from Hacker News

Google TV channels forced on the homescreen

by woranl on 2/25/24, 4:17 PM with 20 comments

• by smusamashah on 2/25/24, 9:10 PM

  Best solution is to install another launcher, set that one as default and remove/disable default launcher. I installed projectivity launcher and effectively disabled default launcher using one of these adb commands.

  > If you are using Android TV Launcher,

  > $ adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.tvlauncher

  > If you are using GoogleTV Launcher,

  > $ adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.app.tv.launcherx

  Source : https://www.tvusage.app/use-as-launcher

• by squarefoot on 2/26/24, 12:48 AM

  Anyone knows of a list of hackable Smart TVs, ie those that can be safely reflashed with less intrusive or possibly open firmware in order to deactivate or better remove the load of advertising/spyware rubbish they're filled with? So far I've only found the Samygo project which however is restricted to TVs by Samsung.

  https://forum.samygo.tv/

• by mvdtnz on 2/25/24, 6:34 PM

  Not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing in that screenshot but that's exactly how my android tv home screen has looked forever.

• by altairprime on 2/25/24, 7:04 PM

  Does this only affect people who login to a Google account on an Android TV?

• by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on 2/25/24, 7:21 PM

  I turn off automatic updates, set DNS to my adblocker, and delete app data for the TV system apps. My shield doesn't pull down the BS updates and has been on the old interface for about a year now.

• by donmcronald on 2/25/24, 8:15 PM

  I don’t know if it’s exactly the same, but the ads and BS that get pushed onto my TCL / Google TV are infuriating. I’m convinced it’ll become unusable with a few years of updates because they can’t help themselves and will keep shoveling crap onto the Home Screen.