launcher

Is your Android phone looking a little stale? Fortunately, there are dozens of great customization tools and launchers available for Android to give your handset a fresh new coat of paint. Download these top free launchers and give your Android device an almost unrecognizable makeover with minimal work involved.

GO Launcher EX

GO Launcher has been around since the Froyo days and has its fair share of features that still keep it an old favorite among Android users. It's a robust launcher that transforms your Android experience, allowing you to customize your icons, grid, and dock dimensions; transition animations; … Read more

Facebook Home is a full-on launcher replacement for Android phones that places Facebook's many services at the core of your Android smartphone experience. So if you don't like Facebook, then move on.

Launchers are full-on custom replacements that do more than just give your phone a new coat of paint. Facebook Home not only splashes your home screen with full-screen photos and status updates, but also blurs the line between SMS and Facebook chat. Though your main Android operating system still powers your device under the hood, your phone will hardly be recognizable when compared with the stock … Read more

A mobile device can easily amass a hundred applications over time, and most of them rarely get used because of the clutter. This is especially true on older devices with Android 2.0 through 3.0, as these devices provided no way of organizing the files beyond moving the icons around on the screen. Easy Launcher solves this dilemma and adds some other nifty features.

Once the simple installation is completed, Easy Launcher automatically begins organizing applications. The home screen is then divided like a filing cabinet with tabs. The tabs represent the various types of applications, such as games, … Read more

Google's Chrome OS app launcher is now available to Windows users, the search giant announced today.

Available through the Chrome dev channel -- which means it's not a final build -- the application houses all of a user's Web-based apps in one space and allows the user to open them outside of the browser. The apps that work with Chrome's app launcher are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS but can be opened while a person is offline.

According to Google, the app launcher icon will show up on the Windows taskbar. However, in order to … Read more

Most of us appreciate Skype for its simplicity, but there are some users who wish this popular voice-over-IP software application had more features to offer. If you wish to add some more powerful customization options to Skype, use Multi Skype Launcher. It lets you log multiple Skype accounts in at once and adds a few more customization features, but eliminates most of the stuff that makes Skype so user-friendly.

Most users will struggle making it through this program's minefield of an install process. There are at least three very sketchy programs that try to install themselves during setup. Even … Read more

Go Launcher EX is an inventive app that you can use to customize your Android home screen into something unique.

After you install the Go Launcher EX app, you'll have the choice to use its own launcher interface or the default launch screen for Android. You can switch between these two options by clicking on the home link. The app's interface is quite rich in controls. The main menu is divided into three categories, Main, Plugins, and More, under which there are different options and features such as Go Widget, AppCenter, Preferences, Wallpaper, Themes, and Go Store. You … Read more

Camera Launcher for Nexus 7 does something simple and necessary: it adds a launcher icon for the Nexus 7's camera.

As the Nexus 7 tablet does have a small built-in camera but doesn't have a native camera app, we found this app very convenient. There's practically no interface, and the app doesn't require any specific permissions to run. It has no other functions and can't be used on other devices, but for the Nexus 7 we absolutely recommend it.

Windows 8 users who still miss the Start button will find an alternative on Samsung's new lineup of computers and tablets.

Buyers of Samsung Windows 8 PCs and tablets will be able to download a free Quick Starter program, which adds a Start button and a toolbar to open your files and applications.

The S Launcher program that lets Samsung users access the Start menu replacement was initially supposed to come with new PCs and tablets. But a Samsung rep confirmed to ZDNet in August that the launcher would not appear in the final products. Instead, it will be … Read more

Apps that make Android phones look like iPhones aren't new by any means, but they remain an interesting novelty that seems to appeal to a lot of Android users. If you've been curious about how iOS 6 would look on your Android phone, a new app called Fake iPhone 5 has just been uploaded to Google Play.

Created by a user at XDA Developers, Fake iPhone 5 is a replacement launcher that makes your Android phone's screen look almost exactly like an iPhone 5's. The main home screen's icons look like duplicates of iOS 6'… Read more