I’ve seen quite a few launchers on F-Droid, but I really fail to see what their advantages over the stock one are. I mean, what can be meaningfully different about arranging apps in a grid? But I guess the existence of so many options goes to show I just don’t get the gist of it.
So what launchers actually provide some interesting features that make it worth switching to them?
I’ve been using the TUI Launcher for like a decade now. It’s kinda been abandoned, but it still works perfectly fine.
Went from Nova via a few others and ended up with a minimalist beauty that demands nothing : Mako (f-droid) (I miss the double tap off but use the quick settings ‘lock screen’ button).
I can somewhat recommend Dragon Launcher. It’s gesture based around “app circles”. You arrange your apps in custom circles of arbitrary nesting and swipe to get there.
The main downside imo is the extreme pace of development; most releases fix this or the other issue while introducing new bugs. The config format also doesn’t appear particularly stable through upgrades, it’s probably time for a config reset for me.
I remember when that was launched and thought it looked like a novelty, but checking it now it looks incredibly mature. I’ll give it a go today. It actually looks really good. Thank you.
It’s definitely polished a lot. Still I’d be happy for development to slow a bit now.
I primarily switched (to Kvaesitso) because I don’t use Google search and it was impossible to remove the Google search bar from my home screen on a Pixel. I do enjoy the greater degree of customization as well.
Yantra launcher for weirdos who like the feeling of cli. I used to love tui-launcher but it was abandoned. I tried switching back to normal launchers but even minimal search-based ones feel clunky. It’s the only kind I’ve tried that felt qualitatively different
unLancher, baby. Just…look at it.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jkuester.unlauncher/
Sleek. Simple. Sexy. Salubrious.
I use kvaesitso and love it, but it’s certainly an opinionated approach. But while it is search focused, you can customize it to make it more traditional
Aio launcher has changed my world
Niagara or Pro Launcher. I accidentally paid for the latter before realizing Niagara does the trick just fine.
I switched to KISS launcher a while ago (years ago?)and I absolutely love it. It is search based but you can have tags for apps which allow you to have something akin to folders. If an app fits two tags then so be it, it will show up in all the tag folders, so organisation can be much cleaner. It is also blazingly fast and keeps things clean.
Yeah, KISS is great. Tag-based searching is so flexible.
I love kiss launcher too! Why bother with folders if you can find the app with typing in two letters in the search bar? A few apps as favorite is pretty useful too
The minimalist ones take a different approach, and are really great at encouraging less phone use: minimo launcher, fokus launcher, olauncher and its variants, etc. There’s some theory around why grayscale and text are less addictive than colorful icon grids, widgets, and multiple pages, but I can’t find it right now.
I’m currently on murine launcher because I have a tiny phone, but I use black and white icons with arcticons.
Kvaesito: minimal UI with many unique customizations/features.
I also use this one, with one line of fixed apps and one line that changes based on usage levels. I use the delta app icon pack as well to standardise the look a little. Search for everything else, supporting tags so that e.g. 3 different parking apps come up when I type parking
When I see other people paging left and right searching for their app from a disordered list, I’m really glad I switched
Well you switch when you feel like something could be better, like for me, I personally got OCD so I dont like a grid of apps, hence I use those minimal launchers that don’t have icons and just a search bar. I know evey app I have installed and delete any if I dont see a use for it in the near future, but that’s just me.
Currently using fokus launcher
I like InkOS, minimalist, in an epaper kinda way. Just dont like the notification module but I disable it. And I use Snowbell as the font, love it.
I do it to disable things in the launcher that ships with my phone. In many versions of android you can’t get rid of that dumb search bar wiget or that even worse experiences page if you swipe left from home. I don’t ever use them, but they get in my way, it’s my phone I want them gone.
As a side note I also dislike circle icons, but I dislike even more that they change the shape with every major release of android.
