Uninstalled within seconds. I’m trialling Hyperion launcher now, which seems pretty crisp.
!
I’m enjoying a lot using Dragon Launcher, it’s a bit more complex with a bit of a learning curve but really nice once you get used to it. It’s less known so I’m trying to increase its visibility because it deserve all the love it can get.
They asked for ad permissions so I uninstalled and now giving Niagara a go. Have a try, it’s different.
I switched over to Lawnchair leaving Nova Launcher just last week. All the Lemmy articles about the new owners forced my hand. Perfect timing!
As gross as it is, the writing has been on the wall for years now. As soon as Branch did the initial purchase anyone that cared about such things should have starting looking at alternatives.
This is exactly why the first thing I did was disable updates for Nova, just in case.
I have been using Lawnchair Nightly as my default home screen though; there are a couple of things that aren’t carried over from Nova (mainly folder and tabs in app drawer) but for the most part it’s pretty comparable.
What version of lawnchair are you using? I have app folders (although its a bit clunky to manage in the UI, they do exist). Still missing tabs though.
It has basic app folders; I just meant some of the controls that you can do in Nova like setting folders to specific tabs, showing apps in folders in main draw, etc.
(I’m on Obtainium Lawnchair Nightly 1/22/26)
I was watching a youtube video of an engineer student showing off his project. He had a stopwatch app up to show how quickly something was done, and there was a banner ad at the bottom of it. Like, it’s a damn stopwatch, who thought “I worked hard on this, and deserve to make some money!”. Also, how normalized to ads was that person that they didn’t think twice about letting that ad roll in their video.
Worst part is I paid for it years ago. Now I have to pay again? Nope. Great while it lasted, but it’s buggy garbage now.
They’re not honouring previous purchases?
I paid 99 cents for nova launcher prime back in December 2016 so I feel like I got my money’s worth but still unfortunate to see the app go downhill.
Enshittification
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.
Yeah, Nova has been dead for a while now. I thought there was a fork, but I’m just now finding out that’s no longer in development.
I’ve migrated around other launchers, and I now use μlauncher, which fulfills my needs for a minimalist launcher with function.
Thanks for the reminder to uninstall, I had switched to lawn chair months ago but never got rid of nova
Chose lawn chair because of you. Thanks person. Appreciate.
I mean you should have uninstalled it when they sold it… Knee this was coming.
I used Nova for as long as it’s been a thing. Paid for pro. Abandoned it immediately after they released the news a few weeks ago about the tracking and ads.
I switched to Octopi Launcher. It’s really good, and in active development. Author listens to his users and is always adding fun new features.
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.
Thanks! I’ve tried it out and it’s feeling great so far
No easy way to put icons on home the screen… wow why are these developers obsessed with getting rid of the icons, I need those damned things.
Finally settled on FOOS Launcher on Fdroid, does everything I need, but still buggy as hell.
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.
