Nitter link provided instead of Twitter post. Screenshot below.
deleted by creator
It definitely feels weird, but it could also just be a reaction to the significant criticisms at the time of the purchase and change of ownership.
Integrity company here. It’s been a year since we partnered with known mobster Two Face and we promised you that he would have no influence over our business other than as a financier and we’ve kept that promise! As you can see his racketeering has been kept completely independent of our day to day activities. You can trust us and Two Face that we will be allowed to be completely independent and there is no tom foolery going around behind the scenes.
Surely you mean Tegrity Farms?
There’s a news/politics website in my country that had radio ads, billboards and everything with a slogan “Nobody dictates us what we should write about.”
This tweet reminds me of that and doesn’t really fill me with trust either.
BTW, the mentioned website is described as a “disinformation medium” on Wikipedia.
I mean, their message is a little weird, but so is the scaremongering that’s been going on against them ever since they changed ownership. From comments on the Reddit post, Branch is actually integrated into Google apps, Samsung Launcher, and a ton of other stuff and nobody really blinks an eye at that.
There literally is no evidence they do anything unseemly with peoples’ data, yet the scaremongering persists, including a lot right here in this thread. What exactly are they supposed to say other than to emphasize this fact? Anyone who would distrust them based on this post was already definitely inclined to distrust them.
I see it more as a jab at the insane scaremongering when they sold.
Yeah sure, some concerns are justified in that situation, alright. But it’s not like you need to instantly drop something the moment this happens, more so because half the alternatives people recommend have trackers the very company that bought nova runs.
“Insane scaremongering?” What an incredibly ignorant and biased characterization
Is it? Don’t get me wrong, it’s completely understandable to be concerned, disappointed, annoyed or distrustful of such a buyout. Entirely understandable.
But at the same time, immediately coming to the conclusion that all data is now being hoovered up isn’t helping anybody. Because if nothing else, it destroys nuance. If you assume the moment an ad company is involved that all data is being gathered, then you lack the ability to make any further distinction. This would also mean that nobody could ever create a more ethical ad company, as users would still immediately assume they’re gathering all data, and hence be no better than any of the other companies. This in turn removes any motivation to ever even try this.
Likewise, and more relevant in this case, if users immediately assume the worst has already happened, then no company can ever try to sell to another company in a more responsible manner, as again the perceived result is the same, so there’s no incentive to do so.
What actually happened:
- Nova got sold.
- The new owners might start gathering more data.
- Or not.
- Just as well, Nova could have started gathering more data without selling.
- Or not.
From the perspective of the end user, other than the chances of more data being gathered in the future going up a little bit (and apparently not even all that much given that it’s been one year now), nothing has changed. 🤷
That’s what I mean: You cannot always immediately assume the worst will happen right now this very moment. Scaremongering precludes any sensible form of discussion or improvement to a situation, as one side has already decided that it’s all a lost cause anyways.
Now, should the new owners start gathering more data, then we can all toss Nova into the bin. And then say “Okay it took far longer than expected, but fuck ad-company buyouts!”. But so far that hasn’t happened, and hey, if anything it seems Nova found some buyers who don’t just trash the product they bought for some quick bucks.
Indeed, it does seem like this.
Why do you need to trust a launcher with your data at all? Why does it ever leave your device? This made me very skeptical about them.
A launcher needs a lot of privileges to do its work. I have to trust it that it does not collect/send anything to anywhere.
My AOSP launcher has zero permissions, except one that I optionally enabled to see notifications so it can do the little notification dots on my app icons.
I was referencing usual launchers with a rich set of features. As fas as I remember, one can also disable most of the permissions for no a as well, but this will kill all cool features.
I can see it requiring internet for integrating a search bar like it does, but why does their servers need that info instead of directly sending it to the search engine?
My only point was, that nova needs a lot of permissions on my device to make its cool features working AND it has access to the internet. So, technically it can collect and upload a lot of user’s data. If/how it does this, is a matter of trust.
And many people lost this trust.
Well sure, but that also means it’s rather limited in what it does. In theory if it had no permissions, it couldn’t even list the installed apps.
So I guess what you want to say is that it has some permissions, but none that leave the direct context of launching apps?
But even then… do you include a search box in that? Should that show recently opened files in apps, too? A rather common feature those contextual per-app run-actions, but they require some way of either the launcher getting this from the app, or in turn the app supplying this action to the launcher. Include a web search in that box? Sync settings? Show notifications? Gestures? All of these require a host of permissions.
Just install DuckDuckGo browser app and let it block any the trackers, job done. I’ve been using Nova on a new pixel 7a for a couple of months now and really happy with it (especially vs the incredibly stupid stock launcher, with its un-movable pointless widgets taking up half the home screen)
edit the DDG browser app runs a VPN which blocks trackers, I’m not making it up
Just so you’re aware why people are disagreeing with you - an installed browser does not change the behavior of HTTP calls made in other applications.
It’s not just a browser though, it also blocks trackers in other apps. Or is the DDG app lying when it shows all the trackers it’s blocking for each app?
Some few apps it literally breaks and need to have the tracker blocking disabled before they work again, so I’m pretty sure it’s doing something. It runs as a VPN afaict
If it does include a VPN provider, then you’re correct - it would work for other applications.
I don’t think it’s common knowledge for people who don’t have the app, so you may want to include information about that in your original post.
