After Working on it alone for a year, the founder and original developer of Nova Launcher Kevin Barry has stopped working on Nova Launcher and the open sourcing efforts. More Info: https://teslacoilapps.com/nova/solong.html
kvaesitso is a good free/libre launcher. I’ve been using it for a while now and like it.
I just hope there won’t be any enshittification phases, just abandon it or remove it from play store if open sourcing it as-is is not possible.
I’m surprised to see how many people use launchers …I’ve always found them heavy for my shitty phones…AOSP launcher seems good enough for me to wanna try something else.
I used it many years ago, perhaps 10, and started using it again because it allows me to rename PWAs. I have four instances of Frigate running for various locations and now i can edit their name based on location.
I’ve only used launchers to avoid enshittification e.g. Google Search box or other proprietary features that I don’t want.
I see…maybe I can’t see the need for a launcher because I’ve been using lineage OS for a couple years…
Pretty much! I see the same now on GrapheneOS. No need for another launcher.
Except I use KISS launcher, which is a whole other experience.
I started using them back in the day, when most phones had a very limited launcher. I have used nova for many years, it has a ton of customization options. I’m not sure how it is these days, but previous phones also came with thing that I did not like and could not disable or remove. Like a permanent Google search bar, or the Google assistant being a dedicated page on your home screen.
That was/is the best part of Nova launcher. Highly customizable, but not laggy or slow
What even is it? Is it like fdroid for example?
I paid for Nova years ago, and have been happily using it ever since. For me, it’s set up in a really minimalist way that fits how I like to use my phone. I’ve never had any need to switch away from it because it works for my needs. Is there any reason I should consider switching away from it :?
When the next version of Android breaks support for it…
My phone still work’s perfectly fine, so I plan to keep using it for as long as I can & it won’t be getting any android os updates any time soon, so I think I’ll be fine. When my phone eventually does give up the ghost, I’ll deal with it then, but until that point, nova should keep working just fine for me…
Everyone knew Nova was dead once it was sold. Surprised old mate held on this long.
Still haven’t found a replacement launcher that matches all it’s functionality.
KISS launcher is FOSS and a bit different, but many ex. Nova users flocked to it after it was bought.
I was already a long time KISS launcher user after the sale (long time nova user)
Recently discovered Kvaesitso and I have fully switched! It is just a bit more featureful than KISS while still being very clean and now when people use my phone for something, they can actually find apps too which is nice.
I never used nova, but I’m so used to KISS now, it’s the first thing I install on a new phone. It’s also funny to lend the phone to someone, because nobody understands it as it’s very different (especially how I set it up).
Oh wow. I guess I really live under a rock. I honestly did not know it was bought. 😬
I did. Love KISS Launcher more than I loved Nova back in the day.
Same. I really need padding adjustments for my custom home screen, and I haven’t seen anything else that lets you remove widget padding and adjust padding around each home screen page and the dock :/
And the ability to set my own widget as the persistent search bar widget.
I guess when I get tired of my current setup and start reworking it maybe I’ll just blow it all up and start over with another launcher and work within their constraints.
Padding and grid / snap to half-grid makes it so easy to get things lined up exactly how you like.
I also like having slide actions on the dock… I have a phone icon. If you tap on it, it opens a folder with my most common 9’ish contacts as direct dials. If I slide up on it, it opens the phone app. Repeat for other icons on the dock and you get over a dozen potential actions from 4 icons.
Not sure if anything else offers this.
Yep. I forgot, I really need snap to half grid too.
And actively use swipe actions on app icons.
Things are super messy cause I haven’t finished updating stuff after changing phones and a couple things are broken while I make changes, but I can’t do this with any other launcher, sadly
I can’t tell if I love or hate the way your phone looks lol… It looks chaotic af
Edit: It looks like the gui of your character’s in-game PDA device in an indie sci-fi game
Lol, that’s okay, it’s very much to my own preference, and it’s a lot less overstimulating when you’re the one who placed everything and labored over every little corner. A lot of it is designed to help me stay on top of managing my sleep disorder
Styling-wise it’s inspired by the in-show ui elements from cowboy bebop, and some typography from ghost in the shell
For people like me who are worried about the data collection of Nova, we can try asking to remove it.
I had no idea it was sold to an analytics company. That’s real sad.
Edit: direct link to request removal of novalauncher personal data
Having used pixel phones as long as they’ve been around, and used some AOSP based OS, I cannot imagine what it would be to not be able to block network access on a per-application basis.
