Uninstalled within seconds. I’m trialling Hyperion launcher now, which seems pretty crisp.
Used Nova for almost a decade. Switched a few weeks ago when the news broke of them adding ad tracking.
I like Kvaesitso so far.
No easy way to put icons on home the screen… wow
I mean, that was a feature not a bug for me. After using Nova for so long I actually liked the way Kvaesitso shook it up, almost felt like a whole new phone. I honestly already did minimum icons on home using Nova anyway, grouping as much as possible into minimum folders, smallest size.
Of course, it won’t be for everyone. If you really like icons on home, I also tried Lawnchair and Octopi and they were pretty solid.
Thanks! I’ve tried it out and it’s feeling great so far
I switched to Niagara a few years ago and can never go back. The alphabetized list of apps and slick scroll are super addictive.
Here’s what it looks like: (ignore the use of Papyrus, I just use it because it drives my friends nuts)
PAPYRUS!!!
Just remember me posting this is your fault
Thanks for the new artist to follow! On topic: Never could like Niagara, it’s just not for me. I’ve just been using a now ancient version of Nova Launcher Prime v7 from before it got sold.
Ricky no!
Think of the children!
You wouldn’t want to subject them to getting into Digimon as a hobby.
(It’s too late for me, I play these shitty video games and enjoy it somehow)They’re still better than what Pokémon has been making the oast few years :3
Same to all of that
same and I love it! Hope it stay the same forever as it’s not open source(if I’m not mistaken)
I love it too!
🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶
Yeah, it’s really pleasing
What’s so special about launchers? I fail to see its or understand what it does, and if I should change mine?
I changed mine finally after Google kept adding shit to the search bar, specifically AI stuff. And it was conveniently placed right where my thumb had pressed prior to the implementation of this new shitty feature.
I went from the stock Google launcher on Pixel (still using my 6a, til it dies) to Lawnchair. Lawnchair is essentially the stock Google launcher, but I could get rid of stupid features. It looks and performa nearly identically.
On a shield Android TV, the official launcher show ads for stupid shows. I don’t want any of that crap and want to organize apps the way I like.
I’m just a fussy bastard, and I like everything to be ‘just so’ on my computers and phones. If I want to move a zig, I’m gonna find a way to move that zig.
Launchers allow you to have a customised UI, maybe you don’t want to have a Google search bar in you home screen, the default UI doesn’t allow you to change it, a launcher does. What about changing order of icons, maybe you want your icons to shape the capital letter F, with a launcher you can, or you know that real gangstas use IBM Plex Mono instead of Roboto, you ain’t nobody’s bitch, a launcher helps you with that
The irony of an ad for an adblocker…
My vote still for total launcher.
This post has just reminded me to change from Microsoft keyboard to FUTO. I wasn’t worried about the data harvesting, but it started redirecting my searches to Bing by hijacking the search button on the keyboard.
I’m 30% slower with FUTO though at this stage. Not sure if it’s my swype style being slightly out of calibration or my device is not fast enough to keep up. (Moto g84).
Will see how I get on.
i switched from gboard to ThumbKey. Took some time to get used to, but now the usual qwerty/swipe keyboards seem inferrior to me. Like, swipe is cool and all, but only as long as the keyboard knows the word you’re looking for. As soon as you need to type out anything manually, it always turns into hell
Total Launcher is where I landed.
Also, Heliboard is a pretty decent keyboard.
Total is truly amazing, especially for a foldable, no match. Few small long standing bugs though, maybe I should take the initiative to report those
I’ve been using FUTO for a few months now and the Swype and autocorrect are fucking horrible. Still using it because fuck Google I guess, but man I wish it were better.
I agree it isn’t great. But I don’t want to be in the abusive relationship with Microsoft. Yes I could probably just turn off the deep search option but they’ll just do something else.
Maybe there’s a better option than FUTO, it’s just the first thing I saw as a recommended alternative.
It seems if I swype carefully it’s reasonably accurate but I have to be patient.
Same. I used a different android device the other day that still had gboard on it and the swype felt so much better. Still won’t go back.
You can change some of the autocorrect settings. But yea its not the best for sure
I have used Nova Launcher for years. Was surprised I hadn’t already bought it. Discovered a 3 buxk playstore credit from google, so I paid 1 buck in the end. An easy decision.
Apparently it was in maintenance mode for years with a single developer who left in late 2025, and it was sold to a swedish company that plans to develop/support it further. Hopefully they do it well.
it was sold to a swedish company that plans to develop/support it further. Hopefully they do it well.
Narrator: They aren’t
Perhaps. Software comes and goes, and paying a small one-off amount for something genuinely useful, after many years of service, is acceptable to me. There are alternatives too, which is good.
and it was sold to a swedish company that plans to develop/support it further. Hopefully they do it well.
Well they’ve already added ads and tracking so “well” is not on the table at this point.
True… many people don’t get the opt-out option, I suppose. There are alternatives, anyway.
This is amazing. What is it from?
On the subject of android launchers, I gotta advertise: https://github.com/RoBoT095/win95_launcher
Made it in two days, released yesterday, still needs work but I want to know what people think of it.
EDIT: here is an image of it
Well this sucks. Been using Nova for a long time. God fucking damnit I hate this timeline. To all the folks recommending lawnchair thanks. Ended up settling on lawn chair.
I suggest Lawnchair to y’all
I’m using Niagara right now and I like it, pretty different though.