I can understand the flak they’re having, but honestly Nova is the first thing I install on all my Android devices. Its so convenient and versatile
I used to too. Now just using the default one because can’t be bothered to find an alternative
Been using lawnchair since forever, I try to avoid closed source apps as much as possible, so Nova was never an option for me.
The play store says lawnchair isn’t available because it was made for an older version of Android… The versions on F-Droid are 2 years old too …
Get the alphas at lawnchair.app
The alphas there are the same ~year old ones on F-Droid
Just wish it would get more development.
The last Alpha is from August 8 and even then the current iteration is a shell of what Lawnchair was during the V2 Alpha days
the FLOSS alternative https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher/
I don’t have a play store link if you do please post it for those in need
Thanks for sharing! They don’t seem to have a Play Store listing, but they do have an F-Droid link on the IzzyOnDroid repo. Can also add their GitHub releases to Obtainium for easy updating.
And now I just learned about Obtainium. Thank you!
It hasn’t been updated since October 2022. Is it still in active development?
I beleive there is another release planned. They are slow tho. I think very much a volunteer project.
Yes. They are working on re-basing the launcher:
Anyway, I just wish KISS offered a better widget customization.
I love KISS. Anyone picking up my phone would just see a blank screen with seemingly no function unless you know to swipe.
True but I pair KISS with the Panels App and tuck some widgets into the side bar. Not perfect as I can’t get PowerAmp widget to work. 🙁
I tried the alternatives people were suggesting on reddit at the time:
- Some are clean (no trackers, etc), but change the experience too much and I want a traditional launcher.
- Some work like I expect them to, but Exodus ( https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/ ) shows lots of trackers… moving from one that might track in the future to one that already tracks is not a good move.
- Open source alternatives, which I prefer, either move very slow (Neo Launcher) or are dead.
- Not all handle gesture navigation or Android 12/13 well.
So I’m still on Nova. I did upgrade to the beta as after a certain A13 update the stable version started bugging out, but that’s it. I use LineageOS and can remove internet access from apps, so that’s what I did. My hope is that Neo Launcher becomes more active, but until a few things are improved/fixed, I’ll stay on Nova.
I could just use the stock launcher on LineageOS btw… the reason I don’t is that it’s easier to backup an app and restore it after a reset/moving ROMs.
I made the jump to Niagara and have enjoyed it so far. I really enjoyed Nova, but there’s no going back at this point.
I’ve been on nova for like…a decade. What am I missing out on?Nevermind, it’s free so I tried it. Definitely not my cup of tea…does anyone have any suggestions more similar to how Nova works? I like my icon gestures
I’ve been using neo launcher. Definitely not as feature rich as nova but it fulfills my wanta.
I’ll check that out!
And still no sign of the long-promised version 8 going out of beta yet ffs…
Then again I’ve weaned myself off Nova Launcher last year by purchasing the Fold 4.
Not updated since Dec 2021.
Yeah, this is what makes the announcement weird.
There are apks of the beta 8.x version on their site
I’m still on Nova because it just works so right for me, many others I tried didn’t.
My needs are very basic
- A home screen I can place icons in specific positions (eg not forced auto sort)
- folders (drag multiple icons on top of each other to create a group/folder)
- Message count on icons, e.g my Whatsapp icon should show a little number indicating amount of new messages
- and finally, an app drawer showing all apps in a single list (without any fancy grouping)
Maybe this is normal now but years ago Nova seemed to be the only one that offered all these basic features together
Smart Launcher 6 has matured and is very fast and stable.
I personally use Neo Launcher because it has a unique feature.
I wanted a consistent launcher across different devices over time. I eventually settled on Nova Launcher, paid for it, and really liked it. I have been using it for about a decade. I just abandoned it a few hours ago because I finally determined why my tablet was grinding and halting. Nova Launcher was using over 600 MB of memory as well as leaking memory. My tablet is running like it’s brand new again. I am unhappy about not being able to use it, but I’m a lot happier that I’m able to use my tablet again.
I stopped using third party launchers since they began to suck because the full screen gestures, I think since A11.
What issues do you have?
Short unresponsiveness to other inputs when you return home while having gesture navigation turned on. It’s very annoying.
Has this been fixed in more recent versions of Android perhaps? Not experiencing this on the S21U or S23U.
I’m using a Pixel 7, so pretty sure I’m on the newest version.
Yeah, this pretty much.
They’re a lot better in Android 13 from my experience
Not for me mate, nothing beats smoothness of Pixel Launcher, or whatever stock launcher that comes with the ROM… Or that uses Quickswitch for custom ROMs.
Yea no 3rd party launcher is as smooth as the default ones still, but it’s noticably better than it was when I tried a couple years back
Not being able to remove the Google search bar on the pixel launcher is a dealbreaker to me
Exactly, the small lag from multitasking on home that many people were complaining about is gone in A13. Not many people talked about that though.
I just checked. It’s still there
That’s weird, maybe it’s a pixel issue. I’ve had no lags ever since updating to android 13. Here’s a video of it https://giphy.com/gifs/KzsTFd0JIvCc9MWI52
QuickSwitch used to be the perfect fix for this but basically no launchers other than Lawnchair wanna integrate it and Lawnchair is kinda dead 😵💫
Yeah I know, I think Pixel Launcher Extended uses it, that’s why it behaves so great.
I have decided to stick with the stock GrapheneOS launcher.
