I want to try Mako and Olauncher, but I'm afraid of malware and data collection. Any advice?
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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Niagara at the moment. There's a lot I'd change about it but it's the best I've spent the time to learn the ins and outs of so far.
OLauncher is great. I used Nova for a long time but I'm happy with OLauncher. It's also available on F-Droid which is pretty neat.
Been using Fast Draw for a minute now. I like the simplicity and the lack of even the desire for a search bar. The only problem I have is that it can't handle a widget well, and can't handle more than one widget at all.
TREK: Total Interface
It's Total Launcher with an LCARS theme.
I've been using it for 4 or 5 years now across two different phones.
I absolutely despise the entire smartphone menu paradigm so this is as close as I can get to departing from it and sticking with something static that doesn't move about or spontaneously change behaviors every third update.
That's a static menu system sorted, now if I could just get my pixel 8 pro to stick to 30 minutes screen timeout after I set it once, that'd be great. It flips back to 30 seconds nearly every time I put it down and sometimes while I'm holding it.
Why isn't there a developer option for "never let the phone change settings on its own"?
Square home 2.
Lawnchair
I use Niagara. I needed something that was linear to help stave off the urge to browse.
Another Kvae user I see. What ever comes pre-installed on the device. I stopped caring around the time when they stopped making cool new smarphones. It has became just a tool since.
Lawnchair
Heard a lot of praise for it and tried to test it the other day, but noped right back out when just trying to create a folder in the dock was horribly buggy and repeatedly resulted in having a duplicate of one of the app icons in it showing on the home screen, weirdly overlapping the "at a glance" widget, and when I tried to fix it the folder just disappeared. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but that wasn't very confidence inspiring. Stock Pixel 7, so it's not like I'm using a particularly unusual setup either
Sounds like my experience so you're not alone. Tried it on both a Pixel 8 Pro and P10 Pro XL. Its foundation is good, but it needs a lot of polishing.
Will check it out, thank you!
I also used Nova until recently. In a similar post I saw that someone mentioned Octopi Launcher, and I liked it so far. Some features that I liked in Nova are missing, but apart from that, I find it to be a good replacement for now.
TLDR: Octopi Launcher
What is an android launcher?
Niagara. It's simple and clean. All I need is an app drawer and a few favorites, and that's basically what it provides.
Same here. It's very smooth. I wish there were a few other customization points, I'd rather use my own weather app than the built in one, and I do, but then end up with different forecasts as they use different sources.
Minor complaints, but still a little friction that could be solved.
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I love KISS.
I change the settings to set swipes for common apps like browser and camera, set others as favorites like email and messaging apps, and then set it to show nothing else except the search bar. Tapping the search bar shows commonly used apps, or you can a search.
Works great for my "workflow", and leaves the "desktop" almost completely clear. Then I have the wallpaper set to the NASA astronomy picture of the day. Works great!
I agree, KISS on minimal mode for me.
Same. I've been using KISS for years. It would feel weird to use anything else at this point.
I use KISS but with the Launchy widget as well and it works great.
Interesting! Do you (or anyone) know of any similar one that's FOSS and available outside of Google Play?
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Lawnchair. An improved Launcher3 that I use in place of Lineage's built-in launcher.
I don't really like text-only "simple" launchers as the icons help with quickly figuring out what app does what. Some of the features the AOSP Launcher3 lacks are present in Lawnchair/(mainly more customization over existing features).
I tried Lawnchair the other day and found it severely lacking.
Stock GrapheneOS
I used to spend a lot of time configuring different launchers (including Nova Launcher) but since I’ve switched to GrapheneOS, I’m actually quite happy with the stock launcher. It has everything I need — multiple home screens, widgets, folders. And I use App Search as dedicated search and secondary launch app that I’ve set up as digital assistant for gesture invocation.
Smart Launcher gang checking in. I am also a Nova Launcher refugee, and I found that Smart Launcher had similar features and ease of use.
Same one I've been using for the past... 14 years? Smart Launcher. Great UI, and means when I get a new phone I don't need to learn a new UI :D
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...Microsoft Launcher.
It does what I want, has no ads and basically is so smooth I forget I even have a custom launcher installed.
Microsoft was the only launcher I found that has the feature to swipe up on an app icon to launch a shortcut. Nova had swipe up or down that I used to launch different apps.
Smart Launcher will allow you to swipe up, down, left, and right to launch shortcuts.
The paid version will also allow you to use icons to open widgets in a pop-up.
Not sure about the latter part, but Total is another launcher allowing 4-way swiping for shortcuts. Absolute godsend.
Niagara, nice simple clean
Surprised I had to scroll this far for a Niagara recommendation. Been on it since Nova sale and it's fantastic
Niagra is the bees knees
Lawnchair
Though it is a bit buggy for me.
AIO Launcher
It's something different 
kvaesito, I switched from nova a few months ago and I'm loving it.
Been using the Fossify suite for a while. The Fossify Launcher works well enough.
Nova got sold and now it's a tracking-laiden pos. That's why is gone terrible.
What does a launcher do, what can a non-default one do (or not do) that warrents the effort to not just use whatever the default is?
Using a non-default launcher gives you more options to customise your home screen and any other screens off to the side.
For example, Pixels always have the Google search bar right there on the home screen, and it's not removable (or not last I checked). But what if I don't want it there? A 3rd party launcher will usually give me that option.
Or another example - some launchers allow the use of gestures to activate certain things, eg open app A, start an email in app B, call a specific contact, etc. This can be gestures on empty parts of the screen or swipes on icons.
On my phone, on which I use Total Launcher, it looks like this:
Tapping each of those 12 icons opens a folder. But I can also swipe each folder icon up, down, left or right and have certain apps or activities open without ever needing to go into the app drawer.
So, if I want to make a call, I swipe left on the communications folder (top right). If I want to open Lemmy, I swipe right on the Internet folder (blue, bottom row). If I want to open my phone settings, I swipe up on the Tools folder. And so on.
That way, I can activate 48 different things while only having 12 icons on screen, keeping it quite neat and tidy, and leaving space for my little collection of widgets at the top.
Gotcha, thanks!
I used to use KISS but now I love Pie Launcher, I just wish it bugged less often (sometimes I have to kill it and restart it) and I wish we could have folders to open too.
Lawnchair. Can't donate to the dev hard enough.
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