I bought a android tv device (NVIDIA shield) and just assumed it was open source like android, turns out it's not and they force ads on the home screen, if you jump though a ton of hoops to roll back some updates, you can turn them off, but it will re-enable them after a while. does not feel like a device I own. Even NVIDIA cannot turn off the google ads on the NVIDIA shield. you can add other launchers but they don't make it easy and they regularly get removed as the default launcher.

At this point I'm just considering just making a mini PC with linux https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ that will stay connected to my TV. OSMC is another option; however, it does not work well with DRMed content, so I gave up on that as well; even though it's an awesome project. Some android TV boxes are compatible with Lineage OS so that might be another option.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Believe you can also remove the stock launcher on the Nvidia Shield. Have not done it myself, but have also never had my launcher automatically change like you mention. I'm using ProjectIvy🌻

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Would pi hole block the ads? Works to block my Roku ads.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I have a Chromecast and a pihole. It doesn't block ads for video and movie rental and doesn't block youtube ads.

It also has a "feature" for showing newly added or new movies on streaming service, but for some reason it only works for streaming services you aren't subscribed to. Mostly Disney+. Hmmm I wonder why lol. That also isn't blocked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

pihole blocks ads by refusing to return dns results of known ad hosting URLs.

Chromecast ignores your DHCP supplied dns UNLESS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are inaccesible.

People who's bothered to do this have added static routes to make all requests on port 53 go to the pihole.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/uaov2a/how_can_i_override_chromecasts_hardcoded_google/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

No, but it's easy to install a custom launcher. I changed it and had 0 problems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I've been using flauncher for a long time and have never had it revert. I had to do some adb commands to set it as default, but was pretty simple to do. https://gitlab.com/flauncher/flauncher#:~:text=FLauncher%20is%20an%20open%2Dsource,on%20Chromecast%20with%20Google%20TV

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I swaped to Flauncher on my Shield as the Launcher. Need a few "do once" tricks to get there to/allow it though.