Nova Launcher, the Android home screen replacement that power users have trusted for over a decade, just pushed an update that adds Facebook Ads and Google AdMob trackers to a paid application. Oh, and it's also under new ownership. Again.
This is how you kill trust in 48 hours.
The update came with no changelog - always a red flag. When users started digging, they found the app is now owned by Instabridge Sweden AB, a company that primarily makes eSIM and WiFi access apps. Not exactly the profile of a company that understands or cares about the Android power user community.
The tracker situation is worse. The previous version (8.1.6) had two tracking libraries: Branch for analytics and Bugsnag for crash reporting. Both are standard, defensible choices for a commercial app. The new version (8.2.4) adds four more: Facebook Ads, Google AdMob, Google CrashLytics, and Google Firebase Analytics.
Let me be very clear about what this means: Ad trackers were added to a paid app that users already purchased. There are no ads in Nova Launcher. The Facebook and AdMob SDKs aren't there to show you ads - they're there to track you across other apps so Facebook and Google can target you better elsewhere.
This is a dark pattern. You paid for an app specifically to avoid this kind of surveillance. The developer took your money, then sold the app to someone who immediately added tracking that benefits advertisers, not users.
It's also a pattern I've seen too many times in Android apps. A beloved indie app gets acquired by a company that views the user base as a monetization opportunity rather than a community. The new owners figure they can extract more value through data harvesting than through building a better product.
What makes this particularly frustrating is that Nova was acquired by Branch (the analytics company) back in 2022. That acquisition was already controversial - users worried about what an analytics company would do with a home screen launcher. Branch promised nothing would change. Then they apparently sold it to Instabridge, who immediately changed things.
The Android power user community is small but vocal. We pay for apps. We leave reviews. We recommend software to friends and family. And we have long memories about who respects users and who doesn't.
Nova Launcher had that trust. They built it over a decade of being the gold standard for Android customization. They had users who paid for the premium version knowing they could get 80% of the functionality from free alternatives, but wanted to support good software.
That trust is gone now. Once you add Facebook tracking to a paid app, you don't get to claim you're on the users' side anymore.
The alternatives are there: Lawnchair is open source and actively developed. Action Launcher still exists. Microsoft Launcher is actually pretty good if you're in the Microsoft ecosystem. KISS Launcher for the minimalists. The Android home screen market is healthy enough that Nova isn't irreplaceable.
What is irreplaceable is trust. And Instabridge just burned through a decade of it in a single update.
