So, anybody know a good launcher to use once Nova goes offline?
Does anyone know of a good open-source launcher? I know there’s FastDraw and Olauncher, but I wouldn’t mind having some more alternatives to try out just to find one that truly works best for me.
KISS is great if you want something really simple that works well.
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.
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.
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’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.
Likewise. I use Total, and I have 12 folders on my homescreen, each of which can be swiped up, down, left or right to open specific apps or run specific actions. So, 48 options without ever leaving the home screen :-)
I very rarely have to even open a folder, let alone the app drawer (in fact Total doesn’t really even seem to have a built in app drawer, although it exists somewhere in the background)
I had the same experience when I recently had to get a new phone. Stock launchers have improved a lot.
Dammit lol that’s the one I picked to use
Maybe it will keep working unchanged for a while
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.
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.
Why do you need a new launcher? You’re good to go for several years until (if) Android implements some completely new feature. Right now Nova has pretty much everything.
Yeah, just use an older version, don’t update, and it’ll function fine for a while.
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.
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.
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
Noe launcher. used nova on my pixel 6, now neo on my pixel 8
This hasn’t been updated for almost two years, at least on f droid. And I had massive issues with my pixel 8 pro
There hasn’t been a release in some time but work is still being done.
https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher/commits/main/
Interesting to see, but I’m waiting for a release 😞
interesting. why would pro have issues when the base 8 doesn’t. 🤷
Initially I thought I fucked up my imported config from my OnePlus, but even after setting it up freshly it just wasn’t stable.
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 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?
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!
Total Launcher does both of those. It’s massively customisable, although a bit daunting-looking in places. I love it though.
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!
For me, it’s the ability to add multiple apps to folders with a checklist.
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.
After I switched to gesture based navigation, I haven’t found a third party launcher that works seamlessly with it.
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.
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 lament Nova’s demise, too…
I think the reason that the tech companies won’t allow us to have our devices our own way ( Microsoft was doing this decades ago ), is “religious”/ideological, not practical:
I think they “need” to keep everybody permanently in a headlock, with our heads all twisted, because only if we are all in permanent learned-helplessness, only then can they automatically get away with everything they intend to be getting away with, in our world.
IOW, our autonomy violates their totalitarian religion, see?
It’s the same as how ANY spirituality grates on Dawkins’ blood: he wants it all gutted/butchered/destroyed, & suicides of ones he destroyed are no problem for him, & no alternative ever can have any validity to him.
Totalitarianism, whether traditionally “religious”, or in any other ideology/prejudice/religion, is the same: it HATES violation of its homogenous dominion.
( comically: homophobic-religions want a homogenous het humankind, with no violation of that homogeneity. The existence of homosexuals is too heterogenous for them )
Autonomy is something that totalitarian supremacism ideology “needs” to obliterate from the whole world.
Consistently.
It seems to be a damn-good diagnostic for it, even!
_ /\ _
OnePlus does it pretty well. I just love the ability to have separate actions for swiping an app icon so I use nova
Man I am really struggling to find a replacement launcher that works for foldables. Neo and Total have scaling issues that make icons giant
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 ;)
I’ve been using Niagara launcher and it works great. It’s a different launcher “workflow” though.
