Companies usually treat "anonymized" data as non personal. So in their eyes they aren't selling your personal data but their "non-personal" data. The fact it isn't does not matter because profit.
The fact they added Facebook and google trackers and not listed a why is obvious enough. Fortunately for me it did not update yet and is now gone.
Ugh, quite annoying. My next phone might be an Android (instead of the current iPhone), and I was looking forward to returning to Nova Launcher, after having used it many years ago as my favorite launcher. This feels like a big no-go now.
What are other good customizable launchers on Android nowadays?
I used Nova for years and went through this research before, having tested many alternatives. Octopi is what you're looking for. It can do pretty much everything Nova did for me and more besides. They also update often with improvements and fixes!
Lawnchair newest beta, though they still didnt fix years old bug with dark/black font on dark/black background in folders/drawer
also resizing/padding widgets ain't as good as Nova, but for sure much better than Octopi which is completely weird, tried yesterday, chaotic settings, can't even disable background picture for dock
switched yesterday to Lawnchair from Nova after 10+ years, seems OK besides those few quirks, but still keeping Nova as backup, will see after 2 weeks testing how is the stability, if I can remove even nova backup
Nova has been my favorite launcher for years, but after this, I may have to look elsewhere. Even as a paid user, I don't have much confidence that I'm not being sold off for ad exploitation.
> Open sourcing a product responsibly involves licensing, security, build tooling, contribution workflow, and trademark stewardship.
You can scratch at the very least contribution workflow from that list; anyhow, the original author had already spent months preparing the open source release, ironing out legal and dependency issues, so everything should already be there or pretty close, at least on the technical side of things (arguably one of the biggest sides)
> Are you going to add ads?
> Nova needs a sustainable business model to support ongoing development and maintenance. We are exploring different options, including paid tiers and other approaches. As many of you have already anticipated, we are also evaluating ad based options for the free version.
> If ads are introduced, Nova Prime will remain ad free. Our guiding principles are clear: keep the experience clean and fast, avoid disruptive formats, and provide a straightforward way to keep the experience ad free.
Haven't heard of Nova in a very long time, this was one of the original customizable launchers for Android wasn't it? If it's gone this long without being open-sourced, it might be time to let go. Been using https://kisslauncher.com/ for many years and have no complaints.
What an undeserving fate. A beloved app now being passed from vulture to vulture who rip off every possible morsel they can.
When Branch bought Nova, I moved on to use Lawnchair [1], which is open source. Although it has been in beta like forever, with occasional glitches, it works well enough and has enough features to satisfy my customization cravings.
Was a Nova user, moved to Lawnchair yesterday. It's not the same experience I got from Nova (for example, the Clock widget don't work), but the adaptation is not unbearable.
I purchased Nova Launcher Prime years ago thinking it was the best investment I put on Google Play, well, maybe I should've spent the money on something else.
I recently switched to a OnePlus 15 and Nova Launcher had a really annoying 0.5-1 second delay every time you went back home.
I've been a paid Nova user and used it on every android device for the past 10 years or so.
I ended up migrating to the stock OnePlus launcher and it's actually surprisingly good, other than you have to disable the stupid google recommended page every time you reboot the phone, so I'm still open to alternatives.
I was having issues recently with my Pixel phone hanging/freezing/going stupid, it was Nova. I changed to Lawnchair yesterday after learning this and works much better and my battery is no longer draining for no apparent reason
What a throwback. Nova launcher sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure where to place it in my head. When I saw the logo I was immediately transported to memories of using lineage OS and bricking my new Samsung Note 4. I was trying to customize every button combination to do something smart back then. The good old days when I had the time to fix the phone after every update. I've since moved to the apple ecosystem... Set and forget.
"We are a Swedish company building products that help people get online, used by millions of people worldwide."
So I look for them. They have a "Free wifi connection" / "Wifi passwords map" app. It surprises me because it has a good score on Google Play but then I begin to check the reviews, and a bunch of them go like: "Five stars because if you do a good review you can use it for free".
