[HN Gopher] Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
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Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
Author : KORraN
Score : 87 points
Date : 2026-01-20 19:06 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (novalauncher.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (novalauncher.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| the timing of this
|
| Related:
|
| _Nova Launcher added Facebook and Google Ads tracking_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46686655
|
| (lots of good discussion about alternatives in this thread by the
| way)
| JohnFen wrote:
| > We will keep data collection minimal and purpose driven, and we
| will be clear about what is collected and why. We do not sell
| personal data.
|
| I don't believe this at all. If they aren't lying, then why did
| they add new trackers?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46686655
| herrherrmann wrote:
| Ugh, quite annoying. My next phone might be an Android (instead
| of the current iPhone), and I was looking forward to returning to
| Nova Launcher, after having used it many years ago as my favorite
| launcher. This feels like a big no-go now.
|
| What are other good customizable launchers on Android nowadays?
| bastard_op wrote:
| I've been using lawnchair as a launcher that is open source
| (apache) since the first news broke months when the previous
| dev/owner warned people what was coming, and it works just
| fine. Not quite as versatile as Nova Launcher, but with 100%
| less adware now that the new adware company is running up in
| people with a bait and switch.
|
| Enshittification is real!
| mbirth wrote:
| Early on, Lawnchair implemented a blacklist to hide apps they
| deemed "bad". They only removed it after lots of protest from
| users. That has "burned" this launcher for me.
| aceki wrote:
| For those curious, see this gem of a closed PR:
|
| https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/pull/905
| JohnFen wrote:
| I found this discussion (linked to in the PR) more
| illuminating: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/7
| azc2i/comment/dpg...
|
| I tried Lawnchair out when figuring out what I was going
| to replace Nova with. I didn't end up choosing it, but if
| I had known they tried to do this (even if it only made
| it to the alpha channel) I wouldn't have even bothered to
| try it out.
| colordrops wrote:
| 9 years ago. I've been using the launcher and it works
| great. Does everything I needed from Nova and it's open
| source. Every project has hiccups.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I'm certainly not going to say nobody should use it.
|
| But I assume the dev then is the dev now. That he was OK
| introducing something like that, even 9 years ago, tells
| me that his values and my values are very far apart.
|
| I did actually evaluate it (before I knew this history)
| and it didn't meet my needs, so I chose something else
| purely on technical grounds anyway.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| Depends what you want, I guess. The nice thing about Android is
| we still have many options.
|
| I recently moved to AIO Launcher and I've been really enjoying
| it. I'm sure it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea though.
| turbocon wrote:
| Much less popular but I switched to Kvaesitso from Nova about a
| month ago and it's been amazing and it's open source. Much more
| opinionated than Nova but it matched how I used Nova so I
| really enjoy it.
|
| [1] https://kvaesitso.mm20.de/
| chroma_zone wrote:
| I paid for "Square Home" a couple years ago and I'm very happy
| with it. It's highly customizable. The Windows Phone style
| layout probably isn't for everyone but it works well for me.
| cheald wrote:
| Nova has been my favorite launcher for years, but after this, I
| may have to look elsewhere. Even as a paid user, I don't have
| much confidence that I'm not being sold off for ad exploitation.
| Tostino wrote:
| I read another post this morning that there was already an
| update last night with a bunch of tracking code added, and
| additional permissions required (that didn't trigger anything
| for the user to know of those additional permissions).
|
| I am a paid Nova user from a decade ago, but haven't used it in
| ages fwiw.
| cheald wrote:
| I guess mine hasn't updated yet. I'm a paid user, but I'll be
| migrating elsewhere. What a disappointment.
| post_break wrote:
| When a company says that they're here to stay after an
| acquisition that usually means the opposite.
| j1elo wrote:
| > _Open sourcing a product responsibly involves licensing,
| security, build tooling, contribution workflow, and trademark
| stewardship._
|
| You can scratch at the very least _contribution workflow_ from
| that list; anyhow, the original author had already spent _months_
| preparing the open source release, ironing out legal and
| dependency issues, so everything should already be there or
| pretty close, at least on the technical side of things (arguably
| one of the biggest sides)
| rdmuser wrote:
| It was sold back in 2022 to Branch Metrics
| https://www.androidcentral.com/apps-software/branch-strikes-...
