Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
novalauncher.com
Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
1–10 of 173 posts
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#2the 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)
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#3> 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?
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#4Ugh, 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?
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#5Nova 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.
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#6When a company says that they're here to stay after an acquisition that usually means the opposite.
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#7> 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)
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#8Nova 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.
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.
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#9It 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...
Re: Instabridge has acquired Nova Launcher
#10Ugh, 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?
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!