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Nova Launcher could soon add a proactive AI assistant that sucks up all your data
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026
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How can you tell whether or not something is FOSS in Google Play?
Unfortunately not easily. Most mention it in descriptions or have links to GitHub/etc. For me, I used to search FDroid to check but I'm pretty selective about the apps I use. Now I do most things through Obtainium, but as a Graphene user I'm certainly not the norm.
I couldn't find Lawnchair in F-Droid.
Sigh.. Lawnchair is the absolute worst of the worst for install/discovery. Because it got taken over by another developer, it's been all "beta" releases on GitHub forever, even though a truckload of people daily drive it.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases
I've been daily driving it for a while and really want it to be better. Its hard to complain since it's FOSS, but one of my most used features from the old Lawnchair 2 version (tabs in the app drawer) hasn't been implemented in the new version since development was effectively reset/restarted.
Maybe it's time to move on and check out Octopi...
OK, so I don't recommend this often, but there is a FOSS option closer to Nova than Lawnchair. It's called Neo Launcher: https://github.com/neoapplications/neo-launcher
It may be worth a shot, I ran the release on GitHub for about a year. I stopped because the devs are doing this brainrot thing of putting releases as beta in their Discord, so the release file on GitHub is old. I hate that practice so much that I stopped recommending it, even though it's a slightly better launcher with more options IMO.
I appreciate the recommendation, however, I can't support any dev who uses Discord for releases/support. I'm doing what I can to move friends and family once a viable alternative is available. I know a bunch were being recommended a couple of weeks ago, but I need 80%+ feature parity and simple a install and use flow before most will consider it.
Yup, totally get it, it's why I don't use it. I have Lawnchair's GitHub URL added into Obtainium, so it's as simple as Play Store for updates.