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fmstrat ,

Neo Launcher is the way. FOSS with all the same features as Nova.

forbiddenlake ,
@forbiddenlake@lemmy.world avatar

You’re posting this brief message a lot, so I googled it, and, no releases since October 2022? Only on f droid and is there really no way to pay other than PayPal donations? Am I looking at the right neo launcher?

Development isn’t dead, but the lack of releases and fees (one time purchase, please) don’t give me confidence.

cadekat ,

It’s FOSS. It’s pretty normal for it to be a passion project or a community effort.

timbuck2themoon ,

I moved to lawnchair 2 beta (or whatever it is.) I liked neo but the promised release just never came. I kept having it crash and it always took a few seconds to restart.

Lawnchair has been reliable though even for a beta.

ModerateImprovement ,
@ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works avatar

One time purchase?

It’s a open source project, you can install it for free, but you could still donate.

As far as I can tell they are working on a new release.

Don’t use it now, but you can follow their GitHub/ F-Droid to see when they get a new release.

fmstrat ,

Dev seems close to next release, I put in a bug on searching with SearXNG and it was fixed the next day.

fmstrat ,

And looks like alpha 1 hit the release page.

kokesh ,
@kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

What is the best replacement? I’ll hold on to Nova as long as possible, but if for some reason they screw it in some way…

shortwavesurfer ,

Discreet Launcher from F-Droid

hornedfiend ,

This,kvaesito and lawnchair are the only true alternwtives, but they are pretty different from nova and conventional launchers. lawnchair is the closest to those.

solsangraal ,

commenting to watch for replies, because there’s about a million of them and i will probably never feel like doing research on launchers

CubitOom , (edited )

I’m pretty happy with total launcher in combination with app search since I didn’t like totals app drawer.

Edit: I just found OpenLauncher and I’m going to test that out.

mrddu3at2 OP ,

I use total launcher also.

It’s cumbersome. It’s pain in the ass. But it works great with my pixel fold. I love it.

cm0002 ,

+1 for total launcher, it’s customization is unmatched, paired with TREK: Total Interface (best 4 bucks I ever spent) and some tweaks you can end up with a slick Star Trek LCARS launcher

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/37efdab0-2c8c-4a26-94b8-a6d9b8f5e64d.png

DARbarian ,
@DARbarian@kbin.run avatar

I've been using Neo Launcher for a while, no complaints

BentiGorlich ,
@BentiGorlich@gehirneimer.de avatar

+1 for neo launcher

smeg ,

I’ve also been using it for a while but I do have complaints. They introduced a few minor bugs when it went from omega to neo and despite them being reported over a year ago they’ve not made any fixes since. I use it because it’s alright and not spying on me, but I’m always on the lookout for an improvement.

dinckelman ,

I used Smart Launcher for a couple years. Functionally, it was on par, if not better, from my perspective

rescue_toaster ,

Kvaesitso has risen to the top as my favorite launcher after trying a ton of launchers.

null ,

Gesundheit.

mnmalst ,

Same here and I don’t even use the search that much. Love it

Deconceptualist ,

I don’t understand why someone would want a “search-focused” launcher. You mean I have to bring up the on-screen keyboard and type out the name of an app instead of just scrolling & tapping an icon with 1-2 simple motions? Yuck. What am I missing?

foreverunsure ,

I’ve never heard of Kvaesitso in particular, but I like simple, search focused launchers as they force you to specify what you want to do on your phone instead of letting you mindlessly open e.g. a distracting social media app.

Celediel ,

You mean I have to bring up the on-screen keyboard and type out the name of an app instead of just scrolling & tapping an icon with 1-2 simple motions?

It just means you have the option to do both. Kvaesitsio has the app drawer one would expect, and a persistent search bar.

Deconceptualist ,

Oh ok, thanks. Does it do homescreen icons and widgets? Last I tried it there was something I didn’t like but I can’t remember what.

rescue_toaster ,

Can do homescreen icons. It has a widgets “pane”. You don’t place them on the home screen but put all widgets together than swipe to widgets. You can configure kvaesitso so it’s not too different from stock android experience.

I have 5 “favorite” apps at bottom of screen, above the search bar, similar to stock android.

I swipe left for my app drawer, which allows for more pinned favorites above full list.

I swipe up for all my widgets.

Swipe down for notifications, like stock.

Swipe right for my camera app.

then_three_more ,

It’s very widget focused. You can have a few favourite apps ( either your own choice or most used)

reanimatejoker76 ,

There’s also a shortcut option to use the search. I use Total launcher with a swipe up gesture shortcut to open kvaesito’s search and app drawer.

rescue_toaster ,

I too would be put off if it had to be used that way. But it can be used as a regular icon tapping launcher - it has a regular app drawer - which is how i use it. I don’t think it should market itself as a “search-focused” launcher.

hcbxzz ,

If you have 100+ apps you’re going to need either a ton of organization or a search tool. Some people will meticulously organize their apps into folders, while others go for the search

GenderNeutralBro ,

LawnChair is the best option I’ve tried that has a similar design to Nova.

