Nova Launcher added Facebook and Google Ads tracking
lemdro.id302 points by celsoazevedo 13 hours ago
302 points by celsoazevedo 13 hours ago
I was a 10+ year long Nova Launcher user and knew this day was coming after the sale and layoffs[0][1]...
This evening I at looked several replacement launchers, such as Lawnchair and even the stock Pixel launcher again, but Octopi Launcher[2] is the more modern, more refined Nova replacement that you are looking for.
It was a very easy, natural transition process from Nova - all of the Nova features that I used were there (unlike Lawnchair), such as swipe up/down on icons to perform different actions. And little things like folder options, icon placement, and widget handling are SO much nicer on Octopi compared to Nova. Staggeringly better.
I took a screenshot of each home screen page, set Octopi as the new default launcher, and was back to my previous configuration but with a significantly improved visual appearance, in about 15 minutes. It's a no-brainer upgrade from Nova.
The Google Play install is free and basically unlimited, but there is an unobtrusive "Buy Me A Coffee" type button that allows you to donate either $1 or $3 to unlock some eye candy, which I did, but mostly just wanting to support the developer.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45170000
[1] https://www.androidpolice.com/exclusive-cliff-wade-nova-laun...
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopi...
Thanks for the tip.
I opened up my phone to see about giving Octopi a shot, and (amusingly? alarmingly?) Nova Launcher produced a popup warning me that it would now feature ads.
Anyway, my launcher needs are pretty minimal. Switching over and recreating a familiar layout was easy enough.
I do find one function missing, though: Some shortcut functionality seems missing in Octopi that was present in Nova.
For instance: Shazam. I use it to identify the music I hear, and that's all I want it for. With Nova, I was able to create a single-tap button on the home screen for a "Shazam Now" shortcut that immediately went straight to the identification phase with zero nonsense. This worked slick, and I'd been using it this way for a decade or so.
With Octopi, I can long-press the Shazam icon and pick "Shazam Now", and that does work. But that's multiple steps instead of just one, and I can't drag that shortcut to the home screen. There is also a list of apps with shortcuts that I can add, but Shazam is missing from that list.
Thus, the single-tap Shazam Now function I'm familiar with is presently lacking. Perhaps some day. :)
(Otherwise, Octopi fits with everything else I want to do, so I'm buying the dev a coffee.)
I managed to add a Shazam Now button using a Shazam widget, not a shortcut. Give it a try!
I just installed Octopi on this thread's recommendation. Pretty good so far, and I'm happy to remove the useless Google search bar from the bottom of my Pixel (I use Kagi and Firefox, neither of which can be configured on that bar). Also satisfied how you can resize widgets to any size, regardless of what the widget asks for.
"In-app purchases" another annoyance of the play store, can't see prices without installing an app. So question for users of Octopi, how's the pricing?
1. It's not unique to the play store, as a matter of fact, this started in the iOS app store and was "adopted" by Google. It could definitely be improved though, i.e. if all potential in-app purchases were listable via the store page, like on steam for example
2. The prices were mentioned in the comment you're responding to.
> this started in the iOS app store and was "adopted" by Google
I can see prices for in-app purchases in the iOS App Store.
Where? Just checked on every app I've purchased in app unlocks and none of them have any indicator for these unlocks (or others that are still available) on their app store page.
The only way to see them - from my experience which I just verified - is to go into the app and go into the relevant menu's of the apps.
Please explain where you're able to see this information on the app store on iOS or iPadOS
It's in the app store's app listing, just under age rating. It says "in app purchases: yes", which you can expand to show all purchase options.
https://back.ww-cdn.com/superstatic/docs-res/41269/in-appfin...
that same moment I switched to Niagara launcher. After 10 minutes of using it bought the Pro level and that was it. I kept around 5 apps in main screen, YT music widget automatically pops up on top when I connect headphones. The side scroll is very well thought out. For each letter the most used apps are on top. This one clicked with me.
