Hello folks. Four minutes ago, I got a notification that Nova now has ads, despite Me disabling updates. Three minutes ago, I uninstalled Nova. Any recommendations for a new launcher?
My ideal launcher would be completely free, have plenty of customisation options, and the only updates would be bugfixes and op-in features that I am not notified about. I first installed Nova years ago, to make My new phone’s home screen look like the last one’s. And I’m not about to change My ways now, so hopefully the new launcher lets Me recreate the look and feel of the very first smartphone I ever owned over a decade ago.
All the best,
A cranky old wizard
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Lawnchair would be my best bet. I’ve had issues with icon packs not applying only to the home screen which makes me stop using it, but it’s a pretty solid experience if you’d ask me
Does Lawnchair let you use app icons with different shapes? I hate it when the icons are all the same shape, it makes it impossible to find anything. I like it when the email looks like a letter so then I just look for the letter and I’ve got it. I don’t want to look for a circle with a letter in it, that’s too hard.
Yes. Make sure you’re installing the beta, they never really release stable anymore from what I can tall.
This is the way.
I switched to Lawnchair
Brother, you are in the club of cranky old wizards. We are all in the same boat. We reject these things not because we are old but because we are cursed with knowledge.
That aside, Lawnchair seems to be the go-to replacement, although not nearly as good.
I’m nobody’s brother. I would begrudgingly agree to be called sister, but most prefer to be called sibling, and to be addressed with capitalised They/Them pronouns.
Sorry I used the improper pronouns while assuaging your concerns and answering your query. I promise it won’t happen again.
FYI of you install an app from the APK (“sideload”), it will never update via any app store and you’ll stay on that version
You bought a Fairphone because you care about the environment and don’t like slavery.
I bought a Fairphone because I want to keep using it for the next decade.
We are exactly the same.
I’m the same way and finally had to accept I’m going to need to change because Nova isn’t coming back 😭 and to my knowledge nobody is recreating foss.
Kvaesitso is what I went with. It’s a different style of launcher but very well put together. So far I’ve been quite happy.
I went with Kvaesitso as well, but if you, @Grail, cannot get used to it do give Lawnchair a try. It currently seems like the most developed AOSP based FOSS launcher.
I’m terms of pure customization, Octopi Launcher so far has let me recreate my old Nova setup 95% fully. I’ve tried all the other launchers in this thread and they were always missing some key customization feature. The menus and ways to get things done are slightly different from Nova, but I got there in the end. It’s fairly new and the dev seems to be actively releasing fixes.
Use Lawnchair
I tried Niagara but no luck, I’m on Smart now but it’s not foss, there’s a free version but lacks fundamental options to me.
Lawnchair wasn’t bad either
I went from a decade with nova to Dragon Launcher recently. It was weird at the start, but I’m starting to like it more and more
Probably not your preferred style, but I use μLauncher https://github.com/jrpie/Launcher
I switched from Nova to Smart Launcher.
