I was recommended Niagara launcher on here a few months back. After 2 days I paid for a year. Just excellent. Clean and snappy. Take a bit of getting used to but that was well worth the time.
If it look at the data safety section for Niagara launcher on Google Play store, it is also collecting and sharing data with 3rd parties. The cross section is a bit smaller than Nova’s but it was still enough for me to nope out of there.
Second vote for Niagara. Admittedly I haven’t tried other third party launchers. [Pixel 7 Pro owner who balked at the standard Pixel screen on sight in a way that I hadn’t previously with any phone]
I use the open source KISS launcher for years now. Your data never leaves your device, and you can expect to save battery life and speed up your device compared to complex and bloated launchers. KISS is just 250 KB and never connects to the Internet.
The best thing is that - behind a simplistic configuration menu - you can configure it from an ultra minimalist black screen with one text box to call when you need to launch an app, search for a contact, search on internet… to a full app drawer organized however you want (alphabetical order, your own defined categories…). It’s just insane and unfortunately so much overlooked.
Yeah, because using the KISS launcher is like going into the CLI and building stuff from source /s
It does the absolute basic of what a launcher should do and then some, doesn’t track you and gets out of your way. Those principles wouldn’t kill Android, but maybe Google’s ad revenue would smart a bit.
There’s a quote that goes something like this: “imagine the average dumb person, and then realize half the population is dumber than that”.
Having worked tech support, Arch is basically alien tech wizardry, a terminal is “hackerman” leet thing, and using Google to figure out an error code is “being tech savvy”.
Granted, it’s nowhere near as bad in Finland as it was in the USA, or Central America, but what you and I think is “super easy custom set up” is “⬧︎◆︎◻︎♏︎❒︎ ♏︎♋︎⬧︎⍓︎ ♍︎◆︎⬧︎⧫︎□︎❍︎ ⬧︎♏︎⧫︎◆︎◻︎” for a very significant portion of the population.
It’s easy to forget how hard something is when you’re used to it. Sure I might know what idiopathic glomerulonephritis is without looking it up but that doesn’t mean you might know what glomeruli are.
Likewise I might know what an EGR valve is but it doesn’t mean I know how to fix a Tesla.
Yeah, that’s a George Carlin quote, and I’m well aware of it. It’s no excuse for dumbing down interfaces like a launcher, or filling it with superfluous features (that coincidentally feed into a corporate clickhole).
Rather than the grim idea that everybody gets an interface the lowest common denominator will grasp, I maintain that everybody deserves a functional, no-bullshit launcher like KISS. It absolutely isn’t what you make it out to be.
I’m not saying everyone needs an iOS circa 2015 interface.
But I am saying something like KISS would never work, because the general public will just outright reject it.
What needs to exist is something in between: something simple and easy to use at stock, but with high customization ability that ranges from novice to advanced users.
Unfortunately, it seems most of the GUI experts work in the private industry and rarely do FOSS.
I like it too, even though it didn’t notify me when the trial was up like it said it would. I was planning on buying the lifetime (or uninstalling) but it autobilled me for a year instead.
Unfortunately my launcher is one piece of closed source software that I just can’t break away from. I’ve tried plenty open source alternatives and always switched back.
Lawnchair and Neo Launcher are close seconds but, unfortunately, there is no one for one alternative. Just use a firewall to block Nova’s internet access.
Olauncher is highly rated and collects/shares 0 data (at least according to the data safety section on its Google Play page, though I have no idea how reliable that is).
I installed it yesterday. I’m not hating it but not sure if I like it. It’s very minimal. Like you don’t even see the notification bar from the home screen and are limited to putting 8 apps on there (after you adjust the setting from 4). Everything else is on an alphabetical list, which has forced me to remember the names of apps instead of just remembering the icon and position I gave it in Nova. But it might just be something I need to get used to, so I’ll give it some more time.
Even though I paid for Nova years ago, I went back and downloaded a modded version of 7.0.58, the last version before they were bought out and the code was changed.
I really wanted to like Lawnchair but I always end up back with Nova. It does exactly what I want it to.
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