alt Hacker NewsAn ad-free Android TV
Comments
When I moved into my apartment, I went to BestBuy and I was actually able to find a "dumb TV"! They had ONE in stock, it was Insignia (their house brand) and it was sold as "open box". I love it and have had no issues with it.
That being said, I use an Nvidia Shield TV Pro connected to it, and I had to do similar steps on that to replace the launcher and install my own apps. I use "ATV Launcher Pro" (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.dstudio.atv...) personally, and it's great.
I also use "Send Files to TV" (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yablio.sen...) so I can download files on my phone and send them to the TV.
I just want to buy a "Stupid TV" I wonder if such a brand would sell very sell "JustWatch TV" people in stores seeing how quickly it turns on, and just works, no internet questions, just a TV working. Must be revolutionary, can't believe we never thought of having TVs without an entire invasive OS that slows down the entire TV...
Every smart TV I own never gets internet access, ever. I just plug a real device that connects to the internet instead, they're a much faster and better experience.
For those with more capable routers, local dns adblocking, or NextDNS; you can add a static DNS entry for "androidtvwatsonfe-pa.googleapis.com" and direct that to 127.0.0.1, you will also get no ads on the stock launcher. At least on Android 11 (For the Nvidia Shield). You might have to restart the device or empty the cache for it to take effect.
When my old (2014?) "smart" LG got evicted from Netflix, as in "your TV will not be supported anymore starting August 15th 2026" I vibe-coded a Plasma BigScreen like interface with:
* Firefox in full-screen with a custom extension that makes the web UI of Netflix into something usable by a d-pad remote
* Switchfin (which has a Linux version) works pretty well out of the box
* Some custom Python+GTk apps to watch some public TV channels (they have no DRM and have a good API, so it was very easy, and I can get custom views for what my family watches)
* a nice viewer for Immich albums
* a CD player (I bought a 15EUR external USB DVD player)
Everything using a single UI paradigm, with just the things my family and I actually care for. No ads. No tracking (well, I guess Netflix still does some tracking anyway).
Seems like we need a good aftermarket OS for our TVs now.
What with all of this snazzy AI reverse engineering that people have been doing, how far are we from getting a mostly automated system that can build a clean Android for each TV model? A lot of the difficulties in making 3rd party ROMs for phones are in details like battery life, or weird sensors. It seems like much of that would not be an issue for a TV
How long before TV manufacturers start putting in countermeasures to prevent that?
I have a similar setup and want to mention Moonfin as another excellent alternative Jellyfin client besides the one recommended here, Wholphin. I just tried several and Moonfin was the only one whose UI didn't feel needlessly clunky to me.
My basic advice for media consumption in 2026:
- Buy the biggest LG C -series OLED TV you can afford and/or fit (WebOS, no Android TV crapola to deal with)
- Never connect it to the internet, LG wants to add all kinds of AI crap to it.
- Set it to Filmmaker Mode[0] to disable all of the "improvements" it tries to do to the image
- Buy an Apple TV
Done.
The ATV can turn the TV on and off and adjust the volume. You won't need the TV remote for anything after that.
I still use my 10 year old Apple TV 4k daily and it works like new, no slowdown, every single relevant streaming platform supports it with a dedicated app. It even got every single tvOS release until this fall.
[0] https://filmmakermode.com/ - also a good idea to do this to relative's TVs.
Hah, that's a first:
> Tip: Hand this article to an AI agent (like Claude Code) and have it guide you through the setup. It can run the ADB commands for you and adapt them to your device.
Like "curl | bash" but... with a million times more computation.
This is similar to my setup, except I use FLauncher instead. In addition, I run Netguard on my Android TV and completely block Google Play along with a hundred other services. I only give Google Play internet access whenever I have to update a streaming app. One had connection issues the first time I set up Netguard, so I had to look at the logs and open some specific ports to get it working. But all the streaming apps work now, and the TV can't display ads. For the most part, I don't update things on the TV. It all works too well right now.
Also +1 to Wholphin! That app is phenomenal. It gives the whole family the "Netflix-like" experience.
My dad is extremely irritated with Android TVs as a concept. He just wants to watch something and complains about it taking a few minutes on startup to even show the screen where can can select YouTube.
He does not understand that it is just like a phone. Unless you keep it on standby (which he does not want to do: wastes power), it will boot, slowly, till all the subsystems are up and running. The low powered processors, the low speed ssds, and minimal RAM makes everything worse.
Oh wow, TIL about Wholphin. I'll have to give that a try. I wonder if this will finally resolve the issue with me having to login to JellyFin every few days for no apparent reason (it's not the server, I switched from Win to Linux and same problem).
EDIT: all that remains for this stack is a good browser that can allow usage of uBlock Origin. BrowseHere is a pain to use with its constant nags about allowing pop-ups on certain sites...
In past one week, there has been a lot of Projects on debloating Smart TV's.
I think it all started with a guy making a plex app [0] in rust thereby reducing the launch times of the app.
Then lots of projects started coming up including replacing the browser itself. All these projects seems to be created with claude code.
This is truly a golden age of Personal software.
[0] Reddit Post: https://old.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x043yp/i_used_...
I've done something similar earlier in the year[0] and was happy with the results, but it seems that one of the packages we disable affects the "chromecast" feature.
Not a problem if you never stream anything from other devices, but we do from time to time, so I was forced to revert everything to stock.
