Technology

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

I JUST STARTED USING IT TWO WEEKS AGO CMON

On 3, 2, 1,.... Everybody Juuuuuuump to any other good launchers

Lawnchair is pretty good.

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.

Rinzler...what have you become?

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.

Nova Launcher was acquired by analytics firm Branch Metrics in 2022 . Barry initially stayed on to continue development, but the situation deteriorated. After being the sole developer for the past year, Barry announced he had left Branch and was no longer involved with Nova Launcher . The Broken Promises: Branch’s then-CEO and founder Alex Austin made public commitments to the community about open-sourcing the code if Barry ever left . However, Barry was ultimately asked to stop working on Nova Launcher and the open sourcing effort he had been preparing . The Irony: Nova Launcher is now owned by Swedish company Instabridge and already contains code for Facebook Ads and Google AdMob trackers, with ads being integrated into the app . This is exactly the kind of enshitification that the community feared when an analytics company acquired it in the first place. In Barry’s actual statement, he was more restrained—just expressing that he was grateful for the community’s support while confirming he’d left. But the community response on Reddit and elsewhere absolutely used the word “enshitification” to describe what happened to their beloved launcher.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Pure fucking bullshit.

Onec again the "Everything that's not FOSS will turn to shit at one point or another" theorem proves true.

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

They got a new owner years ago. No one should still be using it. Lawnchair has been great for me.

Fossify Launcher works well, that's what I switched to.

I'm getting really tired of companies pissing all over my name!

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.

This used to be my favorite piece of software I paid for. Then..... 💩

I recommend Kvaesitso, very snappy with lots of functionality.

Thats why you want open source software, its the only software you can trust, its the only software that won't fuck you over

Glad I read the writing on the wall and switched a few months ago

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.

But I don't wanna redesign my nice app tray and home screen. Can I just never update it?

It already had a new owner which is why I stopped using it years ago.

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 blocked the app from updating itself.

Ahh sonofabitch! It's already updated for me and there is no changelog. Turned off auto update.

Edit: and uninstalled. Lawnchair FTW.