Glad I read the writing on the wall and switched a few months ago
I’ve been using lawnchair (which is a great substitute) ever since the news of the buyout from an ad company was announced, but that was a long time ago… Not sure why this is coming up now.
Anyway, a few days back I found out a new launcher and I want to spread the love for it. It requires more effort to configure it at first but I’m really liking its UX and the simplicity of the screen. It is called dragon launcher and I am having a nice time making small incremental changes to personalize it more and more and has been working great for me: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.elnix.dragonlauncher
Onec again the “Everything that’s not FOSS will turn to shit at one point or another” theorem proves true.
Yeah but foss has its own problems. Mainly financing. People are expected to work for free on most open source projects, and some do because they enjoy it. I do that myself too. Its fun.
But foss doesnt create products that require a lot of funding to get off the ground.
And if a FOSS project turns into shit a fork will come up.
One perfect example was simple apps acquisition. New owners turned it a ad ridden mess, fossify apps fork came to the rescue.
I recommend Kvaesitso, very snappy with lots of functionality.
Am I just not seeing it or do they not seem to allow icons on the desktop?
they do? you go to the settings, home screens, and increase the dock rows.
That’s my second favorite after Smart Launcher
Fuck. I bought this forever ago, either for my Droid 2 or my Galaxy S3. Skipped it on my first Pixel and came back on the Pixel 7.
Haven’t really heard any talk about it, didn’t know about the owner/dev drama until seeing some comments here.
Haven’t noticed any ads myself yet, but maybe that’s a “coming soon” thing.
Time to go launcher shopping again. This thread mentioned Lawnchair and Niagara, so I’ll check those out first.
I bought it back then in the Android… 2.x or 4.x days as the launcher on my phone sucked. Hadn’t much complaints about the stock launchers of my next few phones and forgot about it until I got a Pixel. Wow, the pixel launcher was a complete letdown. Especially the forced unremovable search bar that’s completely useless for me and takes up so much real estate on the screen. Then I couldn’t remove the at a glance widget either (IIRC a big back then, but… Yeah…). I get it, that it’s nice, but… Again: Too much real estate for a clock, a totally unreliable weather info (at least in my area?) and info about the currently playing song.
Searched launchers, remembered Nova and was surprised it was still around and had all the features I wanted. Bonus: it allows me to resize widgets.
I tried Octopi, when the owner change news for Nova hit, but was so used to having folders on the dock from my previous phones and Nova, that I couldn’t use it without that feature. So I tried lawnchair which is basically the pixel launcher but with exactly the features I missed in the original. I can get rid of spotlight and can get rid of the search bar. Widgets are resizable. Also the dock features folders. And I can control the grid size and adjust it to my liking.
Niagara was also recommended to me, but… IIRC in the end it felt to opinionated about the workflow and immediately lost me. Not what I’m looking for in a launcher. (Not saying it’s bad - just that it’s not for me).
I was a longtime nova user. Switched to octopi launcher. It has all my favorite features from nova.
I’m using Niagara in the free tier and I’m very happy with it. it’s snappy and good looking and I spend so little time hunting through my apps for the ones I need thanks to the favorites section on the home screen. good stuff
But I don’t wanna redesign my nice app tray and home screen. Can I just never update it?
That’s my plan…
This used to be my favorite piece of software I paid for. Then… 💩
i like lawnchair launcher :3
Thats why you want open source software, its the only software you can trust, its the only software that won’t fuck you over
Until these mfs relicense their sht and we have to fork
at least forking is an option you can choose, and someone else with decent reputation in the foss community will probably also do it before you, instead of just accepting being fucked up the ass with no lube for the third time this week
Except when it goes from open source to closed lol
At which point it simply gets forked from the last release/commit. Unless the project nukes all of the history and no one comes forward with a backup.
And, they would typically need the consent of every contributor to legally change the license, unless they had been forcing contributors to sign over rights to their code before contribution.
They got a new owner years ago. No one should still be using it. Lawnchair has been great for me.
I picked up Lawnchair when I de-googled my phone a bit more than a year ago. There were a couple launchers I considered, but honestly the name is what sold me. And I haven’t missed Nova since.
Holy shit the screenshots on Play store are depressing
You want to use one of the much more recent nightly or beta builds.
Can you remove the search bar at the bottom of the home screen?
Yeah, that’s what I do. It’s fully customizable.
Hm maybe I’ll try it out.
I ducked off the Nova train with their fishy new owners a few months ago. My one complaint about Lawnchair is that the search function is slower and less effective, otherwise it’s great!
If anyone is looking to try something new - I really enjoyed
WaterfallNiagra after dropping Nova.+1 for Niagra. It takes a few days to get used to but it’s the launcher every power user didn’t know they wanted. Lifetime purchase options and a very responsive/passionate dev
Seconded. Looks good and I’ve found browsing by letter is way faster than the traditional folders (although you can still use folders with premium). I bought the upgrade after a few months.
I used to use lawnchair. Good reason to switch back.
Made the switch last year. Have had no issues,especially now that you can do folders.
Thanks for this post, I quickly turned off auto-updates 👀
I only started using it half a year ago, but it was still the best from all the launchers I’ve tried 😔
I’m getting really tired of companies pissing all over my name!
time to go super…
Shouldn’t have tried to disassemble Johnny 5.
No disassemble!
No disassemble!
It already had a new owner which is why I stopped using it years ago.
Up until today I was happy with turning off updates (as a precaution) and restricting Nova’s internet access (all phone network access is proxied through Rethink+), but this made me switch to Lawnchair and leave a 1-star review for both the free version and the paid upgrade token.
Seems like all of our concerns have come true. I’m glad I switched earlier when the main dev bounced.
Been using Smart Launcher and haven’t looked back.
I also liked Niagara too.
Upvote for Smart Launcher
Smart Launcher
Is it OSS? If not I wont bother anymore
I dropped them back then too. I have been using lawn chair and I really like it. Could have a few more options but still quite nice
I wanted to like lawn chair and gave them an honest try but so many features I have come to rely on weren’t quite there.
I realize that they were designed as a replacement of pixel’s launcher but still… I would have loved to keep using them.
I am now using a paid version of Smart Launcher and praying to God that they won’t do what Nova did.
