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.

[1]: https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair

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0x1ch 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My biggest issue with lawnchair (and most launchers really) is that they all are horribly glitchy on my Pixel 6, and also break the app drawer / switching feature.

I literally just want a vanilla pixel experience, but be allowed to change the search engine on the home screen searchbar... This got me into the weeds on the widget and launcher ecosystem and they're all very bad.

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JoshTriplett 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I highly recommend Octopi Launcher. It's simple, has customization you might want without requiring it in order to be useful, and works great on various phones.

Also great on foldables, since it lets you have a different home screen for different display sizes.

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sweetbacon 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is very good to know! I am currently setting up my old pixel 6 to be a permanent Google home terminal. I was thinking about trying Lawnchair, now I'm not so sure.

	▲	0x1ch 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To be fair, this was probably six or so months ago when I last went through this. Niagra had the launcher / app switching issue, so did Lawnchair, even Nova Launcher (before I knew of what had happened to them). It could have been a general bug for all launchers except the OEM.

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3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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jjordan 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The write-up on the link seems promising, at least. I'm sure ads will come to the free version, but they appear to be respecting Nova's legacy and longtime Prime purchasers. Anything is better than the slow decay it has been enduring the last year or two. Can't do much but be cautiously optimistic.

	▲	malfist 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Last update introduced a bunch of ads and tracking plugins. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46686655

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theturtletalks 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s becoming evident that open-source is the only thing that can cure Enshittification. Every proprietary application will become enshittified, it’s just a matter of when.

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charcircuit 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Many open source projects fail to find sustainable funding. If a cure is not financially viable it is not much different than the cure not existing.

	▲	rpdillon 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		So, you're not wrong. People that work for money will want money, and ultimately can be bought. People that work for love produce the best they can with limited resources, and are often broke. I don't think we've found a way to bridge the gap. I've come to generally rely on work people do for love, and I contribute to them, but it's clearly not sustainable unless they have another source of income. Anyone who solves this will produce immense value.
	▲	chanux 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Apt analogy as pharmaceutical industry is also kinda similar.

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saubeidl 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

rms was right all along.

	▲	LtWorf 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		as always