Calculator app? No, you don’t need to read my contacts or network access to ship it to God knows who. Keyboard app that is an ipso keylogger, also no. Launcher, no… Image gallery? Fuck off.
I trust companies to do the wrong thing, always. They all sell your data. If they ever get caught, the punishment will be less than what they made by it, so why wouldn’t they.
I turned off internet connectivity for Nova and the Nova launcher prime with tracker control, I figure that may help.
Wow what a betrayal, poor guy. He works for an open source release for a year and they just rip it away from him. Fuck Alex Austin.
I had noticed that Nova had been falling behind for the last couple of years, but I didn’t know why. I’ve been using it for over 10 years.
It sounds like a case of “buy it, kill it” which is pretty sad. If it had been open sourced we might have been able to improve it and keep it alive.
Yeah, they laid off the whole team behind Kevin. I would quit too, if I saw my creation fall that way.
What team? He wrote he was the only one working on Nova for the past year.
Yea because they laid everyone off already
I stopped using it years ago when it got bought and immediately injected with spyware. Neo Launcher or Lawnchair are very similar to Nova. Lawnchair gets more active development, but I use Neo because it’s nearly the same as Nova.
Neo launcher hasn’t had a release for 3 years, sadly.
Lawnchair is alright but it is missing a bunch of features compared to Nova.
Yea, running from repo there are updates, but yea, sad it has stagnated for releases. It’s why I’m starting to look at Lawnchair again.
I’m still using Nova Launcher, can you elaborate on the spyware part?
They were acquired by Branch Analytics, and right after the APK went up in size by 150% with no visible changes.
It then asks for location and accessibility (to see notifications) permissions.
They then got rid of most of the staff, leaving a sole developer.
No one knows what it sends back home (at least not the last time I read about it, which was years ago).
Fossify launcher is buggy but at least it’s always been open source to my knowledge. Actively developed. All the fossify application. I use them
What’s going on, should I stop using Nova? I never paid for it and I like the way it functions…
Technically you can disable automatic updates for it. However at anytime the rights to Nova could be sold to anyone else, and not just a data miner some are talking about, and suddenly the app gets updated but possibly to the wrong direction given its massive install base.
It’s not even the 6th yet! …which tells me he’s in Europe and that makes Nova a little cooler.
iPhone guy but of course I have Nova Prime on my backup phone. I wanna say I had a couple other apps he made, too? Tesla Coil sounds familiar. But it’s been almost 10 years since an Android phone was my main phone.
So Nova should be usable for a few more years at least… but… what’s everyone gonna replace it with? For what I use my S10 for, it should be good enough. I mainly need the launcher to support custom grid sizes, larger icons, and custom icons since my Android phone is a cosplay prop. (It’s meant to look and act like the NookPhone from Animal Crossing. It’s fully functional — you open Nook Music and it’s Apple Music which I’m subscribed to, as long as it has WiFi it will play, and it has a lot of stuff downloaded. And of course the browser is Firefox with uBlock Origin — it’s just Redd the fake art purveyor on a globe rather than the red panda we all know and love.)
Try Kvaesitso its free and open source: https://github.com/MM2-0/Kvaesitso
Is the dev Lithuanian? Noticed a weather data app in the repo.
Does not have widgets/has some limited plugins. Can’t have apps pinned on screen. Looks nifty but it’s unusable for me :(
Regarding pinning apps, you can add apps to Favorites by holding the app icon and tapping the ★ icon. On the homescreen, the pinned favorites can be shown and either sorted automatically by usage, or sorted manually to lock them in place on the screen. You can also do a mix of auto/manually sorted, so that the apps at the top are static while those below are dynamically changing.
Another option is adding one or multiple tags to each app (hold the icon, tap the three dots, then Customize). After setting some tags, you can then tap the pen icon in the bottom right corner of the Favorites view, tap the first + to add a new tag to favorites. You can then switch between “folders”/“collections” of the pinned tags inside the favorites view.
Well, you can add some apps and widgets on home screen. 1.For Apps: Settings > Home screen > Dock. After that add the apps you want on home screen to Favorites. 2. For Widgets: Settings > Home screen > Enable Show Widgets on Home screen. After doing that Swipe up that will show widgets. Go to end to edit widgets and add whatever widget you like.
Other than that yeah it is different , it is supposed to be different. Like, how Niagara launcher is different. If you want something more like nova launcher then I’d suggest Lawnchair.
