Am I the only person that uses KISS launcher on this site? Once I got used to how it functions switching to something different will be hard.
I love KISS launcher. I can’t go back to normal launchers. Been using it for years.
It’s that vertical one aye? Used it for oldie backup phone and it was a blessing. But if you use more apps, it’s not worth it imo
Searching is way faster than trying to keep stuff organized in folders and screens. You get at least two clicks anyway and you keyboard is already there.
Reminds me of QuickPic and ES File Explorer
These companies lack any sort of common sense. Nova is used (and suggested) by Android users that are at least minimally tech-savvy. What on earth would make them believe that news like this one would remain secret, and therefore allow them to keep the userbase to suck on their data?
I’m very thankful to Kevin for this amazing launcher that I’m still using to this day.
Also a bit disapointed he trusted Branch and gave them the opportunity to ruin it.
Man probably needed to eat. What a system we’ve got.
It’s always capitalism
You make it sound as if human greed as part of the human condtion will suddenly and magically disappeared under any other form of trade or political system. That is not what literal history has us shown to be the case, over, and over again.
What fucked it up was he selling to the wrong company. But we do not know why he did it. For all we know, he was tired to taking lead in the project and wanted to cash out. He was entitled to do that, or what is the option, force him to work on it just for your needs or to sell to only the company that you or I approved of? What gives us the right to force their hand?
It sucks but that is what he wanted. We both agree that it us unfortunate though. It is too bad.
That human nature will disappear when provided an egalitarian society is the biggest lie I see parroted over and over again by folks who also demand I read theory.
Our nature isn’t a result of our systems, our systems are a result of our nature
The human condition is dictated by the hegemonic system that is governing.
Monopoly™ the game is structually engineered so that players kill the competition and secure the entire board. Would playing by the game’s rules make me inherently a capitalist jerk? No, because they dictate my behaviour and not following them would put me outside the realm of the game (i.e. the system) resulting in my loss (decay).
If the capitalist system incentivizes me to outcompete others and hoard my wealth and, conversely, punishes me for my altruism; then, I am forced to play by the rules of such a system.
“Human nature” is much more complex to be reduced to just greed. This is what’s so cool about being humans, we are so malleable and can be many many things either at once or separately.
Edit: I want to give some concrete examples to what I’m saying. Initially, the Google leadership was skeptical about AI funding, because of privacy and environmental concerns. Yet, as rival competition grew they backpedaled because this would mean their spot as the strongest teck company would be usurped. The late hop into AI funding and development heavily impacted their prospects and they remain falling behind in this respect (source). Here, we have an exemplary case of how the system automatically punishes hood deeds and reinforces predatory and greedy acts.
Did you know that Monopoly was originally invented by a woman whose point was how horrible monopolies are? It originally had a co-op mode that could topple monopolies through unions and co-ops.
Her game was bought by a jerk who removed the co-op mode and then claimed Monopoly as his own game. She died penniless.
If the capitalist system incentivizes me to outcompete others and hoard my wealth and, conversely, punishes me for my altruism; then, I am forced to play by the rules of such a system.
So change it… or be a pebble in the mountain of change.
Yes of course, humanity didn’t start until we figured out capitalism.
How could I have been so naive
I just use the Fairphone 2 Launcher and it’s fine 🤷🏻
I used Nova on my last phone and it worked great, I paid for pro. So I know what I’m missing, not worth it to get back in the Google Play Store system though. I like being anon with no Google account, especially considering Nova sold to a company that data mines user data?
I’ve been using kvaesitso. I like it!
Yeah, it’s open sauce, has shortcuts, widgets, & works fine.
I also really like the tagging feature.
Oh yeah, I don’t often use it, but it helps me sometimes for apps I rarely use (but have tagged).
Also the button to disable all work (profile) apps is neatly placed.
Oh, this is great news. I have Nova tweaked to work almost exactly like this. Excellent, thank you.