|
| August 2024 everyone working on it was laid off except the
| original dev https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/9/24217077/nova-
| launcher-lay...
|
| September 2025 the original dev left after being told to stop
| work on open sourcing it
| https://www.theverge.com/news/773937/nova-launcher-founder-l...
| philjackson wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to post these.
| esafak wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_(company)
| thefz wrote:
| > Are you going to add ads? > Nova needs a sustainable business
| model to support ongoing development and maintenance. We are
| exploring different options, including paid tiers and other
| approaches. As many of you have already anticipated, we are also
| evaluating ad based options for the free version.
|
| > If ads are introduced, Nova Prime will remain ad free. Our
| guiding principles are clear: keep the experience clean and fast,
| avoid disruptive formats, and provide a straightforward way to
| keep the experience ad free.
|
| Seems pretty clear.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Nova launcher used to have loads of great features, but it seems
| now the best of those features have made it to the stock
| Google/Samsung launchers
| naikrovek wrote:
| the url "nova-is-here-to-stay" says to me that Nova will be
| discontinued in about 90 seconds.
| gruez wrote:
| "Nova Launcher's Incredible Journey"
| branon wrote:
| Haven't heard of Nova in a very long time, this was one of the
| original customizable launchers for Android wasn't it? If it's
| gone this long without being open-sourced, it might be time to
| let go. Been using https://kisslauncher.com/ for many years and
| have no complaints.
| bisby wrote:
| KISS is a complete paradigm shift from other phone launchers.
| It takes some getting used to. It has made me rethink how I use
| my phone from time to time because I have it set to sort by
| recently used: I only have a few apps I use regularly it seems.
|
| Not for everyone, but it's my preferred way to use a phone now.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Yeah, I was rocking Nova on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus back in
| 2012. It was the first time I ever paid for an app. Back then
| Nova was a huge upgrade to usability, but stock launchers
| eventually caught up, and by the late 2010s I was really just
| using it to make my phone look cool. I've heard it's borderline
| abandonware at this point, which is a shame.
| el_duderino wrote:
| Yeah but I believe Launcher Pro (~15 years ago) was before
| Nova.
|
| Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cREpIdgmWSk
| Izkata wrote:
| There's still nothing that's as configurable as SweeterHome
| was. It died somewhere around the Android 2 days.
| fullstop wrote:
| I switched to Smart Launcher Pro, and it seems to scratch the
| same itch. It was more expensive, though.
|
| Nova carried me for almost a decade, and I'll miss it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| That's what I switched to as well after evaluating a half dozen
| or so other ones.
|
| I agree, it's fine. It's missing a couple of niceties that I
| enjoyed with Nova, but nothing I can't live without.
| fullstop wrote:
| They recently added a bottom dock option, and I was very
| happy to have that back.
| mwkaufma wrote:
| Immediate uninstall.
| microflash wrote:
| What an undeserving fate. A beloved app now being passed from
| vulture to vulture who rip off every possible morsel they can.
|
| When Branch bought Nova, I moved on to use Lawnchair [1], which
| is open source. Although it has been in beta like forever, with
| occasional glitches, it works well enough and has enough features
| to satisfy my customization cravings.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair
| theturtletalks wrote:
| It's becoming evident that open-source is the only thing that
| can cure Enshittification. Every proprietary application will
| become enshittified, it's just a matter of when.
| saubeidl wrote:
| rms was right all along.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Many open source projects fail to find sustainable funding.
| If a cure is not financially viable it is not much different
| than the cure not existing.
| rpdillon wrote:
| So, you're not wrong.
|
| People that work for money will want money, and ultimately
| can be bought.
|
| People that work for love produce the best they can with
| limited resources, and are often broke.
|
| I don't think we've found a way to bridge the gap. I've
| come to generally rely on work people do for love, and I
| contribute to them, but it's clearly not sustainable unless
| they have another source of income.
|
| Anyone who solves this will produce immense value.
| jjordan wrote:
| The write-up on the link seems promising, at least. I'm sure
| ads will come to the free version, but they appear to be
| respecting Nova's legacy and longtime Prime purchasers.
| Anything is better than the slow decay it has been enduring the
| last year or two. Can't do much but be cautiously optimistic.
| malfist wrote:
| Last update introduced a bunch of ads and tracking plugins.
