i’ve been trying to get rid of non-foss garbage as much as possible but i haven’t found anything to replace the microsoft launcher yet, a few good candidates but they were all either underbaked or too unstable to use. Any suggestions?
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Check this site and you can go through all available android launchers.
https://grabster.notion.site/6671f3b62d8043c4aaaae22a241e3f05?v=91d9b664887643298f85fe18044d3560
I’ve never heard of Microsoft Launcher before… A lot of people seem to like Nova Launcher, I’ve used Lawnchair in the past, but nowadays I just don’t care anymore, I use the Pixel default. I try to use as little Google stuff as possible, but the launcher is hassle free.
I’ve run the Microsoft launcher for a short while, until I did network analysis on my phone and found out every single tap on the launcher sent data to Microsoft. From dragging through the app list to holding a finger down for the settings, everything launched analytics.
I kicked that stuff out the moment I found out. Kind of sad, the launcher itself wasn’t half bad. It had some interesting design choices that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
im on oneplus and i hate default launcher. nova launcher does not seem to be open source
LineageOS’s launcher has some forks that are usable on normal ROMs, I think.
There’s also the Lawnchair launcher (https://lawnchair.app/) if you want something to download straight from the Play Store. I think Lawnchair 2 is in beta, but it’s looking pretty stock pixel-y. The old lawnchair should be pretty stable.
Not every phone vendor bothers to implement support for alternative launchers well, especially in Android 14 and later, so there’s a chance your options may be restricted by your phone’s vendor.
I’ve been using lawnchair for such a long time, but one gripe I have is that it seems to be in a perpetual state of “Pre-release” with large gaps between releases.
Last time I used it, it just worked. I don’t really need updates for my launcher, unless they’re bugfixes.
I guess it’s not very good if you want a featureful launcher, it’s kind of minimalist and basic. I used to use Nova as my complicated launcher, but these days I don’t know what I’d pick if my built in launcher isn’t up to the task anymore.
It’s just that they seem to treat pre-release like they’re stable while never actually having a stable release. It’s not really an issue persay, it’s just kinda annoying how they handle release cycles. Pre-releases are supposed to be for experimentation and for finding bugs, not to sit on for months upon years.
Lawnchair has done the trick since I switched from Nova
I’ve been eyeing lawnchair to replace my nova setup for a while but neither aurora/play-store nor F-droid have the newest release, is there a repo/manager to download from that doesn’t involve manually going to the GitHub and installing it? Edit: lawnchair is one word
Check out Obtanium
It pulls the binary from GitHub
I really wanted to like the ms launcher. very customizable, and frankly it is kind of awesome. but I didn’t stick with it. I was using oneui for years when I started shopping for launchers, and I landed on kiss.
I switched from Nova to Kvaesitso when I found out they were owned by a spyware corp. It takes a little getting used to as it does most things differently, but it’s actually good once you get past that.
I did the exact same!
I still use Nova, however, I use AFWall+ to deny internet access to it. As well, as give it as little permissions as necessary.
And here was I attempting to type “oh yeah there are a lot of great options to Microsoft’s Minecraft Launcher. Try out Prism Launcher.”
honestly, none really fit that bill IMO