Amazing recommendation. I’ve used Nova for years, and while its different, Kvaesitso is stunning. So smooth, and it surfaces apps and actions I use all the time better than Nova.
I enjoy Niagara launcher. The paid version is a bit pricey but the free tier is pretty solid as well.
Yeah Niagara is great and very usable at the free tier
Do you like your iPhone?
I just came to iOS from a Razer Phone 2 (S9 generation), but I used jailbroken iPhones forever, until the 6 or so.
… And I don’t like it. All the gestures, everything is unintuitive, and I can’t change hardly anything! My old jailbroken 5 was more feature rich, yet somehow simple and snappy too. Every app nickels and dimes you, and I feel like I’m struggling to restrict thier access to things.
I made the mistake of getting it for older family thinking it’d be easier, and they can hardly even function.
Well, I have the best one. I have the 16 Pro Max, 512GB. I like the big screen, and I like a lot of things about it. And how well it works with my watch, my AirPods, and my Macs — for example, being able to copy something on one and paste it on the other. “The Ecosystem” isn’t as great as some say, but it does have its advantages.
Some apps cost money. I refuse to do subscriptions. I’ll pay for an app if I like it but I won’t pay monthly unless it’s a service (like say Apple Music). There are free apps on both platforms. There are paid/subscription apps on both platforms. Both platforms take 30% so they’re both incentivised to promote subscriptions and paid apps over free ones. The free ones still exist. Only on Android, you also have F-Droid which is all free/open source apps.
Nothing is more powerful than an iPhone in all conditions. Okay so the Galaxy S25 is faster right now, but when it gets hot, its thermal protections reduce power by like 50-60% to cool it faster. iPhone only loses 20-30%, so under no load, the S25 is gonna be faster, and the iPhone is gonna be faster under load. Talking about playing the top games. So most of the time you’re under no load. Also, on paper nothing has faster storage than an iPhone because iPhones use more expensive NVMe SSDs. Your top Android phones use UFS 4.0, or even 3.x, which is slower… on paper. The benchmarks speak for themselves. But power on an iPhone 16 Pro and a Galaxy S25 Ultra and open and close apps, you’re not going to see a big enough difference to say “I’m selling the phone in my left hand to buy the phone in my right,” whichever way you wanna go. Android has more RAM. Android has better AI. iPhone has never had a good keyboard — Gboard sucks on iOS but it’s amazing on Android. Android has Firefox with uBlock Origin. iPhone has better video cameras. Still cameras? iPhone over-sharpens, Samsung over-softens, and Pixel uses AI hallucinations to fill in what it can’t see. They can all show you lab-created conditions where their phone comes out on top. MKBHD has shown people time and time again that in blind image contests, most of his viewers/subscribers prefer pictures taken by cheap Android phones, not flagships from anyone.
So the truth is, there really is no best smartphone platform. For a Mac guy, iPhones have a slight advantage, but their disadvantages are notable, too. And honestly I’d love to have a better Android phone than my 2019 Galaxy S10, but the fact that I like my S10 better than my 16PM for a few things speaks volumes.
I think what I’m gonna do is, in a few years, buy a Galaxy phone that’s a couple generations out that is better than my S10 (it should be — by a lot) and then after a few more years, replace the iPhone… probably with a base model, because honestly I don’t play top end games and even the top iPhone can’t get something as basic as typing.
Nothing is more powerful than an iPhone in all conditions
I guess my use case is just totally different.
I have zero interest in phone gaming, as (even if the App Store wasn’t so MTX-ridden) I’d rather do that on PC and just read stuff when on the go. I need performance for two things: web apps (which Android inexplicably seems to win on) and, theoretically local LLM assistants, and iPhones just dont have enough RAM to make the latter worth it.
As for disk speed, my use case is transferring media on/off. But there’s no MicroSD! And even USB transfers are bizzare on Apple.
…So all their performance is totally useless to me, I guess.
That’s my point, for most people the performance gains of one 2024 or 2025 flagship over another don’t mean much.
I can transfer stuff over WiFi to my iPhone in seconds. Like 2-3GB movies, 100MB-1GB video clips, etc. Seconds.
microSD sucks and I think anyone familiar with the tech knows it. The issue is speed. microSD is fine for like 16GB, maybe 32GB. Once you get bigger, you wanna put bigger files up there, more files, but they move. so. slow. It’s painful to watch. Then you get a bigger one and it’s such a headache to transfer stuff between them. I think a couple companies tried to make faster microSD cards/readers but they never took off. So I talked about NVMe and UFS. Slower than UFS, on garbage Android phones that aren’t good enough for UFS, is EMMC, and EMMC is faster than microSD. microSD is good for Jack and shit, and Jack left town. Apple may have blessed the industry by never including it. It’s trash and Jobs knew it, and he didn’t put trash in his products. Lots of people know microSD is trash and that, not Apple, is why most Android phones don’t include them now either. One, because yeah, they wanna sell you the faster internal storage and/or cloud storage. But two, because it’s just so slow.
