The branch analytics got added in version 8 so 7 should be safe. I don’t think it was added in version 8.0 but a slightly later patch, but I avoid it nonetheless.
Has someone capable actually opened the APK to confirm it’s “safe” though. Would love to see a post where someone breaks down for lay people, if it exists
Can’t say that I saw something like that, but that is the version before the acquisition. Just in case, you can download from apk mirror older versions.
Hi, I’ve installed KISS after reading this comment and there’s one thing I don’t understand. Is one supposed to manually select their ‘Favourites’ or are they populated by KISS with use? I couldn’t find an answer to this anywhere else.
I’ve been using KISS for I don’t know how many years at this point. I can’t imagine using anything else at this point. I’m sure that there’s plenty of other great FOSS launchers out there!
Having participated in many “charities”, you’d be a fool to believe an operation just because it is registered as a “not for profit”.
Look at the executive-pay, and if it is over 2x the cost-of-living, you’re looking at a money-funneling-to-executives scam, that is masquerading as a not-for-profit.
The amount of spine required to have real integrity, in this planet, is apparently greater than the amount of spine available in a human life?
Is there any launcher that works well with Pixel’s transition animations when using gesture mode? I haven’t tried for a few years because there would be weird animation glitches from things like switching apps or going back to the home screen.
OK, if they say so, it must be true. I mean, they bought it because they had nothing better to do with the money, and that they are a data mining company means nothing. They just wanted a Launcher because “why not?”.
Just keep your Nova launcher and don’t opt-in to the tracking, nothing will change. 🤔
I’ve been seeing too much of this lately. They can’t get us to get their nasty tracking malware ridden software, so they bet on us being too stupid to move away from one they purchase because we used to trust it. Same thing that happened with the Simple apps suite.
We’ll be seeing more and more of this moving forward.
Came here to mention Niagara. Been using it almost 5 years now and it’s perfect. Early on had some stuff that I missed, like folders or browser shortcuts, but the overall UI made up for it. But now? Flawless. Peerless. Just fucking, delightful.
I don’t even think about it until I see someone else use their launcher, and feel the need to give them a short Niagara demo.
I don’t understand why no phone company has considered making at least something similar as default. A vertical list of apps is way more intuitive than a mess of dozens of apps with too many colors.
Now if switch to a new phone, I even have to check if it supports gestures for third-party launchers. Another a-hole feature of some brands (specifically Xiaomi). Using Niagara with the bottom navigation buttons makes no sense.
I found an alternative called Olauncher.minimal af launcher. Play store says it collects and shares nothing, though I don’t know how easy it is to fool. It seems ok so far, though I’m not sure I really want a minimalist launcher.
Also using it since almost a year back i think now. But not pro. I can’t find a reason to pay that much for functionality I don’t really need even if I would pay to support the dev.
IMO the theming feature in Pro is worth it. Having all icons in the same style makes the app list way less distracting. And supporting the dev is a nice bonus too.
I am a person that really don’t care about icons. I wanted 2 widgets but since I switched I have learnt to live with just one of the two. I promise, if the price was halved i wouldn’t have blinked but as it is now as a subscription every year. Yeah, no I don’t use my phone that much.
Here’s an alternative that’s about 50% less expensive and not a subscription. Personally use it on KISS launcher and it’s basically perfect for my uses
The man dev quit the project and others are picking up the pieces. They might not have access to the Play Store account, or maybe they do. Either way, the new team has not produced a new final version yet. Just a string of alphas and betas. As of now the beta is the main version. It’s good enough for daily use.
This literally doesn’t answer the question at all. It’s just a snarky remark from someone who seems to think everyone else should be as privy to how all this works as they are.
You need to work on how you ask for things… This isn’t my product and I don’t work for you.
I don’t know if this is news to you, but the “then” on the end of your statement has some sharp edges on it and represents you as entitled (making you aware if that wasn’t your intention)
A little more grace goes a long way when you’re asking strangers for help on the internet, friend.
