NovaLauncher: Today marks 1 year since our announcement that we've joined the Branch and Sesame teams! 🎉 That also means it has been 1 year since we promised your data would be safe...

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
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.

- 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.
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.

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

Didn't believe them then, don't believe them now.

RIP Nova.

Can't blame the dev for selling out. I would for a windfall and retire.
But it's time to move on. Wouldn't touch Nova with a 1000 ft pole.
- That's the thing I don't get when people - me included - complain about something like this. As if I wouldn't sell ASAP. Finally some money for all that time spent on this!

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
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
- Consider using Neo Launcher. It's open source and actively developed and is basically what lawnchair aimed to be.

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.
- Mine just looks like a terminal with a pipboy scan lines background I love it so much I forget phones are supposed to have icons and can't figure out how anyone can find apps without a search bar

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!
- Thank you for Obtainium reference
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:
  https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher/issues/346

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 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.

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 was like "Wait, aren't I using nova?"

And sure enough I was.

The fact that I don't care is a good thing. It means it doesn't piss me off and make me want to use something else.

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.

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

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.

Smart Launcher 6 has matured and is very fast and stable.

I personally use Neo Launcher because it has a unique feature.

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.
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.
They're a lot better in Android 13 from my experience
- 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.
- 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.

I have decided to stick with the stock GrapheneOS launcher.

Im not even sure what this all means? Ive been using Nova Launcher since my Galaxy Note 2, though... maybe I should stop using it?

- I immediately stopped using Nova after 8-plus years following that announcement.
- Interesting. Maybe its time to give the stock Samsung launcher a try, I guess?
The version on the Play Store hasn't been updated since Dec 14, 2021 and it still works better than any other alternative imo. However, I am planning to stop using it when they eventually force us to update to the new version (which is the current beta they share through discord).
- Same, and instead the day I need to migrate

Stopped using Nova because gesture animations started to get janky on my Note20 and persist on my S23 Ultra.

Been using Lawnchair since then.

The animations seem to be much better on nova beta 8 / android 13 here's a video I just took: https://giphy.com/gifs/KzsTFd0JIvCc9MWI52
Idk if it would be the same case with Samsung's android ui though. Lawnchair is still a good choice, just not actively being developed right now.
- I tried Nova again after a long time ant it's good again, thanks! Tried a bunch lol, hyperion is pretty great, Smart Launcher is the smoothest but I came back to Nova anyway

I really like Nova, but also prefer to keep as much of my data to myself so I blocked Nova access to the internet via app permissions. Also blocked branch domains on my pi-hole for peace of mind.