’s owning company sells their user data. It was a good launcher when it first came out, but it’s been nothing but a downward spiral from there.
Edit for clarity: I don’t mean the app itself. It is owned by an entity that exists to sell consumer data.
I’ve been using Nova for ages, probably back from the KitKat days on a Samsung phone running Touchwiz, i.e. when everything from the vendor side was crap.
I just switched back to my Moto G5’s stock launcher. Honestly, it already does everything I did with Nova. It supports theming, adaptive icons, you can configure the density of its grid, etc. So I uninstalled Nova. Fuck it.
Realistically I think most stock launchers are probably perfectly adequate for everything normal users want to do these days.
I used to use Total launcher to make the most convoluted home screen possible that literally nobody but me knew how to use. Like several circles you swiped on in different directions to open folders, absolutely no labels, etc. Now I just use the stock pixel one lol
I miss swiping on icons. I used it for opening folders. Like Firefox would have all my most used browsers like Chromium Firefox Focus, and Firefox Nightly. My Messages app would have all my messaging apps. Camera had Photos, and photo editing apps. I barely had to go to the drawer.
I had the same experience when I recently had to get a new phone. Stock launchers have improved a lot.
But, but, they assured us that that wasn’t going to happen? You mean they lied??
JFC, what a fall from grace for Nova. Sad to see.
I’m opted out of that in my settings, it’d be quite the scandal if they were ignoring GDPR?
I’ve amended my comment to make it more clear. I didn’t mean to imply the app sends your data to third parties, only that the company who owns it profits off of third party information brokering. Where that information comes from is beside the point in my opinion.
It was the “end of an era” when they were sold off to a data-mining company years ago.
I used Nova for years. When they got bought out I switched to a bunch of different launchers. My favorite turned out to be Kvaesitso.
It was weird for me at first because having apps on the main screen was something I’ve grown acustomed to. You can have a row if you want though. There is an option. After using it for a few weeks, I realized their layout works best for me.
Let me know if there are other launchers you recommend. I appreciate it.
I tried to like Kvaezitso, and I loved some of the features, but it’s too strict in others that I didn’t like. I want Lawnchair and Kvaezitso to make love and have a perfect baby.
Its insane that custom launchers are even needed. I gave the base Samsung version a try and it wont even let me move the app drawer button, its glued to the bottom right. I’d expect an android to let me customize more than windows. Never understood the big tech companies need for this much control. Some brand manager will have a heartattack if I change an app icon, a basic feature in any version of Windows.
OnePlus does it pretty well. I just love the ability to have separate actions for swiping an app icon so I use nova
They keep things locked down for the 50% of the population with below average intelligence. It makes things easier to trouble shoot when you can’t move the important stuff. Also that group is usually the loudest complainers when they can’t find something, or something goes wrong.
I switched to Lawnchair a while back (android 14 broke folders in nova for me). It’s not got the same depth of customisation, but ive found it pretty good alternative. And so far seems quick and reliable.
When I found out how scummy they were with user data I moved to KISS launcher. It took a few days to get used to but I’m very happy with it now.
KISS launcher is exactly what I was looking for in a launcher. 5 always used apps at the bottom calendar and weather widgets on the home screen, search for everything else. It seems like it used to have a lot of problems with custom icons but lately it’s been pretty much perfect.
I’ve been using KISS for a couple years now very successfully and I love it.
Should you decide to stick with it, here’s two tiny tips:
- Should the custom icons ever actually give you trouble, most issues can be fixed by going to the KISS Launcher options → Advanced → Restart KISS. It will reload all items from scratch.
- You can actually have a couple more ‘quick access’ apps set by going to KISS Launcher options → User experience → Gestures and defining ‘Launch…’ actions. For example, I launch my messaging app with a right swipe, my e-mails with a left swipe and note-taking with a long hold anywhere on the launcher.
I’ve actually been using it for years but I’ve never messed with the launch gestures before. That’s a super useful feature.
Been using KISS over at F-droid for a few years now after moving on from Nova Launcher. It isn’t for everyone but it isn’t run by goons.
I used KISS for a while and found mlauncher, which is similar in concept, to work better for me. I had to force KISS to restart frequently enough where it became a problem.
Cool, with FOSS I’ll give this a try and if I like it enough, I’ll stick with it and toss a few bines towards the devs. Thanks!
Tried it but it has a few things I don’t like, minor things but the most important is the apps drawer as list
Fair, it has a drawer that’s a list but i realize it is slightly different than expectation.
