Maybe something for the Pixel phones? I’ve been using ADW for a long time now, and was wondering what some frequently used launchers are. (I used Cyanogen for a long time, too.)
There are lists all over the internet, but I’m interested in what the Lemmy crowd likes. Thanks!
Edit: Thanks guys - a few of these were on my radar, some I hadn’t heard of or seen in the Play/f-droid lists. Having the reasons why you like each of them helps me figure out what I want from a launcher (for instance, the purchase of Nova by a company known for its data collection is a big turn-off even though it seems loved) - since you guys laid out some pros and cons of a bunch of launchers, it gives me a better picture!
Edit 2: You guys, this is a great resource for figuring out which launchers look like something worth trying (for me), and which ones are in the stores but not what I’m looking for. Without just trying them all, that is… And considering that I hadn’t even heard of all of them…
This has been a huge help for me, and I hope some others out there got something out of the post! I should be replying to everyone, but I’m not … Sorry. But I did read everything and have already started compiling a list in my head, and started tagging and categorizing. And those who included screen shots and links and lists and opinions and FOSS alternatives/forks - they helped! This whole thing helped!
KISS Launcher. Perfect companion for a hardware keyboard (https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry).
In general, you use it like the Windows start menu. Type the first few characters of an app name, hit enter and there you are.
Pixel 6 pro. I use Nova launcher. It works great and is very customizable, especially with icon placement. I recommend it.
Sadly Nova was purchased by a Chinese company with a history of invasive data harvesting last year.
I had premium up until a year ago, but I can’t recommend it anymore after their purchase.
Choose open source, people.
I use Niagara Launcher, because it’s minimal and quite comfy.
EDIT: The latest update (that I just applied) has put a lot of the features I use (custom font, battery percentage) behind a paywall. I will be looking for alternatives.
Apex Launcher. Left Nova a while back and it offers basically the same features without the aggressive bullshit. And while the pro version is somewhat subscription based the lifetime price (7€ here) is absolutely reasonable. `
Nova has been absolutely aggressive towards customers asking about data transfer after they sold out towards a company that is heavily into data hoarding.
How have they been aggressive? I keep hearing this but haven’t been given any examples. When I look the issue up it says that Nova has said they won’t force any data gathering and anything that gets added to the launcher will be optional.
I use Niagara with a live wallpaper called Wallow. It just creates a beautiful and simplified experience for me that has all the features I need and gets out of my way when I don’t.