Fuck, I’ve been using this since I got an android phone in 2008. RIP.
if it’s nova launcher I’m gonna be pissed.
edit: it’s nova launcher. fucking fuck.
Hey by any chance do you have the last APK file and the SHA256 of that file ?
Oh wait, it this it ?
Name: com.teslacoilsw.launcher_8.1.1-81001_minAPI26(arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk
Size: 11970405 bytes (11 MiB)
SHA256: 30bccfdd995969089ad364a7a6bb7bbea482a703fbfb30ebccad6418aa977fecIs there an x86_64 version ?
Just making sure we’ve got the last version saved
Oh wait, it’s not open source ? And they’ve been acquired in 2022 ?
date of acquisition 2022-07-19
Ok, last one before the acquisition, just in case
Name: com.teslacoilsw.launcher_8.0.2-80002_minAPI26(arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk
Size: 12580956 bytes (11 MiB)
SHA256: 61a760413387dde99f2a2ef4b065caf278b575c8028cc5b3092f05192cfee258I’m sorry, brother. My condolences. I actually get my launcher from Fdroid and so I’ll probably also be fucked.
Seriously, one of the few apps I’ve ever paid for - and this is what I get?!
Its Lawnchair or nothing for me.
I used to use lawnchair but there was some lag with it. Now I use whatever default launcher there is that graphene has
Mine for the last 3 years
KISS is so good. It’s 100% the fastest way to get to where you wanna be when you pull up your phone.
This isn’t a very popular opinion, but I just use the stock Huawei one. Works perfectly for me
Depends on the phone. I hated the one on my oneplus 3 so i needed nova but the one on my current phone has the basic customisation options i was using nova for.
I might be misremembering but wasn’t it bought out by one of those data harvesting companies a while ago?
Yes
In a Reddit AMA, the then-Branch CEO Alex Austin also revealed that if Kevin ever left Branch, they would open-source Nova Launcher’s code and release it to the community.
We still have hope if they keep their promise!
Are you being sarcastic?
No, that wasnt intended.
Austin is the CEO of a spyware company, while these days it’s not seen this way, it’s not too far from being a leader of a criminal organization (in my humble opinion).
Big unlucky.
Read a bit further:
Two years later, Kevin Barry left Branch and is no longer involved in Nova’s development. In his announcement, Barry revealed that he had been the sole developer for the past year, spending recent months preparing to open source Nova Launcher and clean up its codebase. However, Branch ultimately asked him to stop both development and his open-sourcing efforts.
Yeah, I read it. But they still promised open source, nothing about Barry working on it or not.
That’s why I said “keeping their promise”
The fact that the company forced him to stop getting ready to open source it strongly suggests they aren’t interested in it being open sourced.
Also, don’t ever trust companies to do anything they promised with the clear intent to garner good will, especially if the promise is years away
Perhaps I’m cynical, but I’m a little amazed you found Lemmy yet remain this optimistic about corporations.
Dammit. I knew I should she already switched once they were bought but I couldn’t find anything that matched the features at the time.
I really like being able to set swipe actions on my icons. For example swiping up or down on an icon will open an alternative app, folder, or a specific functionality. It’s allowed me to keep a clean screen while keeping everything I need accessible.
This literally the only feature I care about. How has no other launcher done that?
That’s the one feature I am missing after switching to Lawnchair. This and the additional gestures it allowed to configure which I used extensively for like quickly opening my 2FA app. Man how I miss those features…
Does anyone have recommendations to replace Nova?
Have been using Neo Launcher since it had the features I needed from Nova (mostly hiding most apps from the app list while having them on the home screen in some folder so that it isn’t a mess when you want to find something specific). It hasn’t been updated in a while, but it works perfectly fine for me.
There’s no direct replacement. The features I use are in Pear launcher so I use that. You have to look through launcher comparisons to find the features you need.
Also, I’m surprised purple are still using Nova. I thought most people abandoned it after it for sold.
