Try going into apps,find system apps, find Home Screen system app and click uninstall update. Then you will have to disable automatic updates in play store so the Home Screen app doesn’t get auto updated. Only downside with this is you will have to manually update your apps occasionally.
They are ads not recommendations.
Ugh. Previous unwanted updates messed with my CEC and audio setting on my Bravia, so I've been cautious ever since.
I'm glad I disabled and prevented AndroidTV software updates before this particular one dropped. I am happily on version 8 on my TV and won't upgrade to 9 (and be subjected to its ads and other nonsense) unless there is a compelling reason for me to do so. It seems to me that the cons outweigh the pros on this one. Especially for folks who primarily use an external streaming box or stick, anyway.
If you go to the Help app > Privacy setting and uncheck "Sony Smart TV services," the TV will be prevented from downloading/installing/offering any new OS updates in the future.
Even when I manually attempt an update now, just to test, I get a pop-up that says "This feature requires your agreement to the Privacy Policy." OK, in that case, I don't agree.
That being said, I don't know of any way to "roll back" to a previous version of the OS, now that your set has already updated. Sucks, I know. That's just how Sony rolls :(
Out of interest are you using a vpn to connect? If I connect to a vpn my homescreen changes to the one you show but when vpn is disconnected it goes back to the old homescreen with no ads. I’m in U.K btw.
Uninstall Android Home update. It reverts back to it's original look
As explained in title... This is my first Android TV (Bravia XH90) and was loving until today when a new update was installed that added a new section to the top of my Home screen that I can't seem to disable. The remote has also started acting spotty since, and is intermittently unresponsive unless I restart. So basically, would like my TV back to how it was yesterday.
Thanks in advance for any pointers. :)
This will probably do nothing but you can leave a review.
Thank god for this thread. Disabled Google play services and it went straight back to what I remember - No home tab, no discovery tab.
Well this was just pushed on my shield today and it is kind of flabbergasting. I am getting ads for content on apps I don't even have installed. Who walked to the conference room at google one morning and thought this was a good change for their user base.
They just made it worse... now there are tabs at the top left, and one of them is "discover" when wants you to sign in, so they can deliver EVEN MORE ads to your TV...... SHADY
They are suggesting new ads/content irrelevant to you. Second and third class movies with ugly blurry artwork too.
And they are coming from the search company and their famous algorithms.
Right now all of 5 homescreen recommendations are from apps I don't have install and I am a guy proposing Moana and a reality show with Hot wives of NBA players.
When I switch to Discover tab 90% is accurate. So Google knows well my interests but they are optioned to show me ads.
What I don't understand is you customise it to not include disney+ or amazon prime video and everything stays in the discovery section at the top.
In Ireland too, have the same ads, recommendations, call-them-what-you-want at the top. It isn't too bad on fairness ...
On a more serious note, what's the TV app you have there that shows channels on the home screen?
What TV tuner do you use? I want to watch nationwide and reeling in the years on RTÉ
You can either uninstall the Android TV Launcher app update and disable auto updates in the play store app, so you're stuck with a few broken things, or block the ads' domain, which will replace the "recommendations" with generic content like "try the YouTube app".
The domain to block on your network is androidtvwatsonfe-pa.googleapis.com if your router offers that option, otherwise more involved options are possible with DNS. You need to uninstall then reinstall the Android TV Launcher app after doing that as it seems the TV will try to fetch and keep a local "list" of ads to show.
I'm dying to know this too, have you found any solution for this??
You can use an alternative Launcher.
Here's a list to get you started https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/android-tv-launcher-apps/
I just fixed this by disabling every app that was tied to Google... I'd rather never update again if it means stopping this dumbfuckery
Those are ads, I'm in Mexico and only get those when using a VPN to a different country.
That's the finish of a server side update. The apps themselves were probably updated weeks ago.
In japan I seem to have gotten this update recenly, less than a month ago.
What annoys me is that it now takes more button presses to get to whatever I want to use.
Disable Android TV Core Services.
I joined this site just to post this comment.
I discovered this 'update' just now and was immediately greeted by those fucking awful muppets grinning at me (I have always hated those fucking puppets) and I wanted to get rid of this update fast so I read through the suggestions here - thank you all - and what I found worked for me was finding the app called Android TV Core Services and I uninstalled the updates then I disabled that app and it just went back to a plain black screen with no annoying suggestions.
Hope this helps for some others :)
I uninstalled updates from Android TV Home. Thanks to all who replied to this topic 👍🏻
Update: again the Home Screen was updated. Now also disabled Android TV Core Services and Play Store.
Uninstall updates for the app called "Android TV Home" found in the "Show system apps" tab in "See all apps" in the settings worked for me...
Virgin Media Player is out now for Android TV users in Ireland, (just incase you didnt know)
You can go into settings >apps, uninstall or disable and force stop anything you don't want. You can long press on any one of those apps on the top row you don't want to remove it. You can click all the way left on any of the lower rows click the (-) to eliminate the row. I don't know if there's a way to get rid of the backdrop banner on top though, it's only an add, it doesn't affect anything.
This is the google how to. Font know if it has change with the latest update.
Shield TV pro from Nvidia doesn't have the ads on the main screen.
This is one of the most unanimously hated changes Google made to Android TV. And there is no way to disable it, at least not without jumping through many hoops. Google burned a lot of user trust when they implemented this. But they don't care. They are an advertising company after all, and the "do no evil" hasn't applied there for years now...