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Android TV Users are Seeing Ads after Latest Update

posted by martyb on Friday April 05 2019, @12:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the how-many-are-seeing-red? dept.

NotSanguine writes:

According to Doug Lynch at xda-developers.com:

Android TV owners recently received an update across multiple platforms that have started to display sponsored content with a "Promotional Channels' title in the launcher of the Android TV software. We're currently seeing reports that it has shown up in Sony smart TVs, the Mi Box 3 from Xiaomi, NVIDIA Shield TV, and others. This has been an incredibly off-putting change for a lot of Android TV users. What makes matters worse is people were unable to disable the ads at first, but Reddit user Felisens seems to have figured out how to disable them.

[...] Update: Google's response

A Google spokesperson gave us the following statement:

Android TV is committed to optimizing and personalizing the entertainment experience at home. As we explore new opportunities to engage the user community, we're running a pilot program to surface sponsored content on the Android TV home screen.

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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday April 05 2019, @05:37PM

    by NotSanguine (285) <{NotSanguine} {at} {SoylentNews.Org}> on Friday April 05 2019, @05:37PM (#825022) Homepage Journal

    for some reason, I decided to try. it was a one-way trip and now I have shit on my home screen (we're talking ancient phone from cyanogen era, the orig google phone, no less) and no way to get back.

    Actually, doing updates (or even changing distributions) and rolling them back is really easy.
    Just do NanDROID backups [gadgethacks.com] of the device before applying updates/new distribution and if you don't like it, you can roll it back to the backup image.

    I suppose this could work on Android TVs too, but I don't have one so I have no idea.

    --
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