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How to get rid of ads on smart TV screens starts with where they come from. Not Netflix, not the channel you’re watching, and not adware you picked up somewhere. They come from the TV’s own software: the banner across the home screen, the preview that starts playing the second you switch on, the “sponsored” row between your apps. So the fix depends on who made that software. Some of it switches off in a menu, some only dies at the network, and on Android-based TVs you can swap out the part that serves the ads.
Menu names move between software versions, so if a label doesn’t match, look for the nearest thing called promotion, recommendation or featured content.
| Your TV runs | Start with |
|---|---|
| LG (webOS) | 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 |
| Samsung (Tizen) | 1, 6, 7, 8 |
| Google TV or Android TV (Sony, TCL, Hisense, Xiaomi) | 3, 6, 9, 10 |
| Roku | 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| Fire TV | 4, 6, 7, 8 |
1. Check the TV isn’t in store mode
Ads popping up over live TV or an HDMI input, rather than on the home screen? Suspect store mode first. It’s the demo setting shops use on the sales floor, and LG says it can put messages and ads on screen.
On an LG with webOS 22 or webOS 6.0, press Settings and go to All Settings > General > Devices > TV Management > Home/Store Mode > Home Mode. On webOS 5.0 it’s All Settings > General > Additional Settings > Home Mode. Other brands call it Retail Mode or Store Demo, usually in the general or system menu.
2. Turn off home promotion on an LG TV
Press Settings, then All Settings > General > System > Additional Settings > Home Settings, and set Home Promotion to Off. LG’s own help page says what you get: the ads don’t appear on top, and the main image shows instead.
In the same menu, set Content Recommendation to Off to lose the trending-shows rows. Then set Power On Screen to Home/Recent Input, and the TV wakes up on the input you last used instead of the home screen.
Not sure which webOS you’ve got? Press Mute three times on the remote. Older sets have the switch one level up, at Settings > General > Home Settings.
3. Turn on apps only mode on Google TV
Go to Settings > Accounts & Sign In, pick your profile, select Apps only mode and Turn on. The personalized rows go and you get a list of your installed apps.
Two catches, and Google admits both. You still get sponsored content and teasers for popular shows. And Search, the Google Assistant, the Watchlist and liking or disliking titles all stop working while it’s on.
Google also says apps such as YouTube and YouTube TV can keep showing their own recommendations, so expect YouTube’s suggestions to survive.
4. Turn off featured content autoplay
Fire TV’s home screen plays full-screen video previews, some of them the moment you switch on. Amazon told Android Authority that anyone who’d rather not watch the clips, or watch them silently, can change it under Settings > Preferences. The switches are in Featured Content: turn off Allow Video Autoplay, then Allow Audio Autoplay.
With video autoplay off you get still images instead of clips. The banners themselves stay, and SlashGear reports the setting can switch itself back on after a software update, so check it again when the TV updates.
5. Hide and filter banner ads
On a Roku, you can hide an ad you hate: highlight the banner on the right of the Home Screen, press Star on the remote and choose Hide this ad. A different ad takes its place, so treat this as pest control, not a cure. It’s per device, too.
For whole categories, go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising > Sensitive ad content and tick what you don’t want. Roku says these limits only cover banner ads in its menus and screensavers, not video ads or ads inside apps. And they only work while Personalized Ads is on.
6. Opt out of interest-based ads
It’s free, so do it, but it buys you less tracking, not fewer ads. Samsung’s own ad FAQ says that after opting out you still see ads; they just aren’t based on your interests.
On a Samsung, go to Settings > Support > Terms & Policy (Terms & Privacy on some models) and switch off Interest-Based Advertisement; the same screen lets you reset the PSID, the ID your ad profile hangs on. Fire TV keeps its switch at Settings > Preferences > Privacy Settings > Interest-based Ads. Google TV and Android TV take it from the personalized ads setting, on the device or in your Google account.
LG splits it into agreements. The optional ad and viewing-data ones sit under Settings > Support > Privacy & Terms > User Agreements. Leave the required ones alone, or the smart apps stop working.
7. Point the TV at an ad-blocking DNS server
Give the TV a DNS server that refuses to look up ad and tracking domains, and a good share of the banners never arrive. On a Samsung it’s Settings > Network > Network Status > IP Settings > DNS Setting > Enter Manually. On Android TV, open the connection under Network & Internet, switch IP settings to Static and enter the DNS addresses. Restart the TV.
