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Since Nova has been bought I've replaced it with Neo Launcher. I like it 'cause it gives the option to resize widgets, customize the size of the home screen grid and add swipe up actions to home folders.
An old version of Nova from before the big data collection switch. Use it because it has a scrollable dock. I have all apps inside folders in the dock, the folders are sorted by category. I can scroll between app categories & get to any app within 2 or 3 touches.
I really want a launcher which has a scrollable dock with a user defined news feed such as NeoFeed.
Smart Launcher has user defined categories which negates the scrollable dock requirement, but the news feed is Microsoft which is as bad as Google in my eyes.
If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to know them
Light weight and still feature rich. It automatically sorts apps into categories. It makes it so much easier to find the apps to launch.
I cannot stand the near endless long list of unsorted apps you get with most launchers.
Nova us the best for me, always been. I also used Lawnchair for a long time and it's almost as great if you're fussy about Nova's new owner and stuff
Nova was the best till the ownership changed hands.
Lawnchair & MS launcher been pretty good.
Action launcher (paid version) is my go to, some features I love about it:
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Allow for a desktop grid of up to 12*12, which I havent seen on any other launchers I have tried, I believe Nova had something similar, but not sure to this degree.
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The brilliant folder icon being the shortcut to the app which was the first app to have been put in it feature. You can later shuffle the app around to change it, of course. You swipe down on the folder icon to reveal the items inside like usual, but if you just tap on it, the app which is first in the list opens up, a very good time saver in my opinion.
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Widget stack is a cool feature also, where you can add similarly sized widgets to a single block of space on which you can scroll through to see the information as it suits you.
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Customization level is very high, you can have a dock, a drawer, and also a quick drawer which is a vertical list of apps, and all of these simultaneously too.
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A high level of gesture support. My phone just got an update where I have to swipe down from different sides to see notifications and quick settings, which are not changeable by default. With the action launcher settings I have sort of found a work around.
It allows me to have a minimal looking desktop with a lot of functionality and a high degree of customisation, very much worth the price.
Nova launcher. I like the custom icons, specifically the Line Free package. I also wanted the wrap around scrolling for home screens which wasn't a feature on the first phone I put nova on. No idea if it is on my current phone because I went straight to Nova.
I stopped using Nova after them being bought by a company dealing with telemetry. I don't want to lose control of the data my launcher has access to.
I use Hyperion Launcher. I bought Nova launcher back in the day, but I left immediately when it was acquired by a data collection and analytics company.
Hyperion launcher basically provides all the same features as Nova launcher. It's a less intuitive to set up, but once you have it set up, it's just as good.
I used Nova Launcher on my S20 Ultra, and on my S7 before that, massive improvement over Samsung's default. Haven't installed it on my p7pro cause I really like Google's launcher, and I don't believe I had it on my p2xl either.
Nova and Niagara seen to be the overwhelming favorites, but I like Smart Launcher. My brain doesn't cooperate with lists of apps in alphabetical or whatever, I lose apps or forget the name. Smart is great because it categorizes the apps into six default categories automagically, and you can edit/add/delete the categories or which category each app gets sorted into. So my Internet apps are on one space, games, media, etc. Makes the list of apps much easier to deal with. Not that it's perfect. Sometimes apps go weird places, but that's easy to fix. There's a bunch of other stuff, but that's my primary reason for using it.
Been trying a few. Niagara on my phone and Microsoft Launcher for my tablet.
Don't overly love Microsoft on my tablet honestly. Probably going to choose another listed in this thread to try.
Niagara has been great on my phone though. Just so minimal. Huge fan.
Kvaesitso, it's simple, beautiful but has a lot of functionality, customizable and open-source :)
Used to use Niagara launcher, but moved to kvaesitso since it's FOSS. Both are very very good.
Olauncher is open source minimalist launcher. VERY minimalist. You can get up to 8 apps on the home page and swipe down to search for all other apps.
Nova
KISS Launcher. Perfect companion for a hardware keyboard (https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry).
In general, you use it like the Windows start menu. Type the first few characters of an app name, hit enter and there you are.
KISS , I have used if for ages , so much more effective. Always Use FOSS , especially for the launcher that always have a lot of permissions.
Indistract launcher Haven't found a better minimalistic/clean launcher even though it has some bugs. My home screen:
nova launcher because its what i've always used. plenty fast and pretty customizable
Lawnchair alpha
OLauncher here. I'm sick of all of the color and intensity and business on my home screen. I switched to a text-based launcher (which also has an excellent search function and intuitive home screen interface) and I've really enjoyed it.
Prior to that I used Nova for many years.
Launcher 10
I use it because I got a smartphone too late for the Windows Phone era and I would've loved metro in a handheld form factor. I use it on my Pixel 4a.
Lawnchair
Olauncher - very minimal, no distractions. Shows the app's full name instead of icons, handfull of links on the main page, the rest can be found in the app drawer in a long list of app names.
Edit: just saw the mention here of mlauncher, an open source fork. Making the switch now ๐