Comment by buro9 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by buro9 | Hacker News Reader

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> there isn't a way to completely disable it in Android

This is not true, as there is... just disable the Google app.

You will need to replace the launcher with the Nova launcher in the process, and will likely replace the search box with Firefox search. But the Google app and Assistant will be totally disabled and unavailable anywhere in the Android experience. If you find a link to it, it will ask to enable which you can decline.

I found this out by Google having placed me in some experiment earlier this year where my Pixel 6 Pro went from 24h battery life down to about 3h battery life. The battery was being drained by the Google app exclusively, and so without any fix or published workaround I set about disabling the Google app.

Overall this has been a huge improvement, my battery under near identical usage is now closer to 36h... and the Assistant not being present I have since viewed as a bonus (at the time I thought it a negative). I believe the issue is probably now fixed, but why would I go back when this is a better experience with more battery, disabling the Google app was like upgrading my phone.

Wasn't Nova Launcher acquired by a very shady company?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32150092

Lawnchair is a great alternative: https://lawnchair.app/

I personally also love Kvæsitso, which is a search-based launcher kind of like KISS launcher but with a cleaner aesthetic: https://kvaesitso.mm20.de/

KISS Launcher has the better smartly ordered search, though: https://kisslauncher.com/

Lawnchair on F-Droid says it's no longer maintained?

What's really odd is they support no app stores. Not GPlay or FDroid. So they expect users to continually download APK and update? Seems like a great pattern to keep their user base small - but maybe that's what they're after.

Most of these apps are in the Izzyondroid fdroid repo. It's there by default in Droid-ify which is much better than the official fdroid client anyway.

https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/app.lawnchair

What do you mean? Lawnchair is on the playstore. The only thing is that it tells me it was built for an older version of android, so I cannot install it.

I think it's safe to assume most want a supported version of an app, not something that's been abandoned on the Play Store. From the Lawnchair site [0]:

"Do you still support the Play Store version?

Unfortunately not. We no longer support the play store version; issues about it won't be accepted. This is done to focus development on making Lawnchair 12.1 finished and making it similar to Lawnchair 2. Also, maintaining legacy code is not a focus of the developers."

[0] https://lawnchair.app/faq/

Wait, Google lets you view it but just not download?

Android is perfectly capable of running that afaik; I'm sure that my current version (11 I think?) is at least backwards compatible back till Android 4, if not Android 2

You could try Aurora Store, which uses a pool of dummy Google accounts to pull apks from their servers. I doubt it has belittling restrictions like what you describe, and there's also a manual download option which can sometimes let you get old versions if the server still has them and you know the build number

I used it and it was better than the Pixel launcher in my opinion, but yes it seems like the last update was a year ago.

I'm very happy with OLauncher :) Minimalistic, quasi text-based. Swipe up to show all apps and show keyboard by default for a fast search, swipe left to open firefox and swipe right for signal.

I have been using Niagara for years. They have a built-in search, but it's better if you also have Sesame.

Almost every launcher has a built-in search feature. The difference with search-based launchers for me is having only widgets or even just plain nothing on the home screen, launching apps from a small favorites bar or by typing the first few letters of the apps name. It's honestly faster than looking at many screens full of folders of apps ever was.

https://sesame.ninja/ Sesame is cool, but not FOSS, and last time I tried it some years back it had some limitations for free users or didn't integrate into my launcher well or something like that.

Lynx launcher (my personal favorite) is also pretty good. I switched to it after Evie launcher development stopped.

Isn't Sesame also bought by the same shady company that bought Nova?

Branch is "very shady"?

Believe it or not, the Blackberry Launcher is solid and a great alternative.

Highly recommend the above. Moving to a launcher, defaulting to Firefox (yay adblocker), and replacing the default search with Kagi creates a near distraction free experience on Android.

Unfortunately the Reddit / X changes this year should remind us these sort of 3rd-party workarounds will only exist for so long.

I know it's a dream, but I'm looking forward to simple Linux phones. Moving to GNOME / arch on my Desktop lets me do what I want to do and somehow, magically plays any game from Steam without a hitch.

This is what Competition law is primarily about if I want/have to use App X, App Y should not be forced upon me. It was the problem in Windows/IE or Android/PlayStore ...

Google, Apple, MSFT are abusing "monopoly" in one area to extend their reach in other areas.

> just disable the Google app.

Since several months ago, disabling the Google app also disables camera functionality in Google Translate (?!..), which to an expat is absolutely crippling.

I had no idea all the expats from before 10 years ago were crippled.

FWIW WordLens came out in 2010

“just”

Yes, it's very simple. Just open the app info (by long holding the app icon and pressing the little "i"), then select "disable" and confirm the dialogue. Or did you mean something else?

There are 10 comments above mentioning various gotchas.

While you're at it, why not install a custom ROM without Google Services (and use MicroG for notifications and stuff).

Generally this comes with the downside of being unable to use banking apps.

Can you build on that ? In particular, did you lose voice to text writing as a result ? This is my biggest fear.

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