I finally gave up on Nova Launcher after watching the various “calls home” its doing now after the acquisition by analytics company Branch. I held out for probably way too long considering the way things were inevitably going to go. I’ve tried Kvaesitso, KISS, and Neo Launcher so far. There are a couple of features I really miss from Nova that I thought I’d check to see if anyone knows of a workaround or a launcher that has these features:

App Drawer shortcut

Ability to remove browser badge from PWA and browser shortcuts added to homescreen

And lastly, while I don’t have a photo example, pull to search in app drawer. This is the same gesture used in most mobile browsers to refresh the current page, if that makes sense.

I’m aware that the road to degoogle is paved with compromises, and I’m willing to make them if I need to. But if there are options out there, I haven’t found them. Thoughts?

  • Steve@communick.newsEnglish
    51·
    6 months ago

    I just revoked all it’s data permissions. That’s good enough in the mean time.

    • Father_Redbeard@lemmy.mlOP
      5·
      6 months ago

      Sure seems like that is the only way, doesn’t it? I just looked my original purchase up. I paid $0.99 for Nova Prime in 2015 and have used it across multiple phones since then. It’s such (or was) a good launcher. The best, imo. Stupid venture capitalists ruining all the things.

  • Howdy@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    6 months ago

    Not sure about your asks specifically but give smartlauncher a try. Even though it has a PAID version I’ve used the free version for like a decade.

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
    2·
    6 months ago

    I’m on the same boat. Used some launchers and finally settled on lawnchair, it best suits my vanilla preferences

    • Father_Redbeard@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      5 months ago

      Sticking with Nova with network access denied for the time being. Also turned off updates in the Play Store. I’m still open to new ones, but apparently I’m very picky when it comes to launchers.