But yeah, I’d say get a big-ish phone (storage wise, like 256GB or more) and keep stuff on the internal UFS or NVMe. Optionally get a Samsung T7 or T9 portable SSD, 2TB for around $100, on Black Friday (I mean, that’s about what I paid for my T7, like $110 tops) and keep stuff on that. Yes, iPhones can read/write from/to flash drives and portable drives. Same as Android, you open the file manager, browse to the drive, copy stuff over. Apple’s built in Files does it. On Android I’m old school, I’d only mess with either Solid Explorer (my personal choice) or FX File Explorer (2nd choice). I know Android has a file manager now (Samsung had one longer) but I trust those.
I use KISS Launcher. Always fast, predictable and easy to find anything I want.
The other Tesla Coil app I used was Widget Locker. Back in the days before Android had flashlight controls on the system tray, I had a lock screen shortcut for the flashlight.
Yes, Widget Locker! I used that too. Now there’s KWGT (I think that’s how it’s spelled) and also KLWP and KLCK. Kustom is the brand and their apps make widgets, live wallpapers, and lock screens, respectively. But Widget Locker came first IIRC.
Neo Launcher.
It’s great. The only downside is not having a release schedule. It had one or two annoying bugs in the past but nothing serious.
I didn’t read anything about nova for the past years, I even forgot that it was a thing.
Edit: there has been no fdroid or github release since 2022. There are still commits in the repo but I don’t know if the published version on telegram is the one from github. Does this make it closed source now?
Does anyone know of a good replacement launcher that supports Private Space?
Lawnchair supports it.
I think Lawnchair is the closest visual / UX replacement to Nova that I’ve found, but it is missing many features compared to Nova 🙁.
Also, I’m starting to learn Private Space is a pain, as amongst other shortcomings it forces you to use a logged-in Play Store to install apps (“private”, my ass!). You can install apks via ADB, but who can be bothered to do that.
Under the hood, it looks like Private Space uses another hidden user, so I think I’ll just make another user logged into nothing and switch to it occasionally instead of using private space.
“Private” from other people who may have access to your phone, but not private from Google. I use it to segment my work and personal stuff, and can still get notifications for both accounts, where as separate users wouldn’t get that.
I’ve been very Happy with Kvaesito which supports private space, but it’s not a typical launcher format
Why would anyone give Nova launcher internet access to begin with?
What’s the appeal of all these alternative launchers? Stock launcher works fine and I’ve never felt like anything was missing. I’m a poweruser on PC but I can hardly think of anything I’d want to do with a phone along poweruser lines.
Aside from functionality, stock launchers are more often than not inperformant and battery hungry piles of crap.
I add an extra row and column of apps on the home screen, and make the icons bigger so there’s less space between. And bump up the text size since my eyes are getting older.
Personally, the customisability without the effort. You get a hundred bells and whistles to make your phone look and feel unique, things that stock android should really provide but doesn’t.
People want to interact with their devices in ways that fall outside the blessed functions permitted by the corporate designed pattern deemed appropriate for them. If corporate UI works for you, that’s great for you, but it doesn’t for everyone.
I have no idea why you’re so confrontational. I asked a question. I never judged anyone for their preferences. Nobody seems to be able to have a normal conversation on the internet…
It wasn’t meant to be confrontational, sorry about that! I’m not judging anyone who is comfy with the stock experience, just saying that it’s not for everybody.
I’m with you, I never heard of nova launcher until now, and not sure why I would want it.
Consistency between devices. Android isn’t android, everyone mucks with it, especially Samsung.
Yeah, I used Nova on all of my phones before I got a Pixel… The stock Android experience is decent enough that I haven’t felt the need for a third party launcher yet.
What’s nova launcher? All I can find is a seemingly proprietary Android launcher with a Twitter as only social media. Doesn’t scream FOSS to me.
Nova Launcher was a very popular launcher many years ago. Its not Foss. If you read the post you’d known that the developer was working to make it open source but now stopped.
Note that the linked article answers your FOSS question.