I install it and on starting it and in the first minute: Asks you to create an account but you can't click on the terms of service or privacy policy, the links don't work. I skip it. It tries to change your default launcher. It tries to change your default browser. It asks you to share your home wifi password with them. Pops up adds everywhere. Tries to get a good review from you.
There almost needs to be an community overlay for app Stores to highlight when applications change ownership. A shadow store might be good too. Those active daily on HN will most likely be informed while the general populous will never be.
I don't see Google or Apple stepping in to share the information directly or improving their stores with the dark patterns they keep deploying to gain profits through disingenuous actions.
Does Amazon still maintain the flaw where old reviews apply to new products when the new product uses the same part / ID number so reviews are not even for the products people are purchasing?
65 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 72.3 ms ] threadRelated:
Nova Launcher added Facebook and Google Ads tracking
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46686655
(lots of good discussion about alternatives in this thread by the way)
I don't believe this at all. If they aren't lying, then why did they add new trackers?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46686655
Companies usually treat "anonymized" data as non personal. So in their eyes they aren't selling your personal data but their "non-personal" data. The fact it isn't does not matter because profit.
The fact they added Facebook and google trackers and not listed a why is obvious enough. Fortunately for me it did not update yet and is now gone.
What are other good customizable launchers on Android nowadays?
also resizing/padding widgets ain't as good as Nova, but for sure much better than Octopi which is completely weird, tried yesterday, chaotic settings, can't even disable background picture for dock
switched yesterday to Lawnchair from Nova after 10+ years, seems OK besides those few quirks, but still keeping Nova as backup, will see after 2 weeks testing how is the stability, if I can remove even nova backup
You can scratch at the very least contribution workflow from that list; anyhow, the original author had already spent months preparing the open source release, ironing out legal and dependency issues, so everything should already be there or pretty close, at least on the technical side of things (arguably one of the biggest sides)
August 2024 everyone working on it was laid off except the original dev https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/9/24217077/nova-launcher-lay...
September 2025 the original dev left after being told to stop work on open sourcing it https://www.theverge.com/news/773937/nova-launcher-founder-l...
> If ads are introduced, Nova Prime will remain ad free. Our guiding principles are clear: keep the experience clean and fast, avoid disruptive formats, and provide a straightforward way to keep the experience ad free.
Seems pretty clear.
Nova carried me for almost a decade, and I'll miss it.
When Branch bought Nova, I moved on to use Lawnchair [1], which is open source. Although it has been in beta like forever, with occasional glitches, it works well enough and has enough features to satisfy my customization cravings.
[1]: https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair
I purchased Nova Launcher Prime years ago thinking it was the best investment I put on Google Play, well, maybe I should've spent the money on something else.
I've been a paid Nova user and used it on every android device for the past 10 years or so.
I ended up migrating to the stock OnePlus launcher and it's actually surprisingly good, other than you have to disable the stupid google recommended page every time you reboot the phone, so I'm still open to alternatives.
So I look for them. They have a "Free wifi connection" / "Wifi passwords map" app. It surprises me because it has a good score on Google Play but then I begin to check the reviews, and a bunch of them go like: "Five stars because if you do a good review you can use it for free".
I install it and on starting it and in the first minute: Asks you to create an account but you can't click on the terms of service or privacy policy, the links don't work. I skip it. It tries to change your default launcher. It tries to change your default browser. It asks you to share your home wifi password with them. Pops up adds everywhere. Tries to get a good review from you.
No thanks, not even near.
I don't see Google or Apple stepping in to share the information directly or improving their stores with the dark patterns they keep deploying to gain profits through disingenuous actions.
Does Amazon still maintain the flaw where old reviews apply to new products when the new product uses the same part / ID number so reviews are not even for the products people are purchasing?
What?? That is absolutely shameful. They should be removed from the Play Store