| See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46686655
| 0x1ch wrote:
| My biggest issue with lawnchair (and most launchers really) is
| that they all are horribly glitchy on my Pixel 6, and also
| break the app drawer / switching feature.
|
| I literally just want a vanilla pixel experience, but be
| allowed to change the search engine on the home screen
| searchbar... This got me into the weeds on the widget and
| launcher ecosystem and they're all very bad.
| sweetbacon wrote:
| This is very good to know! I am currently setting up my old
| pixel 6 to be a permanent Google home terminal. I was
| thinking about trying Lawnchair, now I'm not so sure.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| To be fair, this was probably six or so months ago when I
| last went through this. Niagra had the launcher / app
| switching issue, so did Lawnchair, even Nova Launcher
| (before I knew of what had happened to them). It could have
| been a general bug for all launchers except the OEM.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I highly recommend Octopi Launcher. It's simple, has
| customization you might want without _requiring_ it in order
| to be useful, and works great on various phones.
|
| Also great on foldables, since it lets you have a different
| home screen for different display sizes.
| cicko wrote:
| Time to say goodbye, I guess. It's been a while and things kept
| going south. Hello Lawnchair, my old friend.
| astrolx wrote:
| After many years of Nova, switched to Olauncher. I'm a happy
| person.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I take it the stock android launcher these days is not good?
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| It's "fine". In fact, a lot of the features that Nova pioneered
| has made its way into the stock launcher.
|
| But it does what it does and that's all. It's been a long, long
| time since Google believed in the concept of options or
| customizability. If you want to do something outside the
| default, well you can go straight to hell. Which is fine, I
| guess, since we still have great options for launchers out
| there.
| fullstop wrote:
| It's fine, and it works. I have a Pixel, though, and there's no
| way to disable the google search box on the homescreen. I will
| never use the search box, yet it dominates a good portion of my
| screen.
| ilvez wrote:
| I think the only reason not to use stock.. I guess once of
| the main reasons people look elsewhere. And I don't actually
| need fancy features.
|
| Probably there are more annoyances, but I never get to those
| since the search just kills it quick.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Is there a way to disable "swipe right for news feed"? I
| hated that inclusion in the Pixel launcher.
| blazerunner wrote:
| Yeah it can be turned off in stock launcher (at least I did
| on my Pixel 9 Pro XL).
| mfkp wrote:
| I recently switched to a OnePlus 15 and Nova Launcher had a
| really annoying 0.5-1 second delay every time you went back home.
|
| I've been a paid Nova user and used it on every android device
| for the past 10 years or so.
|
| I ended up migrating to the stock OnePlus launcher and it's
| actually surprisingly good, other than you have to disable the
| stupid google recommended page every time you reboot the phone,
| so I'm still open to alternatives.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Trebuchet (a "launcher", heh) is the stock Lineage one, and it
| is genuinely fine. App screen, home screen, nested folders.
| Nothing more you really want.
|
| Unfortunately it's built/bundled with Lineage, and you can't
| find a standalone APK for it anywhere
| dzaima wrote:
| That's an OxygenOS 16.0 bug; worked fine on 15.0, and broken on
| all (~five?) launchers I tested on 16.0. (currently on Octopi
| Launcher, and just live with that annoying delay until it
| Hopefully(tm) gets fixed)
| eikaramba wrote:
| see my reply above for a fix
| eikaramba wrote:
| let me make your day. this will fix the problem 100% ->
| https://old.reddit.com/r/oneplus/comments/1p3pcnt/guide_fix_...
|
| I couldn't believe it myself but by basically force closing the
| settings menu the drawer animation will be gone until you
| reboot :)
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I'm really behind on this stuff but what does this mean for
| Sesame. It's all just dead now, right?
| aspbee555 wrote:
| I was having issues recently with my Pixel phone
| hanging/freezing/going stupid, it was Nova. I changed to
| Lawnchair yesterday after learning this and works much better and
| my battery is no longer draining for no apparent reason
| algo_trader wrote:
| > my battery is no longer draining for no apparent reason
|
| Oh man. I just replaced the battery on my 5 year phone - for
| the sole reason of _not_ having to reconfigure Nova on a new
| phone :\
| mfkp wrote:
| You know you can export your Nova configuration and import it
| on a new phone, right?