Reading the article and justification given I do actually get the idea of it. They want to levarage the parent company’s clout and connections in order to convince other app makers into implementing a way for Sesame, the universal search app/plugin, to pull results directly from those apps. For the parent company it would give them a USP in the analytics market.
In short: Think of searching for a product from the launcher and rather than it opening Google, it returns results directly from the Amazon app, or eBay, or any other app that supports the functionality. Obviously there’ll be an affiliate kickback for any click-through and you’ve got a decent revenue source.
It’s a good idea, I get it. Would I feel comfortable using it? I don’t know. On the one hand it just cuts out the middle-man of searching for and clicking through to products via Google etc. On the other hand, all of the concerns already raised in this thread!
Lanwchair is a great replacement but I am facing many problems with its widgets and don’t forget the default launcher is always the best option if you consider less surface attack
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Thank you for this heads up
Is the Nova 7 apk that everyone references actually “safe” or is that just regurgitated rumor without source?
The branch analytics got added in version 8 so 7 should be safe. I don’t think it was added in version 8.0 but a slightly later patch, but I avoid it nonetheless.
Has someone capable actually opened the APK to confirm it’s “safe” though. Would love to see a post where someone breaks down for lay people, if it exists
Can’t say that I saw something like that, but that is the version before the acquisition. Just in case, you can download from apk mirror older versions.
Appreciate it, thank you
I switched from Nova Launcher to Lawnchair (GitHub) over a year ago. I think it’s great. https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair
Latest release says it’s from 2018 though…
there are recent git commits, they appear to be working on the beta
https://lawnchair.app/blog/lawnchair-14/
article is dated this month
Latest beta release was on April 3. Source from telegram.
When that first happened I switched to KISS Launcher. Fully search based. really simple and really fast.
I always assumed the stock launcher was always running under custom launchers. Is this the case?
Hi, I’ve installed KISS after reading this comment and there’s one thing I don’t understand. Is one supposed to manually select their ‘Favourites’ or are they populated by KISS with use? I couldn’t find an answer to this anywhere else.
You pick them yourself. Search for an app, long press and then add to favorites
Thanks :)
Had an old, barely living phone. Tried very hard to die on sole fact it had to display icons. KISS actually made it usable once again. ^^
I’ve been using KISS for I don’t know how many years at this point. I can’t imagine using anything else at this point. I’m sure that there’s plenty of other great FOSS launchers out there!
But they promised that they won’t use the data for it 😜
They paid millions for it just for charity
I could believe them if they were a nonprofit. 😂
Having participated in many “charities”, you’d be a fool to believe an operation just because it is registered as a “not for profit”.
Look at the executive-pay, and if it is over 2x the cost-of-living, you’re looking at a money-funneling-to-executives scam, that is masquerading as a not-for-profit.
The amount of spine required to have real integrity, in this planet, is apparently greater than the amount of spine available in a human life?
Is there any launcher that works well with Pixel’s transition animations when using gesture mode? I haven’t tried for a few years because there would be weird animation glitches from things like switching apps or going back to the home screen.
Lawnchair seems alright.
Thanks for the info, as a long-time Nova Launcher user, I was not aware. Good thing I didn’t give it any internet access.
OK, if they say so, it must be true. I mean, they bought it because they had nothing better to do with the money, and that they are a data mining company means nothing. They just wanted a Launcher because “why not?”.
Just keep your Nova launcher and don’t opt-in to the tracking, nothing will change. 🤔
I’ve been seeing too much of this lately. They can’t get us to get their nasty tracking malware ridden software, so they bet on us being too stupid to move away from one they purchase because we used to trust it. Same thing that happened with the Simple apps suite.
We’ll be seeing more and more of this moving forward.
Switched to Niagara launcher (Pro version) about a year ago and now I cannot imagine using a phone with an traditional app drawer.
Came here to mention Niagara. Been using it almost 5 years now and it’s perfect. Early on had some stuff that I missed, like folders or browser shortcuts, but the overall UI made up for it. But now? Flawless. Peerless. Just fucking, delightful.
