That talk about substitutes happened when it was initially handed over to said data miner, and anybody concerned should have switched back then. I did, moving to Lawnchair, and never looked back. Oodles of other options are doubtlessly available.

I would be so happy if Kevin got accidentally 'hacked' and the source leaked, by now im so ingrained in nova that it just feels wrong switching.

I hate being hinted and asked to click on the link, so I save you a click:

Are you using a different client? Without teaser texts? The Lemmy website mentions Nova in the teaser.

https://teslacoilapps.com/nova/solong.html

Read a bit further:

Two years later, Kevin Barry left Branch and is no longer involved in Nova’s development. In his announcement, Barry revealed that he had been the sole developer for the past year, spending recent months preparing to open source Nova Launcher and clean up its codebase. However, Branch ultimately asked him to stop both development and his open-sourcing efforts.

Hey by any chance do you have the last APK file and the SHA256 of that file ?

Oh wait, it this it ?

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/teslacoil-software/nova-launcher/nova-launcher-8-1-1-release/nova-launcher-8-1-1-android-apk-download/

Name: com.teslacoilsw.launcher_8.1.1-81001_minAPI26(arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk
Size: 11970405 bytes (11 MiB)
SHA256: 30bccfdd995969089ad364a7a6bb7bbea482a703fbfb30ebccad6418aa977fec

Is there an x86_64 version ?

Just making sure we've got the last version saved

Oh wait, it's not open source ? And they've been acquired in 2022 ?

date of acquisition 2022-07-19

Ok, last one before the acquisition, just in case

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/teslacoil-software/nova-launcher/nova-launcher-8-0-2-release/nova-launcher-8-0-2-android-apk-download/

Name: com.teslacoilsw.launcher_8.0.2-80002_minAPI26(arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk
Size: 12580956 bytes (11 MiB)
SHA256: 61a760413387dde99f2a2ef4b065caf278b575c8028cc5b3092f05192cfee258

Seriously, one of the few apps I've ever paid for - and this is what I get?!

Yes

It's always capitalism

Man probably needed to eat. What a system we've got.

I switched to Niagara a few years back because Nova didn't have good support for foldables and tbh I haven't looked back. It's very different but once you get used to it it's much faster than a traditional launcher.

Yep, have been using and currently using Nova for the last 8 years I think. Suuucks to see it go as I couldn't find a viable search based launcher like Nova when it was sold.

Yeah, it's open sauce, has shortcuts, widgets, & works fine.

There's no direct replacement. The features I use are in Pear launcher so I use that. You have to look through launcher comparisons to find the features you need.

Also, I'm surprised purple are still using Nova. I thought most people abandoned it after it got sold.

It's very much not a classic launcher and takes some getting used to, but Kvaesitso is nice.

I love my Niagara Launcher ! it's a different concept than most launchers, and looks pretty spartan on first glance, but it's sleek, efficient and can look absolutely fabulous. The Pro stuff is a bit pricey, but it has a good privacy policy, autodelete data older than a year, and are GDPR compliant.