I quite like Shelter [1]. Shelter apps are installed in a separate work profile, which essentially sandboxes it from the rest of your data. It also has a neat feature to automatically disable (freeze) specific apps and seamlessly re-enable them when you launch them through Shelter.
What edition are you using? The home edition straight-up has pop-up ads[1] for random Xbox games, even on a clean install with all notification settings turned off.
The launcher itself is also very clean and minimal, with a text-only UI. You can pin up to 8 apps to the home screen and the rest are accessible through search. You trigger search with a swipe, and when only a single matching app remains for your query, it automatically opens it, making it pretty efficient.
E.g., if you don't have Firefox pinned, you can swipe and type "fir" (or any other unique substring) and it will open just like that. It's great for muscle memory.
My only complaint with it is that the developer sometimes sends messages (e.g., happy new year) and there doesn't seem to be any way to disable it. I don't see why a minimal launcher should have internet access at all.
[dev here] The Internet access is required only for the daily wallpapers and nothing else. The messages pop up based on date. Many users seem to like it but if I hear any more complaints, I'll consider removing them.
Thanks for the clarification (and your work on Olauncher)! I knew I should have checked the source code before posting my comment. I don't think they need to be removed, but I would appreciate an option to disable them.
Not who you replied to, but I would personally prefer them to be opt in. The most recent message was sweet, but it also felt a little intrusive or ad-like. Love the launcher!
Clean-room design is extremely specific. Anyone who has so much as glanced at Windows source code[1] (or even ReactOS code![2]) is permanently banned from contributing to WINE.
This is 100% unambiguously not clean-room unless they can somehow prove it was never trained on any C compiler code (which they can't, because it most certainly was).
The script you posted is only portable in theory and not in practice. Executing it while using a non-POSIX shell like Elvish (even without having it as a default shell) makes it immediately fail.
Meanwhile, `#!/usr/bin/env` is completely portable in the practical sense. Even systems with non-standard paths like NixOS, Termux and GoboLinux patch in support for it specifically.
It is a valid strategy for privately owned companies. Look at Valve—they have their flaws, but they're investing into open technologies and actually improving their product because they know they're sitting on an infinite money printer.
If they went public, no amount of profit would be enough. They would have to squeeze every last cent out of their users for the quarterly reports.
[1] https://github.com/achalmgucker/Shelter
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