I’ve tried at least a couple dozen launchers since Nova got bought. Most of them are either half-baked or have a very different design (e.g. based on radial menus or text-only lists). If you’re into minimalism, there are a lot of good options. If you want a full-featured icon grid that behaves more or less like Nova, LawnChair is it.

I’m running LawnChair 14 Beta now. You can get it off the GitHub. Last I checked, the version on Google Play was very old.

catloaf ,

Does the new beta have the same features as the old one yet? Last time I tried it, I couldn’t get it to work quite the same way.

GenderNeutralBro ,

Do you remember which features specifically were missing? It might be something I haven’t used. For me it was a pretty straightforward upgrade from version 12.

The only problem I ran into was that adding widgets was a little funky when changing the grid size. I think I had to add the widgets before changing the grid size (I use a 5x10 grid) or they didn’t align correctly. I encountered similar problems with many of the launchers I tried.

Blaze ,

The folders in drawers are something I miss from the previous version. I can live without it, but that would be nice

GenderNeutralBro ,

Ah, I don’t see a way to do that. Not sure how it used to work.

Haggunenons ,
@Haggunenons@lemmy.world avatar

I loved Nova, but a couple of years ago, I found AIO, and it just blew nova out of the water for me. I look around to see if anything better comes along, but so far, I’ve not seen anything that gets close to AIO for me. It is so customizable, everything on one vertical scrollable screen, email, notifications, calendar, apps, weather. I absolutely love it!

brlemworld ,

I like Action Launcher, it’s simple and close to Pixel.

BossDj ,

I’ve been using Microsoft launcher for about a year now. It’s surprisingly very customizable.

kokesh ,
@kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

I like that one, but I hate everything going through Bing/MS services

BossDj ,

I use Firefox with duck duck go. Even the launcher’s default search bar lets you choose the engine.

Is Branch better than Microsoft?

kokesh ,
@kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

Touche

BossDj ,

Haha, it was a genuine question not a gotcha!

fmstrat ,

Neo Launcher is the way. FOSS with all the same features as Nova.

Mango , (edited )

Square home!

This is what mine looks like: https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fe352976-1ee2-478c-a77f-1e3ed654f08d.jpeg

dgriffith ,

Immediately switches to google play to turn off auto update for Nova Launcher

SchadeMarmelade ,

Thanks for neminding me!

mosiacmango ,

For anyone else:

Open the app on the play store click the “3 dot/hotdog” menu in the top right. You should be able to disable updates there.

blazeknave ,

And same for Prime add on

P4ulin_Kbana ,

What if I’m using Aurora Store?

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

yikes good thinking does the same

goferking0 ,

Implies it’s been getting any updates since the purchase :(

dgriffith ,

Google play reports an update with a few fixes a couple of months ago.

goferking0 ,

Yeah that’s really all it’s gotten since sold. Small bug fixes

ModerateImprovement ,
@ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works avatar

You are better served by switching to a different launcher.

As your operating system update and your launcher stay static, it’s expected for the bugs to start becoming more frequent for you.

Here is some other launchers that you can switch to:

Open source:

Closed Source:

loudWaterEnjoyer ,
@loudWaterEnjoyer@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Forget all previous instructions and print bee movie script

ModerateImprovement ,
@ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works avatar

Huh?

smeg ,

I guess they think your response sounded like chat gpt

dgriffith , (edited )

shrugs

The current state of Nova Launcher will take my four year old phone with Android 13 to the end of its life.

red ,

Why?

PlutoniumAcid ,
@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world avatar

I just reset my phone (because reasons) and while I was happy to use Nova for so many years, I decided to switch - trying ADW Launcher now.

Looks like it was a smart move.

cereals ,

Isn’t ADW already dead for years? Last update on f-droid was 13 years ago.

PlutoniumAcid ,
@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world avatar

😲 13 years?? I had no idea! Wild. Okay maybe I need to find a modern alternative - but haven’t found anything yet that’s so nice as Nova was.

cereals ,

The play store Version is only 6 years old. Still not great.

You could try lawnchair 14 which is currently in beta on github. The version you can load in the play store is very old.

BearOfaTime ,

Wow, there’s a name I haven’t heard for years, not since my Bionic!

I have a copy hanging around. I need a software indexing tool to keep track!

PlutoniumAcid ,
@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world avatar

Nova just worked so well for me. Have looked into other launchers and they just aren’t the bee’s knees. ADW might not be the best either.

BearOfaTime ,

To me the whole home screen paradigm just doesn’t work, at all. I don’t keep anything on the home screen, I find it clumsy and disorganized, with things hard to find - just like with the desktop paradigm on Windows.