Niagara is amazing. Strong recommendation
I want to make a homescreen for plasma-mobile that mimics Niagara I love it so much.
I like it, but their subscription or high price paid app model is not something I agree with.
At least they have written a long page explaining their motivation with it, but this is still way more than I would ever pay for a launcher on my phone.
I’ve been using Niagara forever (since at least early 2019) and it is different, but it really works for me. I’ve tried to use other launchers from time to time out of curiosity but keep coming back.
For anyone looking for more customization, Octopi Launcher has been the closest replacement for me. I’ve tried Lawnchair, Niagara, et al.
I really like Niagara tho, it’s real smooth to use and can look great. But it’s something you have to adapt to, it’s a completely different workflow.
I went from the stock launcher to Niagara and I didn’t feel the learning curve was steep. I did watch a couple of their YouTube videos first before switching.
Yeah, it’s not that it’s hard to learn, but it’s simply a completely different concept. The tutorial videos were a great help!
Octopi launcher so far looks to be the closest to what can replace Nova for me, but an absolute deal breaker for me is the inability to separate business-apps within the app-drawer to a separate page.
It’s possible with tags, but requires an extra step to hide. I ended up having all the same tabs as I did with Nova.
- You tag those apps “Business”. It creates a separate tab, but those apps now show up in both tabs.
- Long press on the “Business” tag tab and uncheck “Show apps in all apps list”
Functionally ends up just like Nova tabs, altho I miss being able to color code and infinite scroll thru them.
Octopi is great but I’ve definitely found settings hidden all over the place. The dev is fond of hiding them inside long presses of various things… XD
New feature I didn’t know I needed is Stacked Widgets. So instead of multiple home pages I can just make one and flip thru my widgets like a book. Handy for me to hide more sensitive stuff like bank widgets behind a weather widget.
Thanks for the warning. Disabled auto update in time.
Please, just learn from this and stop using the app.
Any other launcher support swipe-up actions on icons?
And that license is now in the pile of licenses that used to be worth something, but are now junk.
Little sad trumpet player eulogizing this mess.
If you’d like to try something different, i use Lynx launcher:
Nova sold to shitheels, I switched to Lawn Chair a customizable FOSS Launcher
deleted by creator
Lawn Chair is so good
Lawn Chair looks ok, but unless they fix this issue I will not switch.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/issues/2683
Basically you can’t set the main “home page”, ie where you end up on home press. I like to have it set up so the home is in the middle and then you can swipe left to go to another screen(s), and swipe right to go to other screen(s).
Forcing the home screen to be the first means you can only swipe right, and have to go through many useless screens to get to the one you want.
Doubt they will fix it either, as it has been open since 2022. Without knowing their stack it sounds like a really simple fix, just storw which is the main screen. Normally it is [1], 2, 3, 4. But let the user choose to put it as [3] for example if they want.
and have to go through many useless screens to get to the one you want.
Two things.
Clean your shit up and prioritize. Everything I could ever dream of is on one screen.
Second, it’s foss. Contribute.
Or, hear me out, solve this trivial problem by reintroducing what has been a basic feature of launchers forever.
Has it though? I can’t say I’ve ever seen it, and I go out of my way to look at settings for everything
It makes sense to have it, but what is one thumb movement really? After once, the benefit goes away. And even then, it’s literally a thumb movement, and it’s to access something that you use so little, that you’ve put out of the way. You’re saving like a swipe a year at that point. I’d deprioritize the fuck out of this
What an odd hill to die on. Honestly I’d deprioritize the fuck out of this
They hate when I say it, and love when you say it lmao
Classic “the product/UX doesn’t need fixing, you’re just using it wrong” mentality. Not exactly how you win users on your side.
Second, it’s foss. Contribute.
Agree on this point though
I like having home on 3.
Only a calendar widget on 2 (one swipe left), so you get a quick glance of upcoming events. Then two swipes left are various games. One swipe right are various overflow apps from the main screen.
People use software differently, just because you don’t agree doesn’t mean it is wrong.
Like I said, I understand it, but I’d deprioritize it
PR welcome. Either by you, or by paying a dev to do it.
What am PR
I’ve switched, but this really is my one major gripe. Good to see others see it as a priority too, but if it’s been a conversation for 4 years then I’m not optimistic
They recently started on wraparound homescreens (still a little buggy), so that might indicate they could soon add it. Still waiting on a way to remive widget paddings. In general lawnchair has so much more padding than nova, and not enough customizability to remove it.
Without knowing their stack it sounds like a really simple fix, just storw which is the main screen.
Soooo… if it’s simple… contribute then?
I’ve learned an app’s stack for far more mundane things. If you want others to build something you want, it helps to build things other’s want. Sounds like there would be a lot of interest if you took this on.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I’ve liked lawnchair better than Nova since it was in a pre-release state years ago. I admit I haven’t used either in at least 5 years, probably longer, so this opinion might be grossly out of date, but when I last tried it I was 90% convinced that it was just the KitKat aosp launcher with a material skin. It just felt clunky. Lawnchair actually felt native to newer android versions while still having all the customizations I needed.
Again, I haven’t used either launcher in forever, so take this whole thing with an agricultural block of salt
HHHGHHHGGHHGHHHHMMMMM.
HgMPH.
(Cow noises for you city folk)
Uff I installed it last week but I haven’t had the time to customize it and add all my shortcuts so I’m still using Nova. I definitely need to change it tomorrow
