Its a shame its not FOSS. Just checked it for trackers, and according to this site, there are none.

https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.otp.octopilauncher/latest/

Never heard of it but this thing looks fully featured and very polished. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before since I've gone looking for decent launchers!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopilauncher

Switched to Octopi as well and had to configure it a little to get it setup but now I almost forget that I even switched

That was why I settled on Octopi

Lawnchair is darn close, and FOSS. Recommending another closed source option usually leads down the same road.

The one feature I use most of all on Nova is swipe down on the screen to search. I has that all the time and would be tough to give up. I also really like the ability to swipe up on a folder and have it launch the first app in the folder.

I'll give Octopi a try on an older phone and hopefully it has some of these same features.

I'm trying out Octopi right now, seems nice so far. But, is there any way to make folders open the first app with a tap, and open the folder by swiping? That's how I used Nova for years and years, very hard to break away from that

Wow! This one wasn't on my radar. I had been using Action Launcher as it seemed to be the only other one that could do the swipe folders, but it seems to have been abandoned. I'll give this a go.

Whahahaha motherfucker you just made my day!

Yeah I switched to lawn chair a few months ago because I kept seeing these stories about Nova's parent company. I like it just fine—i haven't had the issues you have (thankfully)—but there are a few features I miss from nova. Oh well, I'd rather have the peace of mind than the minor feature.

Thanks for the reccomendation, I'll take a look :)

Yeah its the customization features. A couple replies down I listed some of the features I use that I haven't seen in other launchers. I'll check out total launcher and see if it could work for me

Largely stuff like widget and home screen padding, ability to place widgets on top of one another, set a custom widget for the search bar in the dock and place widgets in the dock

Some parts look kinda jank cause I haven't really worked on it since I replaced my phone so I never finished adjusting stuff to the different size screen, but this is my home screen right now. I just use a lot of features to make my jank ass setup work, so its hard to switch. Custom fonts would be so nice if I ever did make the leap though

Well it's a good thing those two URIs can be easily blocked. Besides you can get the app from their Github page (sadly no F-droid repo as closed-source), and pay for Pro (if wanted) via Stripe instead of Google Play. I also had issues migrating Niagara off of Google once I'd connected the two, but an email correspondence with the lead dev Max Rumpf got the issue pleasantly and quickly resolved.

Thanks!

Sauce?

How so?

God bless. I didn't even see the drop down. My old Samsung and LG didn't do it that way. And of course searching on the internet for the solution yielded jack because everyone has enshitittfied their search engines. Thank you kind stranger.

Top 3 Pros:

1. You have a daily driver OS that is so open you can install any app on it that can be sideloaded.

2. You have access to the Google Pixel camera, which, when paired with Open Camera or any open source camera app, can take photos in stunning detail without having to rely on Google's proprietary software.

3. The form factor of the A-series of Pixels, depending on your hand size, may be just the right fit for your hands. I have big hands and even I find the Pro/XL models to be a bit big for my tastes.

Top 3 Cons:

1. There are some banking, payment, etc. apps that won't even open without Google Play Services being installed. Fortunately, GrapheneOS has Sandboxed Google Play services that isolates Google Play services from the OS and allows only the necessary minimum utilities from Play Services for those apps to be useable.

2. Google's Tensor chip is...not good. Like it's Exynos bad. Fortunately, I believe the Pixel 6 series had the first and worst version of the chip. Each phone after has slowly improved the reliability of the modem so calls can be made in/outbound. Thankfully, GrapheneOS recently partnered with Motorola to allow future Motorola phones to be installed with GrapheneOS, so ideally their phones should have much better modems.

3. [insert third con I can't think of here]

or any stock launchers will do. Nowadays the stocks are more than enough for me. On GOS, I tried Lawnchair but always go back to the default one.