What is your experience from a performance perspective? Nova Launcher was pretty light on that front, I'm using smart launcher since a few months and it is ok but Nova was lighter.
What a coincidence of shitholery here. I've been a very loyal user of Nova for almost a decade now, and I have never even thought of using any other launcher. Now, strangely since 2 weeks ago, on my Samsung phone, I've been experiencing a lot of freezing and random crapping out of my Nova launcher, where it would just not let me do anything and show a blank home screen with a wallpaper. So this most likely is the reason, I'm not sure, but this sends a very bad vibe down the line now.
I am going to look for a nice open source launcher and get used to it. To hell with the shittification of our beloved apps and services.
Thank you for this! I was really happy with one launcher that I configured probably 8-9 years ago and then moving to the new phone meant everything just worked (^tm ?) with normal phone porting. Reading the headline made me freak out for 2 min. I really really do not like UI muscle memory being changed for something like my phone.
As another 10+ year Nova Launcher user, I appreciate this. I bought prime forever ago (3x actually as I moved domains), I'll happily use Octopi on my tablet. Thanks again!
I liked it, but when I added a 4x1 widget (meteoblue forecast), that didn’t properly resize to the size available. Wasn’t a problem for Hyperion or Nova, was worse for Lawnchair.
Widget sizing/appearance was probably the only surprise that I discovered between Nova and Octo. Resizing in Octo takes a bit of getting used to, but I was able to reproduce the appearance of all of my widgets.
Padding is a little different and harder to discover than Nova - it is in the "Customize appearance" menu when you long tap on a widget. That is something to check out, as well as making sure Rounded Corners aren't enabled.
There is also a "Freely position and resize items" option in the Launcher Settings->Home tab, which I do not have enabled, but might be necessary to get your widget sizing just right?
Yeah, tried all of that, but none of the options work. Funnily enough with free resizing it looks right for a moment, then changes to being too big again.
I’ll certainly not exclude this being a meteoblue issue (I only use two widgets, digical and meteoblue), but Hyperion (only with 6 columns) and Nova (always) get it right.
I had never experienced meteoblue so I installed it, it looked very nice, but when I added the 4x1 widget, it looked horrible. I resized it and got "Subscription required. Tap on the widget to open the in-app store"!
If you're in the US, I like NOAA Weather Unofficial[0]. It is not quite as visually impressive as meteoblue, but has good technical details and the 4x2 widget resized exactly like I wanted. I think the free version is unrestricted, but it is another app where I explicitly wanted to support the developer.
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nstudio.we...
For those still using Nova Launcher (custom launcher for Android), it seems that it's owned by a new company and the latest update comes with the Facebook Ads and Google AdMob SDKs and require extra permissions.
8.1.6:
- Branch (analytics)
- Bugsnag (crash report)
8.2.4:
- Facebook Ads (advertisement)
- Google AdMob (advertisement)
- Branch (analytics)
- Bugsnag (crash reporting)
- Google CrashLytics (crash reporting)
- Google Firebase Analytics (analytics)
Any good alternatives people are using? I've used Nova for absolutely ages
Here's the most stripped down launcher in the world:
https://github.com/fandreuz/TUI-ConsoleLauncher
I don't need icons, swiping, widgets, or any of that nonsense. This one works great and you can ssh, use tmux right from the launcher
I moved to Lawnchair when I recently-ish migrated to GrapheneOS. I can't remember why I didn't go with Nova Launcher again, might have been related to the permissions required.
Lawnchair has fewer options, ie. is simpler, but I haven't, in practice, noticed any memorable differences.
I just switched to Lawnchair thanks for the recommendation. Seems to do everything I wanted from Nova anyway.
I switched to KISS Launcher several years back and had been loving it. I like the philosophy of search-based launcher. This way, if I don't actively search for an app, I won't be distracted into opening one
KISS launcher is excellent. I've been using it for years now and would never go back to any other style of launcher.
The only improvement I could imagine is supporting multiple screens of widgets (i.e. swiping left/right or scrolling up/down).
