the humble people of Google, listening to feedback, doing what their customers want them to? I doubt “feedback” will force them to do that, maybe “feedback” from the court. What annoys me the most about the feature is not that you can’t disable it (that by itself is annoying); it is that you cannot switch the search engine it uses. I mean, seriously… WTF? How is that not anti competitive behavior? I think the best route to deal with it, is to write members of parliament about this problem. Who though?
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Just installed Lean launcher. It’s lightweight. I haven’t look at all the settings. My main goal was to get rid of the google searchbar.
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I removed the Google searchbar by uninstalling the Google app with the adb (Android Debug Bridge) on my FP2. This should also work on the FP3.
Here (https://www.xda-developers.com/uninstall-carrier-oem-bloatware-without-root-access/) is a tutorial for this.
Additions to the tutorial
You can also find the package name in the URL of the the app in the web Play Store (https://play.google.com/store).
E.g. for the super-duper Google app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox -> com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
If you like to use the Google app and only want to remove the home screen searchbar, you can easily reinstall the app from the Play Store.
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Just adding links to source (GitHub) and Google Play Store for Lawnchair, Lean Launcher, and Launcher3 (aka “Rootless Pixel Launcher”).
Lawnchair:
Lean Launcher:
Launcher3:
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This worked, but now I have a(n ugly) black search bar on the same location.
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I’d rather have the most ugly searchbar from wherever than the one from gougel… 
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While I love supporting open source, I couldn’t find out how to set a custom home panel with Lawnchair, so I use Nova. This was possible on older stock Androids and it’s a function I find really useful.
Is there a way to do it with Lawnchair? Then I’d switch back!
As stated on the F-Droid page the launcher is apparently not maintained anymore.
Though the underlying problem seems to be something else.
Other launchers you could use: OpenLauncher, the Fairphone 1 or 2 launchers (downloadable from F-Droid)
I also was not able to remove the search bar. Disabling the Google app just leaves a useless white bar.
So, I tried other launchers. This is my experience:
- Lawnchair: Outdated, at least on F-Droid. Did not try it.
- Rootless Pixel Launcher aka Launcher3: Same problem, search bar cannot be removed.
- KISS launcher: Replaces the Google search bar by a more useful one but has a quite different approach (only one widget, app icons automatically arranged, …)
- Essential Launcher: No search bar but only one widget and up to seven favorite apps.
- Light Android Launcher: No search bar, no widgets, no app icons.
- Zim Launcher: Very powerful launcher which does the trick but seems a bit unstable at the first glance.
- Bliss Launcher: Search bar with different provider, some fixed widgets which cannot be removed, app drawer on home screen.
- Fairphone 2 Launcher: Works well if you like edge swipe.
- OpenLauncher: Very nice but a bit fiddly to set up.
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What do you think of Lean Launcher
I only checked apps on F-Droid.
Lawnchair is maintained.
You linked to v1. That is no longer maintained, and for some reason it can’t be removed from F-Droid. If you get it from the Play Store, you’ll get v2.
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Well… there is a reason: the Google Play/v2 version includes proprietary libs, so well… not so much FLOSS…
See (and upvote) this issue:
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Lawnchair is great! Lots of customization options and no Google searchbar!
My FP3 homescreen went from this…
…to this -------------------------------->
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So you can’t put a different widget, of your choice, in that space?
I don’t know how to, that’s for sure. I ended up with an other launcher. There’s a plethora of them available. Some open source, some partly open source, some closed source. Some very basic ones, some very advanced, etc.
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Another Launcher is the solution. I use the Blackberry Launcher (because it was on my last phones) and there is no Google Searchbar or something like that
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I’m using Evie Launcher. Simple standard launcher with quite a few options for home, drawer and dock.
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not only now use lawnchair … also got this nice weather-app “windy” … 
thnx for showing
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Will there be an option to disable the bar in future software updates? Is Fairphone working on it? Many thanks in advance!
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