I stand corrected. But all developers deserve support. I’m fed up with people who expect to get everything for free.
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Edited title is a good compromise, maybe put the “shutting down” in front as it is now an important info to spread.
I don’t think that’s the right place to say that, when reading people are those who pay a smartphone 2 or 3 time the price it would cost sold by companies that don’t care about human rights or environment…
To summarise I don’t think Fairphone community is made of people who expect to get everything for free.
Edit : “Free” in FOSS is not for free like “I don’t need to pay for it” but like in “FREEdom”, in french, we have a particular word for that, it is “libre”, from “liberté” (liberty),
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Just to clarify,
- I am aware of the different meanings of the English word “free”, and of the French vocabulary and etymology.
- I did not say that the Fairphone community is composed of people who expect to get everything without paying.
- I am in favour of software being both free of ties to unknowable corporate policy and verifiable (open source), and of the possibility of its being available without payment, for the benefit of all.
- I do also believe that it’s our responsibility to support freely available resources that we appreciate, when we can and in different ways. If we don’t, they are likely to disappear.
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The main problem here seems to be a company buying a project and then throwing it away instead of making it FOSS. If they cannot make money with it as they obviously intended to do, they could at least give the community a try by making the sources available under GPL. Obviously this is more that if they cannot profit from the app, nobody should.
By they way, I tested some possible replacements:
-
Lawnchair
Quite ok, but missing some key features compared to Nova -
AIO
Completely different approach I am not ready to adapt to, yet -
Octopi
For me the most promising alternative, but also missing some features. It is actively developed so there might be a chance, that it continues to improve.
All in all I miss the following things from Nova in the alternative launchers (list is not complete, though):
- Multiple Dock pages (Octopi is at least capable to take more icons and let the user scroll through them)
- Multi touch gestures
- Integration of Shortcuts on ling press on app icons (i.e. Sesame)
- Sidebar as Nova Now
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Please try Pear Launcher. It is excellent.
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Yes, Pear Launcher comes closest to Nova as of today. Still, I am not yet convinced to take the efforts for a migration 
Hello, I was a Nova user until 7 years ago, then I start to use many minimal launcher, the best for me is Mlauncher because I like to have the phone more clean.
I was a (long time) Nova user. I’ve converted to Niagara which I like a lot even though it took me a while to adapt.
Pear launcher dropped in 2017 and it still looks the same it did the day it dropped. Featureless ad an 8 year old UI. HARD pass.
I have been using ReZ Launcher for a couple of months now, and its helped my focus a lot more so far.
Basically, it is a launcher where you “draw” letters on the home screen to find an app by name/tag. The recent apps are always on your homescreen, but you can block apps from showing up over here.
When you draw, if will look for the letter combo and show apps as well as contacts.
It works well for me, cause i am more actively searching for apps I need, and have a lower tendency to click on apps just because they are visible on my home screen.
I have had very little issues so far, the only thing that I’ve noticed is that on the FP6 it gets stuck every now and then (like once every 2 to 3 weeks). A quick phone reboot fixes it all. Not sure yet what causes this issue, I didnt notice clear consistency in it yet.
Anyhow, nice minimalist launcher which worked well for me so far.
At this point I am testing https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=projekt.launcher
Anyone already has some experience with this launcher?
BTW. Nova was sold again and added more tracking… 
Swedish company Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher and is going to continue it.
Found that in this (German) article.
https://www.heise.de/news/Nova-Launcher-Neuer-Besitzer-aeussert-sich-zur-Zukunft-11147900.html
Edit: Lars already mentioned it, but here are some links
Edit2: about the added trackers (taken from Nova Launcher: Neuer Besitzer integriert offenbar mehr Werbung | heise online)
There was a change from 2 trackers and 30 permissions in Version 81006 (8.1.6) to 6 tracker and 36 permissions
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Coming from BlackBerry, I use the BlackBerry Hub suite - launcher, contacts, calendar, inbox and a couple of others. Hub draws all email inboxes, SMS, WhatsApp, messaging apps etc etc into a single inbox. Much more efficient than always opening separate apps. Well worth it for £0.89/month after 30 day trial.
Plus, I still use the BlackBerry keyboard. The best in the business for word suggestions using a number of options for the following word, and where your eyes would be going to, instead of just 3 suggestions at the top. Builds in language translation as well.
One has to sideload the BlackBerry keyboard apk as it is not included in the Hub app.
Lynx launcher - free, no ads
loads of layout options, doesn’t crash (unlike the hideous Bliss launcher from /e/OS), I just have a solid black background on it.
I use Smartlauncher https://www.smartlauncher.net/ since it was released first…. On Fairphone 6 I only have an issue, that after toggle Moment off, I get wach time prompted to select Smartlauncher as Standard… idk If this ist a FP6 issue or caused by the Smartlauncher.
I had this too and, having no need for “Moments”, changed the switch to flashlight, which works absolutely flawless.
A short update from me: It seems that the new owner started working on Nova. In the beta version from a few days ago I had the problem that the app crashed on
- searching apps in the drawer, at least with some expressions
- adding apps and/or shortcuts or widgets to Nova Now cards
These issues seem to be fixed with the beta from last night. Very quick reaction on my comments in the beta feedback in the Play Store entry of Nova Launcher
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I switched from Nova launcher to Lawnchair and I’m quite happy so far:
- Official website: https://lawnchair.app/
- F-Droid app: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/app.lawnchair
- Source code: https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair
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