For folks interested in checking it out:
Website: https://kisslauncher.com/ Source: https://github.com/Neamar/KISS Store: https://f-droid.org/packages/fr.neamar.kiss/
I did this as well when the previous Nova launcher news came out. It took maybe a day to get used to, but I like it much more now - I have nothing to organize, I just access what I want to use instead. It feels natural.
I always find myself missing widgets with KISS.
But then when I use a launcher like lawnchair with widgets I rarely end up actually using them. Wish there was something like widget drawer that was FOSS tbh
KISS launcher user for about 5 years and never looking back. Search line for everything is actually faster then browsing list of icons.
I made the switch to KISS some time ago. Really like it! I haven't missed anything. Simple and does the job. No distractions.
I've been mostly happy with Action launcher. It has the few features I really liked from Nova that are missing from pixel launcher: I can make my home screens scroll in a circular/infinite manner, I can remove the search bar and the google news feed or whatever they call the left page, I can set more than one page in the dock.
Unfortunately, the app list page isn't quite as configurable. There are folders rather than tabs, and there's an extra click necessary to search by app name. Overall, it does the job.
I switched from Nova to Smart Launcher a couple years ago because it allowed me better customization of app groups - although I did need to work on the config a bit. I like it.
Lawnchair is not as fancy but it works
People are suggesting mostly search-based launchers here. Lawnchair is a launcher similar to Nova (icon-based) which should be safer from enshittification because it's FOSS. Actually derived from an old Google Launcher...
Yes, Lawnchair isn't packed with functionality, but it's also not packed with anti-functionality.
Background: I have just switched from Nova, for which I paid (Nova Prime), to Lawnchair, initially as a trial. But I'll probably stick with it.
It doesn't support adding pages to the home,sadly
I get the error if I try dragging the icon to the home screen. But it works if I click "add to home screen" so it auto-places, then move the icon afterward.
I've got a bunch of web pages on my Lawnchair home screen.
Did you mean tabs (to the drawer)? You totally can add new pages to the home – try moving an icon beyond the screen border.
No I mean that if in Brave I say "add this page to the home", the launcher gives an error
Ah, pages like in webpages. Gotcha.
It’s interesting, Lawnchair works totally fine with these “app action” 1×1 widgets, and Firefox can add website shortcuts without any problem for me. I’ll try it in Brave a bit later.
That's strange, that hasn't happened to me. Maybe a reinstall might fix the problem? I use it on a Pixel 8A
Uh interesting. I'm on Pixel 8A too. Could be! I'll give it another shot
Lawnchair is good. I just really want app drawer tabs, the only reason I've stuck with Nova.
I use Niagra. So good once you get used to it.
3. Types of Data collected Among the types of Personal Data that this Application collects, by itself or through the listed Data Processors, there are:
Unique device identifiers Approximate geographic position (city level) IDs (package names) from installed apps Usage Data Cookies
Oh boy...
Yeah.. I used to use Niagra because it really is a great launcher but I don't like the data collection. A great FOSS alternative is Kvaesitso which doesn't have the exact same layout but it is search based. They also managed to implement a native search that in my opinion is better than Sesame.
Kvaesito is a great search-focused FOSS launcher
This is also what I migrated to a while back.
It's quite different compared to Nova and other launchers but after using it a while I've come to love it. Do yourself a favor and give it a few days before you dismiss it.
I'm using Evie Launcher, but a really old version from just before the developer shut down the project and later removed it from the store. If you look today, you'll find a fairly convincing imposter that loves spamming you with ads, from a different developer.
The APK is at least 6 years old now.
As a relatively new convert back to Android, I've been using Niagra Launcher and enjoying it.
I am using "Minimo Launcher". I have an OLED display. So its using less battery. Also it's open source.
I've been using Octopi Launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopi...
Thank you! I had looked at several recommended launchers and none were real Nova Launcher replacements. I randomly saw your comment and was intrigued, especially since I hadn't seen a lot of sources mentioning Octopi Launcher as a suitable option.