I don’t even think about it until I see someone else use their launcher, and feel the need to give them a short Niagara demo.
I don’t understand why no phone company has considered making at least something similar as default. A vertical list of apps is way more intuitive than a mess of dozens of apps with too many colors. Now if switch to a new phone, I even have to check if it supports gestures for third-party launchers. Another a-hole feature of some brands (specifically Xiaomi). Using Niagara with the bottom navigation buttons makes no sense.
If you use more than one widget it’s a terrible choice. I know they have stackable widgets, but it looks awful swiping with differing size widgets.
Put them in different folders?
On the Google Play page data safety section, they seem to share and collect about as much data as Nova.
I figured as much considering their heavy ad spend on the play store. They pop up as the number one result as an ad for every launcher search I make.
I found an alternative called Olauncher.minimal af launcher. Play store says it collects and shares nothing, though I don’t know how easy it is to fool. It seems ok so far, though I’m not sure I really want a minimalist launcher.
Also using it since almost a year back i think now. But not pro. I can’t find a reason to pay that much for functionality I don’t really need even if I would pay to support the dev.
IMO the theming feature in Pro is worth it. Having all icons in the same style makes the app list way less distracting. And supporting the dev is a nice bonus too.
I am a person that really don’t care about icons. I wanted 2 widgets but since I switched I have learnt to live with just one of the two. I promise, if the price was halved i wouldn’t have blinked but as it is now as a subscription every year. Yeah, no I don’t use my phone that much.
Here’s an alternative that’s about 50% less expensive and not a subscription. Personally use it on KISS launcher and it’s basically perfect for my uses
I gotta check this out when I get some time.
Lawn chair is the main FOSS alternative.
Be aware that there is a play store version that is not updated (version 2) and a beta that is actively maintained (version14.2 now)
They are quite different.
Where is the beta and why isn’t it the main version?
The man dev quit the project and others are picking up the pieces. They might not have access to the Play Store account, or maybe they do. Either way, the new team has not produced a new final version yet. Just a string of alphas and betas. As of now the beta is the main version. It’s good enough for daily use.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases
Why is anything in the world the way it is?
Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear… Yeah.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases/tag/v14.0.0-beta2
It’s a beta, duh.
This literally doesn’t answer the question at all. It’s just a snarky remark from someone who seems to think everyone else should be as privy to how all this works as they are.
The beta was the first release in a few years.
The released the nightly build a few hour ago: https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases/tag/nightly
I guess we can expect the final version in the coming days/weeks
Looking forward the end of the beta!
Thanks for the tip man 👍
Could you please link to the right place, then?
I looked at Droidify and only found an old unmaintained version.
You need to work on how you ask for things… This isn’t my product and I don’t work for you.
I don’t know if this is news to you, but the “then” on the end of your statement has some sharp edges on it and represents you as entitled (making you aware if that wasn’t your intention)
A little more grace goes a long way when you’re asking strangers for help on the internet, friend.
Fwiw, I agree with you, but written text does need some benefit of the doubt regarding inflection and intention, sometimes.
Reading the article and justification given I do actually get the idea of it. They want to levarage the parent company’s clout and connections in order to convince other app makers into implementing a way for Sesame, the universal search app/plugin, to pull results directly from those apps. For the parent company it would give them a USP in the analytics market.
In short: Think of searching for a product from the launcher and rather than it opening Google, it returns results directly from the Amazon app, or eBay, or any other app that supports the functionality. Obviously there’ll be an affiliate kickback for any click-through and you’ve got a decent revenue source.
It’s a good idea, I get it. Would I feel comfortable using it? I don’t know. On the one hand it just cuts out the middle-man of searching for and clicking through to products via Google etc. On the other hand, all of the concerns already raised in this thread!
Would it be safe if I stayed on some older version of the app?
Just use the latest and disable internet permission
Well this sucks because I love Nova :(
Notre: the change of ownership happened 2yrs ago
Lanwchair is a great replacement but I am facing many problems with its widgets and don’t forget the default launcher is always the best option if you consider less surface attack