Disable Advertising on Sony TVs: Here’s How!

If you sign up for Sony TV like this Sony A80K Decided to use these days too Google TV as an operating system for your Smart TV. Contrary to the concerns one might associate with Google, the company does not plaster its television system with advertising banners. However, there are a few aspects in which Google’s promotional DNA shines through on the new Sony TV. But don’t worry: we’ll show you how to deal with it and keep annoying ads to a minimum.

This is how advertising appears on Sony TVs using Google TV

Unlike Google web search, for example, the company doesn’t display any obvious ad banners or the like in its Google TV interface. Compared with Various TV systems Google TV itself actually presents itself pleasantly reserved in terms of ads.

But that doesn’t mean that you won’t get ads on Sony TV or any TV with Google TV. This is most noticeable on Sony TVs on the start page. Here, the operating system shows you endless recommendations from installed and unfortunately also from unused recommendations broadcast apps.

For recommendations, Google tries to get to know you and your taste in movies and series as accurately as possible. The data generated in this way is of course also a form of advertising. However, various Android apps also display ads internally to some extent Youtube.

Reduce Ads on Sony TVs with Apps Only Mode

The most effective and most radical way to reduce content advertising on Sony TVs is the so-called “apps only” mode. As the name suggests, the function minimizes the home screen of your Sony TV with Google TV to a selection of apps that you have installed from the Google Play Store.

To turn on Apps only mode, open the settings of the Sony TV and go to the “Accounts and login” submenu. Here you select the user profile for which you want to activate the function. Then check the Apps Only mode and confirm the message.

Now at least the almost endless personal recommendations on the start page of your Sony TV are gone, leaving only the most important tips. Note that in Apps Only mode, you also have to give up some Google TV functionality. This applies, for example, to voice control with the Google Assistant, which is deactivated in this mode.

You can also turn off the Google Assistant in other ways. To do this, open the “Google Assistant” menu in the account settings. Here you must turn off the item “Personal results” so that Google does not display results intended for voice search.

You can specify what Google Assistant is generally allowed on your Sony TV via the View Apps for Search or View Permissions items. Don’t want to use Google Voice Search at all? Then deactivate the “Voice Control” item.

Reset Ad ID and turn off personalized ads on Sony TVs

Just like on Android smartphones, Google TV also generates an advertising ID, in this case for your Sony TV. Applications can use this anonymous identification number to customize the advertising banners displayed in the applications according to your interests. However, you have the option at any time to reset the advertising ID data or to stop the personalization altogether.

To do this, open the settings of the Sony TV with Google TV and go to the “Privacy – Display” sub-item. Here you will find the options “Reset Ad ID” and “Delete Ad ID”. The first guarantees the previous reallocation and restart. On the other hand, on the other hand, you make sure not to allow your TV apps to create an interest profile at all.

Both generally don’t prevent you from seeing ads on your Sony TV, but they do ensure that the ads are no longer just for you.

Watch YouTube without ads on Sony TVs

Of course, there are other sources of advertising, such as in-app ads. YouTube on TV, for example, is particularly well known here. Without a YouTube Premium subscription, there is practically no easy way to prevent this.

One solution is to download alternative YouTube apps to your Sony TV. Applications such as open source Smart Tube Promise a completely ad-free and at the same time free YouTube experience. To install the application, you must first allow installation of applications from unknown sources in the settings of your Sony TV under “Apps – System – Security and Restrictions”.

You then have to download the current version of the alternative YouTube app on your TV, as Google obviously does not allow such solutions to appear on the official Play Store. Free app downloader offers a good solution for this AndroidTV and Google TV. Use it to go to the SmartTubeNext GitHub page, download the latest version and install it as an APK file. Then you can watch YouTube on TV without ads.

However, know that you are not only violating YouTube’s policies, you are also depriving creators of their earnings. Regardless of these considerations, it can happen at any time that alternative YouTube apps no longer work or Google finds a way to stop anti-adware measures.

Filter Sony ads with Pi-Hole

With the methods described, you ensure that you see significantly fewer ads on your Sony TV using Google TV with internal resources. If that is not enough for you, you can go further.

A number of open source projects want to ensure that an opportunity for advertising does not appear, not only on individual devices, but if possible in your entire network. The examples are Pi . hole or AdGuard home page.

It’s based on the idea of ​​integrating an ad blocker into your home network, which filters out ads before you download them. This works, for example, with the help of the Raspberry Pi microcomputer. For this ad filter to work, it takes some training time and a willingness to troubleshoot potential issues on your own.

You also need a list of data sources that transmit ads to your TV, which you then need to block accordingly. A good way to do this is the list of smart TV ad blockers that you can find GitHub Guest You find. Import it into the ad blocker of your choice to prevent your Sony TV from connecting to ad servers.

However, the use of Pi-Hole and Co. It may also mean that certain functions or applications on your Sony TV no longer work as intended. In this case, you will have to look for errors yourself and, if necessary, manually set the blocking lists.

Do you own a Sony TV and are bothered by ads? Or are you satisfied with your Smart TV experience? Let us know in the comments below the post.