• frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2 months

    They got a new owner years ago. No one should still be using it. Lawnchair has been great for me.

    • Damage@feddit.itEnglish
      2 months

      Holy shit the screenshots on Play store are depressing

    • Godric@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      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!

    • ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      If anyone is looking to try something new - I really enjoyed WaterfallNiagra after dropping Nova.

      • Dran@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        +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

      • IronKrill@lemmy.caEnglish
        2 months

        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.

    • Nelots@piefed.zipEnglish
      2 months

      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.

    • extrahazmat@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2 months

      Made the switch last year. Have had no issues,especially now that you can do folders.

  • carrylex@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    Once again the “Everything that’s not FOSS will turn to shit at one point or another” theorem proves true.

    • ransomwarelettuce@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      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.

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
          2 months

          Mariadb got bought by a private equity strip miner company late 2024, so it will probably be mined for every enshittification possible before thrown on the garbage heap like every company private equity has acquired before it.

          (It always takes a few years of inefficient planning before private equity starts rolling out enshittification)

    • 1984@lemmy.todayEnglish
      2 months

      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.

      • REDACTED@infosec.pubEnglish
        2 months

        There is something to be said about continuous community effort. Projects tend to continue even with original developers absent, sometimes for a very long time.

        One of my favourite games is STALKER, and boy does it hold a story and history behind the community. The eurojank game that was modded into an AAA looking survival game that was even published to GOG (STALKER GAMMA). Such project could’ve probably costed millions for a studio. Coincidentally, watched this video today, which briefly tells the history too: https://youtu.be/5C80TWlTC1o

    • zecg@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      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.

        • zecg@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2 months

          It’s excellent, you can filter network access per app, or per IP, or isolate an app and allow it to access only certain addresses / ranges and the interface is really intuitive and user-friendly.

  • Cyberflunk@lemmy.worlddeleted by creatorEnglish
    2 months

    Nova Launcher was acquired by analytics firm Branch Metrics in 2022 . Barry initially stayed on to continue development, but the situation deteriorated. After being the sole developer for the past year, Barry announced he had left Branch and was no longer involved with Nova Launcher . The Broken Promises: Branch’s then-CEO and founder Alex Austin made public commitments to the community about open-sourcing the code if Barry ever left . However, Barry was ultimately asked to stop working on Nova Launcher and the open sourcing effort he had been preparing . The Irony: Nova Launcher is now owned by Swedish company Instabridge and already contains code for Facebook Ads and Google AdMob trackers, with ads being integrated into the app . This is exactly the kind of enshitification that the community feared when an analytics company acquired it in the first place. In Barry’s actual statement, he was more restrained—just expressing that he was grateful for the community’s support while confirming he’d left. But the community response on Reddit and elsewhere absolutely used the word “enshitification” to describe what happened to their beloved launcher.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

    Pure fucking bullshit.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 months

    Thats why you want open source software, its the only software you can trust, its the only software that won’t fuck you over

    • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      Until these mfs relicense their sht and we have to fork

      • Grass@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2 months

        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

      • unhrpetby@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2 months

        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.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.comEnglish
    2 months

    Ahh sonofabitch! It’s already updated for me and there is no changelog. Turned off auto update.

    Edit: and uninstalled. Lawnchair FTW.

    • bonenode@piefed.socialEnglish
      2 months

      You should really not have automatic updates on. Aside from the fact that you also should have moved away from Nova years ago when Branch first acquired them.

        • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.comEnglish
          2 months

          Annnnd TIME! About 1 hour.

          95% interface and widgets swapped over to lawnchair!

          Boom!

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    Nova launcher works great for me, I haven’t let it update in years. Looks like that isn’t going to change.

    I’ve been burned so many times that I’ve finally learned my lesson. When I find that I like an app, that it does everything I want, the first thing I do is turn auto updates off. It can stay frozen in time forever, just working normally.

    • plant@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2 months

      Understand where the thought comes from, but do you know what zero days are

      • Balldowern@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        No one is going to waste a zero day on a random guy using Nova launcher. Zero days are used against governments & other militaries.

        • ouRKaoS@lemmy.todayEnglish
          2 months

          But if you’re not installing updates to patch out a zero day, the vulnerability is still there.

          • mad_djinn@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2 months

            when are you nerds going to learn that software is religion , developers are prophets, and users are following the words of God?

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        Yeah sure, the os gets regular updates, banking apps get updates.

        But when it comes to digital devices, convenience and security are in a constant tug of war, ultimately we have to make a choice. And when I make that choice I remember that this isn’t a company phone, there’s no customer data at risk, no important info to be breached. And still the number of times I’ve been hacked: 0

        • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2 months

          Apps can have vulnerabilities too. What happens when something you install can make changes to your launcher because one of it’s libraries has a known hole? Launchers get a decent level of unchecked power.

  • skribe@piefed.socialEnglish
    2 months

    I just switched to Octopi. For me, it’s an almost perfect replacement. Plus it’s a local developer.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2 months

    On 3, 2, 1,… Everybody Juuuuuuump to any other good launchers

    • zipsglacier@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      I first found out about Niagara on a thread like this a couple of years ago. It’s great!!!

    • cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      2 months

      Yup, Niagara is a dream. I hope it stays this way forever, but even if it doesn’t I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

    • rucksack@feddit.orgEnglish
      2 months

      Niagara with minimalist black and white icons is just awesome

  • JoeBigelow@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 months

    But I don’t wanna redesign my nice app tray and home screen. Can I just never update it?