| mastermedo wrote:
| What a throwback. Nova launcher sounded familiar, but I wasn't
| sure where to place it in my head. When I saw the logo I was
| immediately transported to memories of using lineage OS and
| bricking my new Samsung Note 4. I was trying to customize every
| button combination to do something smart back then. The good old
| days when I had the time to fix the phone after every update.
| I've since moved to the apple ecosystem... Set and forget.
| baggachipz wrote:
| > I've since moved to the apple ecosystem... Set and forget.
|
| Careful, you'll get blasted for that in these parts. Until
| about 7 years ago, I had been an Android absolutist. Custom
| ROMs, launchers, you name it. I sneered at those Apple-loving
| simpletons. Then, after missing several important phone calls
| in a day due to the phone 'app' not working properly, I got fed
| up and got a Nexus 6, the official Google phone and the
| reference implementation for Android. The phone was big and
| ugly, but at least I was still using a "real" operating system.
|
| Then, as I went through the app store looking for some needed
| apps, I realized that I couldn't find what I wanted. What I
| downloaded and installed turned out to be scams and hijacked
| the phone as ad-riddled malware. It slowly dawned on me: The
| Play Store is anarchistic, lawless hellscape.
|
| I was too old for this shit. I went and got an iPhone and never
| looked back. I turn it on, it does things. I don't have to
| worry about it. Yes, the software quality isn't near perfect,
| and they seem to be gradually enshittifying their app store.
| But at least they make a token effort to keep things in a
| somewhat curated state.
|
| It's night and day, far as I'm concerned. I've gotten to the
| point where I just want my things to work. I don't want to
| spend hours tweaking and troubleshooting. I realize I'm in a
| cult compound, but it's better than the Mad Max world outside.
| mbix77 wrote:
| On any Android phone I immediately install Niagara. Best launcher
| by far. Makes everything so efficient and beautiful.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Niagara is amazing. It's quite different from other launchers,
| so either it works for you or doesn't. It perfectly matches
| what I was doing before, which was searching for apps by name
| to launch them.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Doesn't KISS do this? I'm curious why Niagara when KISS is
| probably lighter/smaller.
| drnick1 wrote:
| Are launchers needed at all? I find the default GrapheneOS
| interface to be serviceable and I did not know what a "launcher"
| was until fairly recently.
| scblock wrote:
| It depends on what you're looking for. I have a Pixel 9a with
| Graphene on it and wanted to customize my icons which I don't
| think the stock launcher allows. Went with Lawnchair and set it
| up mostly the same as the stock Pixel launcher otherwise.
| ilvez wrote:
| I was thinking what else deteriorated from best to worst..
| Poweramp.
| tecleandor wrote:
| "We are a Swedish company building products that help people get
| online, used by millions of people worldwide."
|
| So I look for them. They have a "Free wifi connection" / "Wifi
| passwords map" app. It surprises me because it has a good score
| on Google Play but then I begin to check the reviews, and a bunch
| of them go like: "Five stars because if you do a good review you
| can use it for free".
|
| I install it and on starting it and in the first minute: Asks you
| to create an account but you can't click on the terms of service
| or privacy policy, the links don't work. I skip it. It tries to
| change your default launcher. It tries to change your default
| browser. It asks you to share your home wifi password with them.
| Pops up adds everywhere. Tries to get a good review from you.
|
| No thanks, not even near.
| ajkjk wrote:
| giving anything to the user in return for a good review should
| be grounds for disqualification from app stores. (and it should
| be legally required for app stores to enforce it)
| nix0n wrote:
| Since they claim to be a Swedish company, it might be worth
| filing a report with the Swedish consumer agency[0].
|
| I am not a lawyer, and especially not a Swedish lawyer, so I
| can't say how illegal this is in Sweden or what if anything
| will happen.
|
| [0]https://www.konsumentverket.se/en/articles/report-to-the-
| swe...
| vgivanovic wrote:
| I've used Nova Launcher for years (don't know if I'm paid), but
| I'll be happy to pay for an ad free version.
|
| I know there is a long history of companies buying another
| company for a product and then killing it after a period of time.
| I'm willing to give Instabridge the benefit of doubt... for a
| while. If they do decide that Nova Launcher is not a fit, I hope
| they open source it so that current users are not left on the
| lurch.
| throwa356262 wrote:
| It's 2026, why are people still using custom launchers?
|
| Serious question from a former Nova Prime user.
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