Nova Launcher could soon introduce Nova AI, a built-in AI assistant complete with a chatbot, and a new Nova Plus subscription tier
Thanks for the reminder! I had switched to Lawnchair, but I just realized I had forgotten to uninstall Nova. Fixed!
Same. Just uninstalled that spyware
Anyone that gives a single shit about their data being sold to third parties should have dumped Nova a long time ago.
This is the first I’ve heard about any privacy issues. I dumped Nova recently because I found a good FOSS launcher.
Mind sharing which launcher you switched to?
Dragon Launcher. Apparently it isn’t on Play; you have to use F-Droid.
well if you didn’t jump ship in 2022 i guess this is your time
hasn’t update this app since 2021 lol. Good thing the pre-enshitification version worked perfectly fine without updates.
Lawnchair runs fine on GrapheneOS.
And on pretty much every other android too.
Yeah it’s time. Nova was great but now it’s fully enshitified. I went with Niagara. There’s a short learning period, less than a week for me to feel comfortable, but I love it. Very simple and clean.
Same, it’s great
Lawnchair for graphene
Kvaesitso is really nice as well
+1 for lawn chair
Total enshittification. Practically conned then kicked out the original team so that they make their own intrusive changes.
Hell, any data they harvest will and can be sold to other parties. God knows how much fucking lunatic Peter could be offering them.
If anyone is stubborn enough and until someone makes a near 1:1 version – and Lawnchair is functionally close to what Nova does – do backup the existing settings, uninstall the app, roll back to the pre-2022 7.0.57b version, sideload install, then from GPlay disable auto-updating for the app. Yeah, and put restrictions on the app from trying to do telemetry.
This is what I ended up doing. Keeps it in the older untarnished state, things still work fine. Telemetry hadn’t been added yet
I still got my Nova7 Pre-Branch .apk saved on my NAS. I really should try to find a replacement but so far it works as expected.
What does any of this do? What problem or need is it addressing? I’m honestly so confused by 99% of technology these days, it seems to be nothing more than an electronic pacifier for an entire generation of ADHD addicts.
So basically any advantage over the native launcher is void?
You know some people beat this drum that more people should pay for good software and that it guarantees it’s longevity and independence, and so I did buy the pro version of Nova years ago and now we are here, I think when it comes to software unless it’s open source and you can have full control over it then it’s not worth anything, as it’s only matter of time before it either gets deleted or enshitified, that’s why I started shifting to open source alternatives for most things
The problem with paying is that it doesn’t solve the fundamental economics. Marginal cost of copying software is near zero, fractions of a cent. So there’s just no way to justify economically charging anything more than a nominal fee for software. The entire concept of charging to allow people to download stuff is simply pure greed, and paying a little bit won’t stop the greed in the slightest. And a lot of people simply enjoy creating software, so there’s always going to be a foss alternative.
Moved to action launcher after the sale. Enshittification was inevitable.
And yet another piece of software I have to abandon because of this dipshit cult behaviour.
Thanks guys. You really just went ahead and put your dick in it.
damn i remember the good old days with Nova where everything was so smooth. Evie launcher too. And even we have many problems with them, Microsoft launcher was good in the beginning.
I’m surprised people are still using this. I haven’t used Nova for almost a decade.
I’ve been quite happy with Niagara for the last few months.
+1 for Niagara, plus even though you don’t have to, pro features can be purchased outside of Google Play.
+2 for offering a lifetime purchase option (though it is kinda pricey)
Nova has a life time buy too. Fat fucking lot of good that did.
Far as I’m concerned if it ain’t a private company with no investors open source products and functions entirely offline. Even then I don’t fucking trust em.
Companies and their promises are worth less than the horse shit up in my barn.
The hell happened? First it was ads, now this bs. It was such a good launcher too.
Got bought up Branch, and the original dev left when they refused to open source it as promised.
The end began 4 years ago. Now they’re set up to grift anyone using the app.
If you read the article, it sounds like the company got bought out and put under new management.