It is the perfect Nova Launcher replacement. The UI and features feels like a more polished Nova and transitioning to Octopi is such an intuitive process.
Do you know if this, or any other launcher for that matter, works well on the latest Android for Pixels? Ever dang launcher I try (Nova included) has this horrible problem where at some point during the day the app launcher becomes a wasteland of blanked out apps with no names and no order. Only fix is to restart the phone. It got a little better with Android 16 but not much.
I use Octopi on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Works great, rock solid, zero issues.
I'm still using Lightning launcher, will continue to use it as long as I'm able to
I haven't used an android launcher over a decade, stock LineageOS launcher works well for me i.e. to open app drawer and to click on apps.
What do you folks use 3rd party launchers for?
For not using the default Samsung launcher, which sucks.
Nowadays, even the default Samsung launcher is very customizable and usable. Obviously it's no Nova, but it's not bad.
I've been using Nova Launcher to mimic webOS for almost 10 years. I might be slightly too resistant to change!
I've been using Nova Launcher since ~1year (after using it like 10 years ago) because Pixel Launcher didn't support double tap to sleep
How much am I missing out by using the standard launcher my Pixel comes with? I haven't played with different launchers since the Nexus 4 and Android 2/3 (I think).
I don't like the stock launcher because I can't remove the search bar and I never use the search bar. Nova feels like a no nonsense launcher that does what I need. I think last time it came up, the recommended option was missing something for me so I stayed with Nova, but the writing is on the wall.
Checked again and I don't see a way to get a button to show the app drawer on Lawnchair, and I don't want to use a gesture, so that's going to be hard to use.
Most of these other launchers seem to force a fucking search bar on you.
It's distracting and I don't want it
Is there a way to just pin an app to a version? Then Nova is fine
I just tried a few launchers and none of them forced a search bar (or do you mean not on the home screen?). In fact, in Lawnchair and Octopi, I had to manually add a search bar if I wanted one.
I switched to Nova for the same reason. I paid for it, too. I pay and donate for good software all the time, but this is another sober reminder to never pay for proprietary software.
For me the advantage of nova is increasing the density of app icons able to be displayed on the home screen and app drawer.
I run with a 9x7 home screen grid and 8x6 app drawer.
This allows me to have a weather widget with a large clock and an excellent calendar widget called Todo Agenda displayed while still allowing me to have all my apps accessible on one screen.
And yet somehow my launcher updated automatically during the night, despite the change in ownership and new permissions needed.
Thanks, Google.
What happened with the Open Sourcing promises?
https://www.osnews.com/story/143297/nova-launchers-open-sour...
I had a go at finding a launcher that suits my preferences, and ended up back to square 1, the native launcher on Samsung Oneui. the killer feature is stackable widgets so you can reduce the real estate used for each one.
That said,my other top picks are : Lawnchair +Lawnicons YAM Launcher (foss and minimal) Fossify launcher beta (bare bones typical launcher).
Do older versions of Nova have any security flaws which preclude using them?
I've been using this app for ages and it's been essentially feature-complete for several years. A part of me wants to switch launchers for no other reason than "it is supported and not tracking me", but it is possible for software to be finished, and I believe Nova falls into that category. If there's no meaningful vulnerabilities in it, there's really no reason for me to switch away, at least not immediately.
Well, that sucks. When the sale was announced, I tried several launchers, free and paid, and none of them were as good as Nova :/ Guess I’ll do another round.
I've been using Niagara for a few years and I love it.
Niagara Launcher is like Niri among the other Linux Window Managers. It is highly unique, and yet still gets the job done, if not better.
Completely different style of launcher though.
Yes, and it does exactly what a launcher should do. It is not designed to show a dozen widgets spread over five workspaces.
Priced at 15 eurobucks (back in the day) it's the most expensive piece of Android software I have ever bought. I have felt no buyer's remorse whatsoever.
Edit: looks like the perpetual license costs EUR 40 nowadays.
