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This Windows tool makes it super easy to debloat and cut down ads on your Android TV
(www.androidauthority.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Just build a htpc powerful enough to display media and play games with good performance
Put a tv tuner card in the htpc
Been there done that. I prefer the Nvidia Shield, easier interface to navigate with a remote, I don’t have to login first, it rarely needs an update, no noisy fans, I don’t need to keep a physical keyboard connected to it, it’s way cheaper, I don’t need to mess around with codecs, and there aren’t a lot of unnecessary services and background applications hogging memory and cpu resources.
I get that most of this can be fixed or worked around on a htpc, but that’s effort I don’t have to spend on a Shield.
This about avoiding android tv and ads though
I run a Pihole, no ads.
That's BS. It's impossible for something like pihole to block ads like the ones we get on YouTube/Android tv because they are served from the same domain as the regular content and a pihole doesn't know the difference.
The only way to block them is to run unofficial apps that replace YouTube and the likes.
I am using the default launcher and while I get ads for TV shows in the home screen, I do not get ads for third-party products like chicken wraps. I can also watch Youtube without getting third-party ads during or in-between videos. I assume given this is not BS, the ads are not being served from the same domain as the video.
I really don't believe it. At some point it was even a suggested workaround to intercept requests to port 53 because the Shield or its apps were not honoring your network's DNS configuration. Which would be similar to the pihole not being in the picture at all.
If it's really working for you, I suggest telling the community how you've done it because this question pops up every other day and the answer is always the same.