Google TV's homescreen video ads now include fast food too
Google TV's homescreen video ads now include fast food too
Yeah, because everyone is asking for that. They will force ads into everything they can, because Google is an Ad company.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spocky.projengmenu&pcampaignid=web_share is an easy install
You
Have made my day, most likely my week. Ads aside, I friggin HATE the Chromecast UI
Now, let's pretend that I'm 5 yrs old. How do I get this to. Be the default launcher? I've already combed through the settings options and can't seem to figure it out...
Settings -> Projectivy Launcher Settings -> General -> Override current launcher
https://youtu.be/bK8MAnc7Ico?si=Zs1otJfixHXz6DNJ I think explains
This is incredible, I've been annoyed at the home screen ads for years but I never thought to look at the chromecast app store. Super easy to set up and it looks really clean, thanks for the recommendation!
Upvote this to heaven
FLauncher is another great option — and open source!
Last commit is 11 months old. That's a lot in dog years.
God damn it Google.
When I turn on the TV, it's fine if the masthead is a banner advertising a new show. I'm literally using the product to find things to watch.
But fast food? That can fuck right off.
I've had an Nvidia Shield since they came out, about 6 months ago when I started seeing a car ad I was like "it's time to switch to something else.."
Fucking uber have ads, my bank app have ads, everything have ads now. It's a Fucking nightmare.
Gas station pumps have fucking ads while you pump
We were all fed the lie that ads were a necessity to "pay" for services that were otherwise free to the consumer. Of course, it was always the plan to charge for anything that really took hold, and it was concurrently the plan to throw more and more ads on everything anyway -- it's just now, they're considered normalized.
At least we don't have ads in our dreams!
Google: hold my beer...
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:
In Apps only mode, you don't get personalized recommendations on your home screen. You’ll find a list of installed apps that you can open to find something to watch. You'll also find sponsored content and teasers for popular movies and shows.
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"
There are now food ads in Apps Only mode on my TCL Google TV.
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.
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.
Google and Roku primarily make money from ads.
Apple does some stuff that isn’t great, but the Apple TV doesn’t have ads like their competitors. Apps can advertise what’s inside of them when they’re selected, but that’s it on the Home Screen.
Ya, so... They didn't GIVE me the Google TV device, I had to buy it. Therefore they got their money from me for that hardware. I'm not using other 'free' google products that cost them money on that device so why would they be showing ads? What cost are the recouping?
For the record, I have not seen this and we do have a number of google TV's in our house. However our primary TV uses an Nvidia Shield.
I’m a product designer who has worked on a lot of products that have been monetized with ads.
It’s pretty common for a company to split their revenue targets between register sales and monetization deals. You break even on the hardware, and make profit on the ads.
Typically they'd be recouping the cost of the tv they sold at a loss. They sell it at a loss because they know they'll make more money in the long run via the ads.
I almost completely stopped going to the movies once the pre-roll stuff was ads for cars, food, etc instead of just movie trailers.
The more inconvenient Google makes avoiding ads on their platforms and services, the less of Googles platforms and services I will use.
For now I have a third party launcher setup on my CCwGTV in my living room, but the Apple TV 4k I have in my bedroom sure is looking nice these days with how well it performs and how much less trouble it is to setup and reset should I need/want to do that.
Going the HTPC route is less desirable to me since services like Amazon and Netflix go out of their way to restrict resolutions offered to things like a Debian box running Firefox. I could use Windows and Edge, but that would mean hitching myself to another company that seems more interested in selling me to advertisers than selling things to me.
Serious question, does 4K resolution even really make that much of a difference to you? I have like 30 TB of shows and movies at 1080p and I've never had any users complain about resolution.
My hardware supports it and I am paying for the premium Netflix tier for the extra screens, so I like to use the 4k resolution when I can.
Has there been a company that has experienced such a fast fall from grace as Google?
Mere years ago they were viewed as the bastion of intellectuals in tech. They worked on stuff that was deemed "not evil", people that worked there were deemed the best and brightest, and their culture was celebrated so highly that literal movies have been made about working there.
Obviously, the reality is different from the vision, but in a short amount of time they've implemented URA, have had multiple mass layoffs where people were locked out overnight with no more than a sentence in an email after a decade of work, have doubled-down on enshitification of their services, and have alienated a significant chunk of their workers through RTO and cost cutting.
Anyone who bought into the don't be evil story / marketing is being willfully naive. Like all the big tech companies they're basically intelligence fronts. Big tech is big brother. You don't even have to look hard to see how intertwined with the CIA / NSA Google had been from the beginning. Furthermore, Snowden's exposure of PRISM made it clear that it wasn't just a few grants early on, it was setup by design to limit govt liability yet allow mass surveillance to go on unabated and the entire launch of Gmail is yet a single token example. Don't trust big tech.