[0] https://www.celsoazevedo.com/replace-launcher-chromecast-goo...
Fyi. The following repo and it has been getting a lot of traction, PRs, commits, support. Better to use the one debloater that is popular, than the one made by only one person. https://github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv
I came across this klauncher on playstore when i was searching launcher for my tv. it doesn't has much downloads or may be new but it is so simple and also has a feature which doesn't allow android default launcher to takeover when pressing home and also has an option to type custom dns for ad-blocking. glad i found it.
Great advice here would add to perform these steps in a Shield TV so no need to give your TV internet access. This will cost much more.
I'm running a very similar setup and am looking for a better way to stream games from my local gaming pc. The current steam in-home-streaming is too delayed in reaction for my liking and my nvidia shield doesn't really support the latest and greatest like av1 or pyrowave. Has anyone a good idea how i could achieve it in one machine? I don't really want to buy into a steam machine or something just to play games.
I recently discovered (I knew of it but had never tried) debrid and now I resent all the time I wasted on private trackers over the years. Next step is trying an easy and stable alternative to Stremio (which has been down the hill for quite some time). This serves both my laptop and my old fire stick (which is fire os ← android tv) as of now.
I wish there was a reasonably cheap, sufficiently powerful TV box compatible with a free distribution Android TV. Something like Graphene/Lineage for TVs. Lineage does in fact have some TV builds, but there is basically no suitable new hardware for it AFAIK.
At the moment the best option still seems to be a somewhat old mini-PC with Linux and Plasma Bigscreen. But you need to add an HDMI-CEC dongle, and airmouse remote, and Waydroid if you want a more typical TV box experience.
I needed a good screen, but I hate google. So I've just turn off internet and use my PC as the source. Thankfully, I don't nitpick on browser vs native app quality (and thank god for Kodi), else I'd be fuming and cussing at Google everyday. Or doing exactly this.
Anybody remember MythTV and what a pain in the ass it was to setup? "Hand this article to an AI agent (like Claude Code) and have it guide you through the setup." Wow times have changed. https://www.mythtv.org/
I just opened YouTube and this was recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP2SGGVsaB0
It uses Claude to connect to your TV and clean up ads and other junk.
This is pretty much the exact setup I have on my Chromecast minus button mapper since I use a Sofabaton remote for control. I ended up finding Wholpin after getting especially angry one day at the horrible way that Jellyfin deals with seeking the requires manually pressing play to start the video again.
At this point of time, I just want a display.
Would love a debloater for Samsung Tizen TV's
Here in the UK you can buy a normal TV without any tracking. Its expensive (200-250+ pounds vs 120-150 pounds for normal spyware)
But it doesnt matter. Normal people dont care about this shit, only the Hacker News types. My wife put her foot down when I said we should get dumb TV, and we ended up getting a Samsung even though I wanted to avoid Korean companies (as they have worst privacy features), mainly because it was in our budget and available
At my house, we love our Roku devices. Pair a nice quality OLED panel (never, ever connected to the internet) with a $50 Roku stick and you're good to go. The Roku UI has been consistent, fast, and clean for 10 years now. Roku's updates somehow haven't enshittified the experience like so many other platforms do. They did introduce video ads on the home screen a few years ago, but also provided an option to disable them in the accessibility menu. We do see a static ad on the home screen but we find it tolerable for the 10 seconds it's on the screen before we open up one of our streaming apps. My only gripe is that sometimes the ads are for R-rated shows and can be not kid-friendly or provocative.
This is pretty slick - thank you for sharing
Realizing I could replace the launcher was so nice. Apps only mode was my default for a while on Android TV. We use Pleezy for our Plex client
I'm feeling weird trusting this. Is there any security review on this project?
I wish I had seen this two years ago; it could have saved me some money trying other setups.
Any good tips on Samsung TVs?
I've been using Jellyfin for my family for years. But the number of clients is interesting.
The web experience on a desktop/laptop is pretty much the only tolerable experience.
And I appreciate that the alternative clients try and address the poor UX of the default but I still find so many of the basic behaviors missing or inconsistent.
I can't offer anything better but I find it curious.
> Google TV, the default interface on most Android TV devices, puts a large banner at the top of the home screen promoting whatever Google wants you to watch next.
You know, I don't give a shit about that, that's fine. Recommend me some stuff to watch, I'm here to watch stuff, I might even like what you're punting and give it a go. I might have forgotten there's a new season of whatever it is. I even quite like some of the inline recommendation stuff.
What made me switch to App-only mode was that ads started appearing for general consumer products. So this writeup is interesting, if/when they make app-only mode advertise shampoo at me I'll probably have a go with that launcher.
[dead]
[dead]
[dead]
It was very underhanded of Google to add advertising after the fact. When I have to factory reset the TV I'm reminded of how it used to be before it upgrades. Years later they still haven't [1] updated the screenshots in their Play store page to show the giant 1/3 full screen ads you get now.
Replacing the Google launcher (I used ATV Launcher Pro) was one of the best quality of life upgrades I've ever done, if you haven't already I highly recommend it.
Not only does Google show auto playing video ads for streaming services you don't subscribe to, it also shows pure auto playing video ads for things like fast food. It really lags while it tries to start up to show the ads.
I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Google closes the ADB backdoor when they realise all the sweet ad dollars they're losing.
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...