this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
357 points (95.2% liked)
Technology
59589 readers
2838 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If you have a CCwGTV, you should be using Apps Only mode. Sucks that Google hides this, because I've found that this is the best streaming device for my needs, but they just keep pushing ads like this. Makes me want to do a homebrew chromecast device.
But switching to Apps Only mode is a decent workaround... for now. https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10070784?hl=en
Will this really remove the ads? From your link:
Yes, It turns the home screen to a grid of app icons and nothing more.
There's still a single banner at the top, but it's not a giant scroll of ads, and you only have to click down once to get to the apps, instead of scrolling past a whole page of "suggestions"
Can't you install a custom launcher?
Yes, but you can't change the default launcher in the settings. You have to configure the custom launcher to automatically launch everytime, which does require a some adb commands, if I recall correctly.
Otherwise, setting it to apps mode is the only alternative. Aside from disabling ads, it does disable a few other useful features, but the trade-off is worth it.
But honestly, now that AppleTV allows VPNs and proxy apps, I've mostly stopped using my Google TV boxes.
There are now food ads in Apps Only mode on my TCL Google TV.
It’s a shame that this turns off the ability to use the google photos screensaver too, to the point it’s a deal breaker for us.