Still, they completely pulled out of China to protect their users' privacy the moment China asked for full access to their data. Google back then was completely different than today. Google today will never pull out of China and give up revenue from the most populous country in the world. In fact, I think Google will reenter chinese market the moment Chinese government let them. Out of all big tech, only Google not having any presence in China even though Android is very popular there. Google execs are probably cursing their "don't be evil" predecessor for pulling out of China now.
Maybe, but I do believe at least then being aspirationaly not evil made it a much different company. It made people try to be better both in and outside google even if at some level it was still a big corp doing big corp things.
Whatever it is now is a boring husk of what it was and I think you can draw a line from that to those naive people and their belief in that principle trying to make awesome things and a better world.
Maybe that's just me looking back with rose colored glasses though.
URA? Ironically, Google doesn't define it in regards to themselves.
Unregretted Attrition. It's basically stack ranking, where the company plans to fire a percentage of its staff every year.
Google is, and always has been, an advertising company. Thats their bread and butter
I understand putting ads on a free service like Google search or YouTube. But I bought this fucking Chromecast. I even suggested it to friends and family.
Another case that pisses me off is having bought a pixel watch at premium price and they want me to pay a monthly shitty Fitbit subscription to provide me with some trivial computations.
Same thing with their Google home screen. You pay a good price and you need a subscription to use the fucking sleep sensor that you paid for.
Another one is having a premium pixel pro and they still want me to buy a Google one subscription to get useless photos filters with Google photos.
I love that Android is open source (mainly) but fuck you Google you are an embarrassment to your former self.
There is a reason why these things are under $50, and the boxes without ads cost 3x more. This is always Google’s playbook. Start with limited ads on a free or cheap service, then open things up to a monetization team to milk it.
The Fitbit subscription also includes
Emergency Sharing, Fall Detection, Safety Check, and reach emergency services and contacts
So some safety features don't work without it!
The best kind of sleep.
Checkout Projectivy or any other 3rd party launcher on the app store. I installed it on a chromecast and an Nvidia Shield the moment they started showing ads.
Also won’t be buying these anymore in the future. Rather setup a Raspberry Pi and use that.
pats his Apple TV good boy
Apple is not your friend.
No ads. Fast box. All the apps I need.
Google is an advertising company. Apple is a hardware/software company. They have very different incentives from one another. Neither are my friend, but one’s entire business model runs on psychological manipulation, the other sells iPhones.
In this case, more than Google apparently.
I wish Kodi had a more intuitive UI and support for Netflix, etc. We need an option powered by the people, for the people.
If you have a pi-hole or other way to block access to your network, I've found these useful to block:
androidtvwatsonfe-pa.googleapis.com
I guess it needs to be said again: “smart TVs” are cheap because of post-purchase monetization. That is: they gather your viewing and UI interaction behaviors (and, in some cases, ambient sound) for analysis and sale by the manufacturer.
The TV is a product, sure, but so are you when you use a “smart TV” like that without mitigating its connectivity by not letting it on your network and just using a discrete streaming peripheral of some sort instead.
Cheap? I must have missed that part.
Dude, do you remember how expensive a 65” 4k TV was when the technology debuted? Paying $1000 nowadays for what’s basically cutting-edge display tech is nothing - they were in the neighborhood of $10k or more when they were first produced. And you can get one with older tech from TCL or whatever for like $3-400 now, which is embarrassingly cheap for a 65” 4k.
Signage TVs are basically as cheap but without the slow as balls UI filled to the brim with ads.
Pre-purchase is monetized as well. Those streaming services that are featured on the box, and on the remote featured on the box, those are also paid placements.
This is ridiculous. I would understand if this is subsidized devices where you pay less in exchange for having ads. You already bought the device and suddenly it got shittier. Might as well get a free, big brotherly tv with ads from Telly.
It always has been a device that is primary subsidized by ads and selling your behavioral data.
There is a reason why an Nvidia Shield or AppleTV costs a lot more. They’re making more from the price at the register than the ads and data sales.
Yeah but Google started putting these home screen ads on Nvidia shield also.
Not super up to date with that though because the second they did I switched to a custom launcher.
People in this thread said their Nvidia shield has ads too now. I guess costing a lot more doesn't guarantee the device won't be updated in the future to include ads.
As for apple tv, is it usable in a household that's primarily use Android? Can you cast stuff from Android apps to it? Or is it only supports airplay from apple devices?
Same for cheap TVs these days btw, their home page ads are why they're able to sell you a decent quality 85" TV for under $2k.
On the Nvidia shield side, they've started adding more and more ads lately, which is completely unexcusable. Thankfully it's not hard to use alternative launchers.
I hope Flauncher or other alternatives are here to stay..
I thought fast food TV adverts were illegal in the UK?
Not until at least October 2025.
Might as well just get/make a home theater pc
looks like it's time to never buy anything from google ever again!
Google TV? What is that?
IDK if you're being sarcastic, but it's the Set-top/Ten Foot Interface version of Android that's largely only used for Smart TVs and STBs.
Go away! Batin’!
Water… like from the toilet??
This guy talks like a fag!
Hell.
Best comedy ever made.
*documentary