I installed it on my HTC one and have used the exact same wallpaper and layout ever since. Change is scary and let’s be real.
Who the ACTUAL fuck pays attention to the launcher they are using. They find one they like and then unless something breaks they forget they are even using one.
It has been owned by a data mining company for a number of years.
Sure, but the duration of the ownership doesn’t matter a whole lot in this sort of situation. If you’ve missed the news about the selling when it happened, it’s relatively unlikely you’ll learn about it afterwards. I don’t periodically do a background check of all the devs and owners of my apps.
I’m using it without updates
because it is much more stable, plenty of customisation and ofc one time payment.
if you are asking about combinations of customisations, flexibility and stability. none atm.
Have you tried total launcher? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.launcher2 I used it in the past and the amount of customization was huge.
But then I got old and wanted something simpler. Been using Kvaesitso for the last years https://kvaesitso.mm20.de/
I use Total. I keep trying other launchers, but none come close to the level of customisation.
I have created such specific layout and navigation that anything else is annoying and slow to use.
It’s very much not a classic launcher and takes some getting used to, but Kvaesitso is nice.
I’m using Kvaesitso as well. But just looked at the permissions and I am shocked. Don’t know when the permissions changed, but I’m switching right now.
It’s a launcher, it can do a heck of a lot of things, and needs permissions to be able to do so.
But you don’t actually have to allow any of them in modern Androids if you don’t need those features. Nova Launcher also has quite a list, but I haven’t actually enabled any of them, it has never asked to, and everything works fine.
Pretty sure that just has to do with how widgets are integrated
that’s because you can integrate your contacts, calendar and more… calm down
Also it’s GPL so feel free to edit as desired. Users not stuck with dev choices like some of the other options being mentioned here.
Those are for widgets that you choose to enable. Hard to access search features without permission to search, if you don’t want them, all you have to do is … not enable them / disable them if you flipped the on …
Kvaesitso is awesome, updates regularly, and was the best launcher I found that worked for my use case transition from Nova.
Granted I avoided trying a lot of the Freemium ones, or others.that were corporate controlled. Not interested in a forced migration 2.0, open source is nice cause it can always be forked if something happens.
I have used and enjoyed lawnchair for the past year. It’s quite minimal and I’ve found it very stable.
I switched from Nova to Smart Launcher and haven’t looked back.
I’ve been using smart launcher for years it’s automatic categorization is amazing. Though, wanting change, I recently started using Niagara, and like the minimalist approach too.
I switched to Niagara after Nova added the shitload of trackers, and i love it. At first i thought: what, i should only place 7 elements on my homescreen? But it really works and it didn’t even take a day of active use that i knew i had to get the Pro version. Was the first time i ever put down money on a launcher, but i’ve been using it for years now and hope i will never need to replace it, because there’s nothing that comes close.
I put more. But the ones I use less are on the bottom. So it’s there for quick use, but I don’t have it there all the time.
I love my Niagara Launcher ! it’s a different concept than most launchers, and looks pretty spartan on first glance, but it’s sleek, efficient and can look absolutely fabulous. The Pro stuff is a bit pricey, but it has a good privacy policy, autodelete data older than a year, and are GDPR compliant.
autodelete data older than a year
okay, but why do they collect the data in the first place?
telemetry and crash reporting, and stuff like public statistics. Here’s the “Easy to read” privacy policy: https://help.niagaralauncher.app/article/109-privacy-policy-summary
They explicitly state that they sell a launcher, not data.
Trebuchet seems good…?
Octopi Launcher seems quite promising.
Action launcher is a good replacement that I don’t see recommended. Still updated, stuffed with features. The main one I miss on other launchers is “covers” which let you promote one app as the default for a folder, you can swipe it instead of tapping to open the folder or tap to open the default. I only really use about 10 or so apps super regularly, so it’s great as I just have a single home screen that I rarely need to leave
I actually switched from Action Laucnher to Nova because the former kept crashing.
