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!
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.
There are a lot of comments here about which launchers are “close enough” to the Nova feature set, but very few people are talking about specific features and the alternatives that support them. I really just use two, and everything else is a cherry on top that I can do without if push comes to shove.
Icons that open a folder if you swipe them, but launch the first app in the folder if you tap them. That way my apps all pull double-duty as both the one-tap app AND the list of alternatives I use less often.
Google Now integration that swipes in from the left.
Action Launcher used to be my go-to, and it’s still the best implementation of #1 because of the little indicators it adds to let you know if something is a “cover” (folder when you swipe) or “shutter” (widget when you swipe). Sadly it’s gotten rather bloated over the years and spends more time force-closing from one glitch or another than it does actually running properly. Nova was my backup because it added “covers” a few years ago and I remembered enjoying the app about a decade ago. Now what?
Icons that open a folder if you swipe them, but launch the first app in the folder if you tap them. That way my apps all pull double-duty as both the one-tap app AND the list of alternatives I use less often.
I love that feature.
I can have so many apps on my home screen but at the same time only have a few.
Fuck. Using nova kept me sane. Even though they say, nothing changes…it will. With an analytics company, if they spend that much on nova, they are either going to go behind a paywall, or start data mining the shit from every user.
Remember, if the product is free, then you’re the product
If a product is not free but is a digital service with a paid subscription you are also the product. They ain’t gonna stop data mining you b/c you give them 10 bucks a month.
Adguard seems to do a good job blocking the Nova calls to home. Thing is, it’s like an AV or VPN, you can only guess that it’s working over time, you really don’t know for sure.
No, but as someone who just dumped Nova after realising I’ve been given some company free reign of my device (because I’ve had it so long) I feel Neo is closer to being a more comparable feature set… though still not as much as Nova
Agreed, I haven’t been able to find one launcher that has all the features that Nova has. Neo is close, but still doesn’t have swipe on dock icons, you have to choose either tabs or folders in the app drawer, you can’t do both like you can in Nova.
Shit I’ve been using Android phones since version 2 and never needed any replacement launcher. The apps and files are right there where I need them already, easy to access with a couple of taps.
Nova gives you a lot more control over your desktop and other options, including a bunch of cool gestures. But, I didn’t realize that it’s owned by an analytics company. :(
The only gesture I don’t have that I would like to add back to my android is the old Motorola hatchet-chopping motion. You’d hold the phone sideways and chop the air like a hatchet 2-3 times and your desired action would execute. I used mine for the flashlight and it was constantly useful.
My nova install has been frozen at the last version before the analytics company took over was. Since then I try to check out lots of launchers but none have the features of Nova.
Maybe one day, but I’m not holding my breath anymore.
Which version was that, and is it still possible to swap to it?
Edit: by the power of actually researching it instead of bothering someone else, I found it. They were bought by an analytics company in July of 2022, and the last full release version of the app before that on APK mirror was 7.0.57
Imagine if it didn’t work on your device. Lawnchair apparently isn’t available on Android 12 without sideloading.
In the list of available apps I see “Neo Launcher Hyperion SciFi” (no plain “Neo Launcher”) and the first thing that I notice with that is the “contains ads” flag.
Nova, meanwhile, comes up consistently among searches for launchers, and up until when I stopped using it provided a good mix of functionality and customization (ad-free, and without sideloading). It’s disappointing to learn it’s run by a company that may be likely to harvest data
They have a paid version of the Nova launcher. I am certainly not a lawyer, but it also looks like they have a pretty clear privacy policy novalauncher.com/privacy/
I don’t currently use it, but it is a nice alternative if they aren’t doing anything fishy.
Except FOSS explicitly implies the user is free (as in freedom, not 0$), and the software isn’t a product or service, but a tool.
That line only applies when a non-free service or software that’s supposed to be meant for profit doesn’t have a clear money income. Don’t compare “oh how generous is google for giving me free email and drive for no shady reasons at all” to “i host my own email and cloud using foss projects”.
Also, windows is basically spyware with a bit of unoptimized OS on top and you still (should) pay for it.
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?
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