It’s not us, it’s you. It’s with a heavy wrench that we have decided to end our partnership with Samsung. Despite a huge amount of effort, Samsung’s approach to repairability does not align with our mission.
I went from years of Pixels to an S22Ultra. The only hard part was that the app drawer is paged instead of scrolling. I just ignore everything Samsung/Bixby and never see it. Seems fine 🤷♀️
Honest question: What makes you think you are qualified to know if they’ve “done anything”? Nova was bought by an analytics(data) company, the danger wasn’t in them aesthetically changing nova or its core functionality, the danger was in them keeping you thinking nothing has changed but aggressively/unethically selling all the data about you so others can exploit and manipulate you.
Simple example is, making a predictive model of when you’re most likely sad based on context clues and general device usage and then kleenex buys that data, in aggregate. They then use it to predict when they can raise the price of tissues for surge pricing in your area when you’re most vulnerable and least price sensitive. This is a slightly silly example work “big Kleenex” as the bad guy, but hopefully you get the idea.
Add to it if you use any of nova middle layer services (e.g. A nova search widget instead of browser search, sesame shortcuts, etc). That’s all increased fidelity they get on a data profile of who you are at any given time so that they can sell it to others to target and harass you. That is what the new nova is, quietly. You won’t get a knock on your door to ask you if you approve, it has just happened already.
More hypothetical examples:
We detect increasing frequency of you launching the travelocity app, means you’re getting more desperate to book, prices go up on your app, increasing more and more between today and the departure date you’ve been searching.
You downloaded two pregnancy tracker apps in a week, means that several companies can now invest in spamming you with predatory social and direct mail advertising and you’re employer can consider finding alternative cause to fire you to not absorb the upcoming costs of delivery/care and parental leave.
You not having any Christian/bible material or apps on your phone means there’s a high percentage that you aren’t a practicing Christian (or conversely, you having a Quran app downloaded). Your house gets a big red X on a map for an app funded by dark money Christo-fascist, Christian nationalists quietly creating a directory of “good” people and “bad” people that your neighbors with red hats and flags on their raised trucks can eventually download and access freely to “keep an eye out”.
That last one is NUTS! You’re crazy! That’s ridiculous!and then…
Meaningfully, Google is under a much larger microscope and with an aggressive FTC. Nova is smaller relatively and that has its own under the radar dangers
My old Samsung Tab A6 tablet (which is from 2016) has has been limping along at 96% full whilst having just 4 apps I actually installed and used, because of all the useless Samsung junk in it which after a few updates has expanded to use almost all of the available space and this with me trying hard to avoid updating anything not “system” or required even if pre-instealled.
(With storage usage this close to 100%, if you don’t restart the tablet once in a while, it fill up with temporary and cache files, which in turn causes random app crashes and malfunctions)
Got pissed some weeks ago and last weekend after some researched flashed a Custom ROM into it (somebody back in 2021 actually built LineageOS for it: Thanks Mone!)
I’m still using those same 4 apps in it yet storage is now 40% free, I even have an updated Android version and the thing is working as if it was new.
Screw Samsung: even when their hardware was actually decent, their software was already bloated crap.
Except the stock OS is unusable and custom roms are not well supported.
I went from years of Pixels to an S22Ultra. The only hard part was that the app drawer is paged instead of scrolling. I just ignore everything Samsung/Bixby and never see it. Seems fine 🤷♀️
I hated the page thing, so I’ve always used Nova to change that. I don’t even remember how things all looked and worked under samsungs UI.
Don’t use Nova, didn’t you hear?
I heard they’ve sold out, but they haven’t actually done anything yet.
Honest question: What makes you think you are qualified to know if they’ve “done anything”? Nova was bought by an analytics(data) company, the danger wasn’t in them aesthetically changing nova or its core functionality, the danger was in them keeping you thinking nothing has changed but aggressively/unethically selling all the data about you so others can exploit and manipulate you.
Simple example is, making a predictive model of when you’re most likely sad based on context clues and general device usage and then kleenex buys that data, in aggregate. They then use it to predict when they can raise the price of tissues for surge pricing in your area when you’re most vulnerable and least price sensitive. This is a slightly silly example work “big Kleenex” as the bad guy, but hopefully you get the idea.
Add to it if you use any of nova middle layer services (e.g. A nova search widget instead of browser search, sesame shortcuts, etc). That’s all increased fidelity they get on a data profile of who you are at any given time so that they can sell it to others to target and harass you. That is what the new nova is, quietly. You won’t get a knock on your door to ask you if you approve, it has just happened already.
More hypothetical examples:
We detect increasing frequency of you launching the travelocity app, means you’re getting more desperate to book, prices go up on your app, increasing more and more between today and the departure date you’ve been searching.
You downloaded two pregnancy tracker apps in a week, means that several companies can now invest in spamming you with predatory social and direct mail advertising and you’re employer can consider finding alternative cause to fire you to not absorb the upcoming costs of delivery/care and parental leave.
You not having any Christian/bible material or apps on your phone means there’s a high percentage that you aren’t a practicing Christian (or conversely, you having a Quran app downloaded). Your house gets a big red X on a map for an app funded by dark money Christo-fascist, Christian nationalists quietly creating a directory of “good” people and “bad” people that your neighbors with red hats and flags on their raised trucks can eventually download and access freely to “keep an eye out”.
That last one is NUTS! You’re crazy! That’s ridiculous! and then…
So another company besides Google doing it.
Cool whataboutism, bro…
Yes, both are problems, dipshit.
Meaningfully, Google is under a much larger microscope and with an aggressive FTC. Nova is smaller relatively and that has its own under the radar dangers
Dangit. What’s the replacement then?!
KIIS launcher and some others floating, I think Pear launcher maybe for some? Different FOSS options that are decent
Thanks for the recommendations. Both of those look really clean and much better than nova.
You can use goodlock to make it scrollable
This setting doesn’t exist for me. I just use another launcher anyway.
Except that there’s 40GB of pre-installed, unremovable garbage software
My old Samsung Tab A6 tablet (which is from 2016) has has been limping along at 96% full whilst having just 4 apps I actually installed and used, because of all the useless Samsung junk in it which after a few updates has expanded to use almost all of the available space and this with me trying hard to avoid updating anything not “system” or required even if pre-instealled.
(With storage usage this close to 100%, if you don’t restart the tablet once in a while, it fill up with temporary and cache files, which in turn causes random app crashes and malfunctions)
Got pissed some weeks ago and last weekend after some researched flashed a Custom ROM into it (somebody back in 2021 actually built LineageOS for it: Thanks Mone!)
I’m still using those same 4 apps in it yet storage is now 40% free, I even have an updated Android version and the thing is working as if it was new.
Screw Samsung: even when their hardware was actually decent, their software was already bloated crap.