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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

I take it the stock android launcher these days is not good?

It's fine, and it works. I have a Pixel, though, and there's no way to disable the google search box on the homescreen. I will never use the search box, yet it dominates a good portion of my screen.

I think the only reason not to use stock.. I guess once of the main reasons people look elsewhere. And I don't actually need fancy features.

Probably there are more annoyances, but I never get to those since the search just kills it quick.

Is there a way to disable "swipe right for news feed"? I hated that inclusion in the Pixel launcher.

Yeah it can be turned off in stock launcher (at least I did on my Pixel 9 Pro XL).

I hate that search box, it's ridiculous that they force it on users. On the plus side looking up how to get rid of it led me to Lawnchair which I have been happily using for many years at this point.

Isn't the stock one open-source? Even if it isn't, Java is really trivial to decompile reversibly, and removing features is much easier than adding. Take advantage of Android the way it was meant to be taken advantage of.

It does the job, but it's important to remember that there isn't a "stock Android launcher". Google, Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola, Xiaomi, etc, develop their own launcher and have different features.

I used Nova mainly because I use 2 phones and it is easier to keep things similar. For example, the app list on my Samsung scrolls horizontally. On my other phone running LineageOS, it's vertically. With Nova, it's the same on both devices.

It was also useful when moving phones, as I could just restore a backup to restore my layout.

It's "fine". In fact, a lot of the features that Nova pioneered has made its way into the stock launcher.

But it does what it does and that's all. It's been a long, long time since Google believed in the concept of options or customizability. If you want to do something outside the default, well you can go straight to hell. Which is fine, I guess, since we still have great options for launchers out there.

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