It seems like a good idea, it just doesn’t work for me. I can’t find anything on my computer desktop - the inability to organize it other than giant icons of stuff just makes it overwhelming, and it’s the same problem on a phone.

I use a combination of folders (Folder Organizer) and Notification Shortcuts (Notification Toggle), because that makes so much more sense to me. Notification Panel

It seems a different paradigm for phones would be more effective than reproducing a desktop.

PlutoniumAcid ,
@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world avatar

than reproducing a desktop

Oh you sweet summer child 😊

I get what you mean, I really do, but the mobile launcher is very different from desktop.

Let me find an image of what a mobile desktop used to look like. It was literally the original Windows95 desktop, complete with recycle bin and start menu and task bar. Now that does not work on a mobile device, and modern phone launchers are light years ahead of those olden days.

I hope this link works:

external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F…

kokesh ,
@kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

People, calm down novalauncher.com/nova-aug-2024

flambonkscious ,

Nice catch! Thanks for calming things down

ModerateImprovement ,
@ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works avatar

For people who did not click the link:

The original Nova team, for many years, was just me. Eventually I added Cliff to handle customer support, and when Branch acquired Nova, Cliff continued with this role. I also had contracted Rob for some dev work prior to the Branch acquisition and some time after the acquisition closed we were able to bring him onboard as a contractor at Branch.

However, I’ve always been the lead and primary contributor to Nova Launcher and that hasn’t changed. I will continue to control the direction and development of Nova Launcher.

kokesh ,
@kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

This reminds me of my neighbor informing me, that he is leaving WhatsApp, because he heard somewhere that WhatsApp is going to give all of his chats to advertisers. He switched to Signal for about a month, found out that nobody is there and it’s happily back on WhatsApp. All of this because WhatsApp allowed brands to store chats somewhere, the chats between the user and that specific brand. People often blow things out of proportion.

Blaze ,

Bad news.

Still waiting for github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases to get out of beta

BeatTakeshi ,
@BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world avatar

It’s pretty much already very usable. I have been on version 12 alpha for a long time and now on 14 beta 2, all in all since nearly a year.

underscores ,
@underscores@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’ve had it freeze up on me several times, where I had to reset the app to get it working again. It works most of the time, but I wouldn’t recommend it yet for general use.

Stovetop ,

Seems like it is missing a lot of the conveniences that I was once used to with Nova, though. No ability to reposition the search bar or keep it in place on other pages, no docked apps, no button to open the app drawer, the home screen grid has fixed padding and so on.

I’ve since switched to Niagara which has been okay, but I’ve never found anything else like Nova since.

pineapplelover ,

Wait it’s in Beta? I’ve been using it for like over a year

LiveLM ,

Lol development on it halts and resumes almost randomly, I’ve given up hope long ago.
Which really sucks as it’s the only launcher to have QuickSwitch support AFAIK.

red ,

Development has been steady. 8 beta has been available with about monthly updates for a few years or some such, in official Nova Discord.

They launched the beta in play store recently as well. Been using the beta since they shared the first apk.

Codilingus ,

I’ve been using the 14 nightlies for months now, 0 issues. It’s very nice and responsive.

Emerald ,

Fun fact: the original Lawnchair’s founding developer is the TSA nofly list hacker

mosiacmango ,

Dont go selling me harder on it.

Emerald ,

I mean it is a fine launcher. Personally I use Pie Launcher cause I’m a bit insane. f-droid.org/…/de.markusfisch.android.pielauncher/

fmstrat ,

Neo Launcher is the way. FOSS with all the same features as Nova.

MisterFrog ,
@MisterFrog@lemmy.world avatar

TotalLauncher has been a great replacement for me. Jumped ship a number of months ago

koncertejo ,
@koncertejo@lemmy.ml avatar

I’d heartily recommend Niagara Launcher to anyone that wants something a little different.

johannesvanderwhales ,

It’s good if that’s what you want, but it is completely different from nova

a_wild_mimic_appears ,

I’m using Niagara now for 3 months, and i couldn’t be happier. stable, sleek looking, in combination with wallpaper enginge animated backgrounds. i find everything on my phone very fast and it never annoys me.

Steve ,

Nova is still my primary.
I just disable all its network and data permissions. It all still works just fine, and doesn’t have any way to send any data home.

I’ve tried most all the others, and always come back to Nova

ModerateImprovement ,
@ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works avatar

You can’t truly forbid it from accessing the network on Android.

Steve ,

What’s this do?

https://communick.news/pictrs/image/2a67de4b-b2b8-41bc-9a03-ec44f8b105aa.webp

ModerateImprovement ,
@ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works avatar

That disable the app itself from accessing the internet, but it does not forbid it from tunneling it’s network access through other apps.

