alt Hacker NewsNova Launcher Added Facebook and Google Ads Tracking
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Well, that sucks. When the sale was announced, I tried several launchers, free and paid, and none of them were as good as Nova :/ Guess I’ll do another round.
For those still using Nova Launcher (custom launcher for Android), it seems that it's owned by a new company and the latest update comes with the Facebook Ads and Google AdMob SDKs and require extra permissions.
8.1.6:
- Branch (analytics)
- Bugsnag (crash report)
8.2.4:
- Facebook Ads (advertisement)
- Google AdMob (advertisement)
- Branch (analytics)
- Bugsnag (crash reporting)
- Google CrashLytics (crash reporting)
- Google Firebase Analytics (analytics)
Do older versions of Nova have any security flaws which preclude using them?
I've been using this app for ages and it's been essentially feature-complete for several years. A part of me wants to switch launchers for no other reason than "it is supported and not tracking me", but it is possible for software to be finished, and I believe Nova falls into that category. If there's no meaningful vulnerabilities in it, there's really no reason for me to switch away, at least not immediately.
For those out of the know, Nova Launcher is an Android home screen replacement... so hits home when the root of your phone existence gets shook piece by piece.
I have been trying to figure out why my phone has beep going stupid and laggy with the launcher lately, now I know why
I'm still using an old version with the network access blocked. I'll use it until it stops working.
If anyone knows of another launcher with app drawer tabs, let me know.
Thankfully I am using GrapheneOS, so I never gave the app network permissions. I will look for a new launcher anyways now.
Thanks for sharing.
Nova drained my erstwhile Android phones battery. Not sure if this has gotten any better.
At least in Graphene, you can block the app from having network access, but stock launcher in Graphene has worked well for me.
Damn these privacy-invading leeches.
That’s disappointing. My primary launcher on my eink devices since it works so well on them.
I initially thought that switching to a lighter launcher like Nova would make my phone-apps launching faster. However, I soon realized that what I actually needed was something to boost my productivity, so I switched to a launcher with fewer distractions, like Yantra Launcher (terminal-based), which I've been using ever since.