I personally don't need a bunch of screens of widgets. I've got my first screen of the 17 apps I use the most, a clock/weather widget, and the app drawer button to bring up the (iconized) app list. On the second screen a have a widget for an app used to share pictures with friends.
Launchers are personal, so Niagara works for you that's great! But for my use having everything is a single column is a nightmare.
My screen is pretty simple, 5 folders with icons, 10 other icons, one calendar widget, one weather widget. It’s what a homescreeen should do for me. Because not everyone is you.
Smart Launcher is the one I settled on after my last round of testing. Not perfect, but closer than most.
Please update here if you find any good alternative? I'm stuck in the same place
I’ll be trying out Hyperion now as default launcher, list of stuff I checked quickly:
Kvaesitso (FLOSS) and AIO: Different style of launcher that I don’t want, so out.
Action: Felt weird to use, didn’t find a setting for auto search in app drawer
Smart launcher: The most expensive one at 25€, and no proper app drawer search either.
Lawnchair (FLOSS): Annoying animations, widgets don’t work properly (many widgets require Yx2 sizing that should work as Yx1)
Octopi: Slightly better widgets than lawnchair, but still sizing issues. Without that I’d probably have gone with it first.
Hyperion: This is what I’ll be testing for now. The only Nova feature I’m missing is showing recently installed apps in the drawer, but that’s extremely minor. Apparently support is bad and updates rare, but neither is an issue for me.
Lawnchair has been good enough for me, get a recent development build, they don't release very often.
Lawnchair is the best open source launcher IMHO. It's feature reach but it does have one problem: the defaults are the opposite of sane lol.
I just switched to Lawnchair - took me quite a while to replicate the minimal look/feel I had with Nova. Thanks for recommending it!
I've been having fun with Kvaesitso after it was recommended here. There are some things I'd change, but it's nice.
I highly recommend Octopi launcher. Simple, does exactly what it should. Works great on foldables, as well.
I initially thought that switching to a lighter launcher like Nova would make my phone-apps launching faster. However, I soon realized that what I actually needed was something to boost my productivity, so I switched to a launcher with fewer distractions, like Yantra Launcher (terminal-based), which I've been using ever since.
I highly recommend you try Niagara launcher. It's the only non-grid based launcher I have tried that has actually been worth the little learning curve.
Oh man, thanks for this tip. This will be great on my preordered Clicks communicator.
This looks like the opposite of productive? Just typing on a touchscreen is already slowing you down so much, that all productivity-gain is lost.
There's so many suggestions here that you open up and it's just a buy screen with comment reviews like "oh dearest me, I was lost in the darkness and then I found salvation with this app"
I can't help but think there's a lot of devs here pushing their own products.
I mean this _is_ HN after all. That is the core mindset that is being pushed here. Y Combinator is a startup accelerator.
It is just called "hacker" news because it's a nice sounding name. Not because it would actually be news for hackers nor because it would actually be culturally adjacent to hacker culture.
Though, those aforementioned hackers still do seem to occasionally hang out here regardless. Probably some weird case of masochism.
At this point I just assume any recommendation on here that isn't for FOSS is a shill/bot.
Any launchers where you can set PNG as app icon?
Or whats the safest version of Nova to downgrade back to?
I've been using https://aiolauncher.app/ the past few years. It's great!
Bit of a sidenote, and I might be an exception here, but I don't get the point of all these launchers - they're all the same! Some might look a little better, some might have an option or two extra, but otherwise they're all the same. Mostly the same drawer, mostly the same panel for quick access.
I've used nova on every android I've had since it came out to current, and when the former owner/dev warned people, I switched to lawnchair and didn't look back. Sounded like shenanigans and time to pull the ripcord on nova. RIP (not in ad/malware)
I installed Nova way back when the default android launcher was crap, nowadays it's not really any different. I guess I may as well uninstall it now
Been using it for well over 15 years, and I have paid for Prime. But recently ~1-2 years, when it go acquired I was sad, but hopping it would go open source... maybe. But after today, I'm removing it from all of my devices, and all of my relatives devices. And leaving an updated review, so people know about this.