I’m not used to it, if I need something in the middle/end, I have to scroll to the bottom. I know it has letters but I’m not used to it so I keep forgetting
Yeah takes a little bit to get used to.
Are there any launchers that have Nova’s 2 best features?
- Swipe-to-open folders (with tap to open the first item in the folder)
- Set any icon you want as an app icon?
I’ve tried Lawnchair and it was missing these 2 features. I will switch to any launcher that supports these!
Action Launcher has this I think.
I’ve been using Neo Launcher for a while as a Nova replacement and it’s pretty good. Both of those features are included as well as things like shortcut actions when you double tap or swipe on the home screen.
Omg thanks for asking this, and thanks to the people that responded. I sincerely went through other alternatives around 5 years ago, and none of them were close to Nova in terms of folder customisation. I’m glad the landscape had changed quite a bit!
Total Launcher does both of those. It’s massively customisable, although a bit daunting-looking in places. I love it though.
Dammit lol that’s the one I picked to use
Maybe it will keep working unchanged for a while
Man I am really struggling to find a replacement launcher that works for foldables. Neo and Total have scaling issues that make icons giant
I’ve been using Niagara launcher and it works great. It’s a different launcher “workflow” though.
Microsoft launcher is super underrated IMO. Lots of customization. I use it for my foldable, but it’s a bit hit or miss sometimes (scaling of folders sometimes gets messed up going from open to closed).
Do give my work on progress launcher a try
Seems to have a lot of features I like so far
I can’t seem to add more than two apps to a folder, is that a known bug?
It’s not a known bug, could you provide more details? I just tried creating a home screen folder with 4 apps, and am able to.
Yeah sorry lol, I was not clear.
When I go to add a third app it just goes behind the folder. Tried a dozen times with different apps and only ever takes 2 per folder.Just tried again and it let me do 4! Then the 5th just goes into its own folder and cant be added.
Thank you so much! A video speaks a million words and yours helped me to instantly identify what’s causing this.
What happens is that when you remove apps from a folder until one is left, that app remains as a folder, and currently this launcher doesn’t allow you to drag one folder over another.
A workaround is to tap that “folder” and drag that last app out from its “folder”, into the other folder you want it to be in.
A fix for this is planned, thanks for highlighting this confusing behaviour ;)
Happy to help!
I still use version 7 of Nova, it’s the only launcher in the market that knows how to handle icons. Any other is frankly a disaster, they can’t make them look good at all.
I’ve been working on a launcher for a while now, do help me test it out!
Features include:
- Widget stacks (with auto scroll)
- Swipe up and swipe down to launch different apps
- Display app drawer icons as tiles or a list
- Individually resize home screen icons, for mixed-size icon layouts
- Freely position and resize a widget or icon
- Frosted glass background for widgets (experimental)
- App drawer folders
- Fade a widget
- Separate layouts for different screens for foldables
- Tap a folder to launch its first app (swipe to open folder)
- Assign a nickname to an app for instant app search and launch (e.g. searching “ff” launches Firefox instantly)
- Lots of custom animations and haptics
Planned features include:
- Profile switching with Tasker support
- Square tiles for app drawer
- Swipe to open a widget pop up
Not open source, a little disappointed. I’ll give it a try when it is
Novalauncher 6.2.19, before they added telemetry
After I switched to gesture based navigation, I haven’t found a third party launcher that works seamlessly with it.
I have tried Kvaesito, Niagara, Nova, Kiss and Lawnchair(and forks), personally I prefer Lawnchair because it it the most standard regarding workflow and has all if not most features one would want in a launcher. Plus the fact it is fully FOSS and supports Arcticons. If you have a small number of apps you typically launch then Kiss or Niagara(Paid Pro version recommended) would work nicely.
Where is Lawnchair? It’s not on F-droid and the Google Play store says Lawnchair 2 is for an older os (I’m on 14).
Add Izzy’s on Droid Repo to Fdroid. It is there. Or download it directly from Github, the latest release(v14) are the Beta 1, Beta 2 and the Nightly Version.
I use LawnchairRelease, a fork of one of the devs from Lawnchair. You can also use the original Lawnchair Launcher
Sounds great but is it true it won’t allow custom icons?
What will not allow custom icons? All of them support custom icons. What do you mean?
Another review of it claimed it couldn’t but I’ll give it a try. Thanks.
1+ for Lawnchair! It’s virtually the only launcher that supports gesture navigation without a weird delay or issues
