I agree with you. I still use Nova, they had a solid update recently and my phone is feeling snappier than ever. It does concern me, however, that they're tracking every interaction with my phone now 😮💨
I'm normally very privacy centric - very conflicted about Nova Launcher because I like the launcher so much...
You could download an earlier version from before they were bought, it's what I'm doing. Still better than every other launcher I've tried. I'm also preventing it from accessing the internet via GrapheneOS settings, but I don't think every OS can do that.
I don't know if this will fix it for sure, but you could try to download a VPN app with per-app network blocking (like AdGuard) and fully block Nova from accessing the internet
I still use version 7 because Nova is the only launcher that gives me tabs and treats icons the right way. No other launcher manages to do it, it’s baffling.