Any other launcher that lets you hide a folder behind a single icon? so tapping it opens the first app in the folder, and swiping up opens a folder itself.
Nova served me well for more than 10 years, and I built my flow around this one feature.
Pop-ups [1] in Niagara launcher do this. However, it comes with other unconventional UI decisions which might or might not be to your liking.
Action, I think they invented it, but it's also gotten pretty bloated over the years.
For those out of the know, Nova Launcher is an Android home screen replacement... so hits home when the root of your phone existence gets shook piece by piece.
There have been enshitification clouds looming on the horizon for Nova Launcher for so long, I think many people (including me) were hoping it would just never happen.
That said, check out Octopi Launcher. I installed it for the first time tonight[0] and it is exactly what you are looking for - a smoother, better Nova Launcher.
Nova really made the perfect product. I remember paying for the premium version worth ₹400 or something back in 2014. I used it till 2023 after I switched to iPhone as my daily driver.
Plenty of great open-source launchers on F-Droid.
Some of the ones people are discussing in this thread aren't there, like Lawnchair.
I have been trying to figure out why my phone has beep going stupid and laggy with the launcher lately, now I know why
Thankfully I am using GrapheneOS, so I never gave the app network permissions. I will look for a new launcher anyways now.
Thanks for sharing.
Do we know if this counts for Prime?
Though tbh the writing has been on the wall for awhile. It's really frustrating, because it otherwise just gets out of your way, which is why I like it.
I guess I have to dedicate an afternoon to finding an alternative.
same thing here. com.teslacoilsw.launcher.prime is a different version and from what I see it doesn't have the tracking ... changing launchers when you have 200+ apps neatly grouped in folders would suck.
I'm still using an old version with the network access blocked. I'll use it until it stops working.
If anyone knows of another launcher with app drawer tabs, let me know.
That sucks. I've been running the paid version for years - however it's clear that it hasn't been properly maintained for a while and it suffers from sporadic crashes.
Any recommendations for launchers that are functionally similar? The launchers mentioned in this thread so far are quite different.
Lawnchair is similar, but it does have some bugs that they're still working through.
If you're not set in the traditional page/app drawer launcher, I'd recommend Kvaesitso. It's a FOSS search based launcher. A bit of a learning curve but it is very performant and feature rich.
Thank you everyone for all the alternatives suggestions.
I've never heard of Nova Lanucher. Apparently it's for Android. Smart phones are a cesspool for privacy. There's really no reason people should be using them for anything but the bare minimum tasks possible.
Huh, I wonder why seven billion people think otherwise then.
Yes, absolutely. Large groups of people are often wrong about all sorts of things, and this is one of them.
At least in Graphene, you can block the app from having network access, but stock launcher in Graphene has worked well for me.
Damn these privacy-invading leeches.
It used to be good :(
Nova drained my erstwhile Android phones battery. Not sure if this has gotten any better.
It's a shame for a free software.
What's the problem exactly?
How disappointing. Been using premium for a decade now (got it in a 10p sale back in 2015! Those were the days)
Time to start scoping out replacements, this thread is a great start
does anyone know open source launcher that actually good ????
PieLauncher (https://github.com/markusfisch/PieLauncher) is good, but very different. Give it a try if a circular menu appearing where you touch the home screen sounds appealing (it's very efficient and easy to launch the apps).
I am very satisfied with KISS launcher[1]. I have been using it for a while now. It's simple and gets out of the way.
That’s disappointing. My primary launcher on my eink devices since it works so well on them.
What devices are those? A phone with eink?
In my case, Mudita Kompakt phone and Boox Go tablet for reading textbooks. Mudita has the stock launcher, Boox is full of bloatware and I installed Niagara
There are many android devices with eink screens. Mostly Chinese brands. BOOX, Hisense, etc. some phones. Some ereaders.