What the DNS sellers put in the small print: a filter won’t block ads built into the content itself, or ads served from the same domain as the show. Pi-hole users say the same of the native YouTube app, where the ads usually sail through. If an app breaks, switch DNS back to automatic.
8. Block the ad domains on your router
Same idea, every device in the house at once. Log in to the router from a browser (often 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1), find the page called Security, Firewall or Parental Controls, and add your TV brand’s ad domains to the block list. Lifehacker and lazyadmin publish lists, and samsungads.com is on the Samsung ones.
Add a few at a time and test the TV after each batch, because blocking a domain an app needs breaks that app and you’ll want to know which one did it. Same blind spots as DNS, and browser pop-ups on your laptop still need their own fix.
9. Swap the Google TV home screen for a replacement launcher
On Google TV and Android TV, the stock home screen app is what shows the ads. Replace it. Android Authority’s reviewer, who blames the stock launcher for the ads and sponsored content, installed Projectivy from the Play Store on an Onn 4K box and turned on its option to override the default launcher, which asks for the accessibility permission. Home then opened the new launcher, faster than the stock screen as well as ad-free.
No computer needed. Samsung, LG and Roku don’t run Android, so this is for Google TV and Android TV sets only.
10. Disable the ad packages over ADB (Android TV and Google TV only)
The most thorough option. Android TV and Google TV sets (Sony, TCL, Xiaomi, Hisense, OnePlus) take commands from a computer over ADB, the same debug link Android phones have. Samsung, LG and Roku run different systems, so this doesn’t apply to them. Fire TV is Android underneath but needs its own package list; don’t reuse a Google TV one.
Enable Developer options (Settings > Device Preferences > About, press OK on Build seven times), then turn on USB debugging. Connect from a computer with Android’s platform tools and accept the prompt on the TV. Save the full package list before you touch anything, so you know what was there.
From then on, disable and never uninstall. The command is pm disable-user –user 0 followed by the package name, and pm enable puts it back. The debloat guides warn that uninstalling system packages is how people break the Home button or lose HDMI switching.
Which packages hold the ads differs by model, so work from a guide for your exact set and leave alone anything you can’t identify. The same guides agree on what never to touch: the TV app and the HDMI or antenna input services, the Inputs menu, the remote and Bluetooth pairing services, the on-screen keyboard, the Play Store and Play Services, and com.android.location.fused, which one guide says can cause a boot loop. Names mislead, too. One guide found that on TCL sets com.tcl.suspension runs the remote’s Inputs menu and com.tcl.ttvs handles system updates.
Set the replacement launcher from method 9 as default before you disable the stock one; the guides report a black screen, or a factory test app on the Home button, if you do it the other way round. For a Chromecast with Google TV, the FLauncher project (tested on that device only) disables both com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx and com.google.android.tungsten.setupwraith, which otherwise turns the stock launcher back on. Its catch: the YouTube button on the remote stops working.
Keep voice search, casting and the update service unless you’re sure nobody uses them; debloat lists often kill updates, and with them your security fixes.
When you’re done, turn USB debugging off. Over USB, Android only lets a computer in after you unlock the TV and accept its key prompt. Wireless debugging is a separate switch: a computer pairs with it over your Wi-Fi using a code, and stays paired until you forget it or choose Revoke adb debugging authorizations in Developer options. If you used wireless debugging, do that and switch it off too.
11. Plug in a streaming box and use the TV as a screen
If the TV’s software is the problem, stop using it. Plug a streaming box into HDMI and set the TV to power on to that input. Pick carefully: Google TV and Fire TV sticks carry the same sponsored rows (fix them with methods 3, 4 and 9). Reviewers keep naming Apple TV 4K as the one without big home screen ad banners.
The cost is starting over. Your apps don’t carry over from the TV, so you’ll download them again and sign back in.
12. Take the TV off the internet
No connection, no ads from the TV’s own software. Forget the Wi-Fi network in the TV’s settings, or unplug the Ethernet cable. Roku says its TVs can be used without Wi-Fi after setup for HDMI sources and antenna TV, and no TV needs the internet to show a signal from a box or an antenna.
You lose the built-in apps and the software updates that came over that connection. Paired with a streaming box from method 11, that’s no loss at all.