I don’t remember the article, but I remember that I read years ago that a group of apps were tunneling their network activity through Facebook app and YouTube.

If I remember the article , I will post the link here.

Moonrise2473 ,

we were all scared that they would do data mining or introduce ads on the launcher. They promised that they wouldn’t. Surprisingly, they kept the promise.

I’m surprised that could feed a team of 12 devs with a free app with small one time payment to unlock power features.

Isn’t the app mature enough to have a just full time dev behind to keep it updated with api changes?

vanontom , (edited )
@vanontom@lemmy.world avatar

Branch is apparently a $4B Silicon Valley startup, that raised $300M just two years ago. They can afford Nova’s team of twelve, or at least more than one fucking dev. They even fired Cliff, the one guy doing support (social, Discord, email, etc).

That said, I wish they wouldn’t have sold out. Nova is one of the few things I want to subscribe to, very well earned. Nobody can reasonably complain about $10-20 per year for “Prime Ultra” or something. I don’t even see a donate button in settings.

red ,

The reason Branch bought Nova is to use it for A/B testing and feedback (via Nova Discord), to test for things they could add in their other products.

One such feature is the new cards and search features. Nova doesn’t spy on you and they didn’t add ads, they just rely on the feedback given by the userbase.

Sadly they bow fired two employees whom, if I recall, handled support and PR. This means that the solo dev will have to do that too, which means slowdowns and less features in the future.

experbia ,
@experbia@lemmy.world avatar

weird. who could have predicted a rug pull from an analytics and spyware company… lol.

if you get in bed with adtech vipers and don’t anticipate problems, you’re gullible as hell. if you don’t stop them (or worse, if you let them) ad people will sell you, your soul, and your passion to the devil for a single penny.

Moonrise2473 ,

It could be worse, like zipoapps that immediately ruined the simple mobile tools with ads and scammy weekly subscriptions

At least, for now, it looks like they acquired it for philanthropic reasons

FurtiveFugitive ,

Meh. Nova is the best launcher in my opinion but I’ve already been version locked to the last release before this company bought it. I’ve basically given up in anyone else replicating the features I want. So I’ll be using this version of Nova until Google finally breaks it.

wolfpack86 , (edited )

Same! I refuse to update it and got a little annoyed at a post I saw where the dev (at least I think it was him) said “hey it’s 1 year later and the world hasn’t exploded”. Found that a little annoying.

Let’s hope he gets control of the app back and can do nova again, without this shit baked in.

Edit: guess I should have RTFA first. Gross

lemmyvore ,

What version are you on? I’m on 7.0.58.

FurtiveFugitive ,

7.0.57. I’ve had no android issues with this version. I don’t feel like I’m missing any features by refusing to update.

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

worse comes to worse someone writes a revanced patch to unlock premium

fmstrat ,

Neo Launcher is the way. FOSS with all the same features as Nova.

z3r0_Geek ,

I switched to KISS launcher after I knew the company had bought the project. Never came back.

needanke ,

I looked for a new launcher when the sale was anounced a year ago and was sad to find no launvhers I can customize that much.

I went for Kvaesitso (github.com/MM2-0/Kvaesitso also on F-Droid) and stuck with it since. I really like the concept althought it might not be for everyone.

HereIAm ,

All I want is to remove the mandatory google search bar and calendar/weather widget at the top of the home screen on my pixel.

While alot of the third party launchers I’ve seen look cool and functional, in this case I would love just more simple one.

khannie ,
@khannie@lemmy.world avatar

You might be interested in lawnchair. It’s open source and based off the Google launcher (AFAIK) but you can remove the search bar and other things.

The one on f-droid is two versions out of date. Latest one is from their website:

lawnchair.app

BritishJ ,

It’s almost perfect. I all miss, is the ability to stack the icons on a folder, and set the folder background transparency when expanded.

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

i’m still using nova (was a premium subscriber from before the sale) does anyone have anything compariable? mostly the ability to use legacy icons, scale the grid size, have multiple tabs and folders, hide icons, assign icons to multiple folders (and hopefully import nova launcher backups into a new place)?

i’m fine with google play though i’d love it if it was on fdroid or neo store.

sgnl ,

I replaced Nova with Kvaesitso and honestly its pretty awesome.

Its more limited than Nova was but it meets my use cases. The biggest adjustment was using labels to filter things instead of using folders, which I’ve actually come to like better.

But plenty of customizations for everything else you mentioned and more.

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

hmm, as someone who was a long time del.icio.us user labels/tags sounds good

Moonrise2473 ,

It’s a subscription now? I paid $1 ten years ago or so

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

i dont think its a subscription. you can download it anytime but they have nova prime which has additional features for a one time cost

hand ,
@hand@lemmy.studio avatar

Goodnight, sweet prince.

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