A post by an individual developer, Gathin, about cleaning up their parents' television on October 17, 2026, has turned into an open-source project that, by October 24, carried 30,900 stars on GitHub, 3,600 forks and tested configuration lists for 260 TV models, according to the project's repository. The tool, called CleanYourTV, uses an AI coding assistant to switch off a television's ad services, sponsored content rows and telemetry over the home Wi-Fi network, then installs a minimal home screen in place of the manufacturer's launcher.

In Short

A developer used an AI coding tool to turn off the ads and tracking software on their parents' Android-based TV and replace its home screen with a plain one. They shared how they did it, and in a week thousands of people did the same to their own TVs and published lists for hundreds of models. The ads on a TV's home screen are something TV makers and Google sell, so a free tool that switches them off touches a part of the TV ad business, though nothing it does is permanent and a software update can bring the ads back.

The post

"Vibe coded my parents' TV this afternoon!" Gathin wrote on X on October 17, 2026. "It was showing a sponsored ad before you could even get to Netflix." The post continued: "Gave Claude Code the model number, it found the TV on wifi, removed 25 Xiaomi packages and wrote a new launcher." The post closed with: "Looks like an Apple TV now lol."

The phrase refers to vibe coding, the practice of describing software in plain language and letting an AI model write it. By October 24 the post displayed 8.4 million views, 929 replies, 2,300 reposts and 35,000 likes. In a reply the same day, Gathin linked the repository and wrote that the "prompt, launcher source and the gotchas I hit are all here," adding that the method "works on any Android TV / Google TV, everything is reversible and feel free to tweak it to your needs." A follow-up article on X dated October 19 carried the headline "(Re)introducing CleanYourTV."

Gathin's X profile lists the role "Sr. DevRel" at 0G Labs. The project's README lists "Claude Code (on 0G Private Computer or an Anthropic plan), Codex or Gemini CLI" as assistants that work with it. CleanYourTV itself describes the project as "an independent open-source project" that "is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any TV maker or platform."

What the screen showed

The before-and-after image in the repository, which the README's alt text describes as a "stock Google TV home with a sponsored ad," is dated Saturday, October 17. Its top bar has Search, Shop, Home, Discover and Apps tabs. Beneath them sits a large banner marked "Sponsored," promoting an investment product under the line "Samajh Se investing Simple," next to a notice that "The Discover tab is going away soon." Rows of streaming apps follow, including Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, JioHotstar and aha, then "Play next," "Top-selling movies" and "Trending on Google" rows. The app selection points to an Indian set. The repository's supported-TV table lists the Xiaomi Mi TV 4A, the model in the original post, as running Android TV 10.

The after image shows a black screen with a greeting, a clock, a four-app dock and no promotional content.

How the tool works

The mechanism is not new. Android televisions carry the same Android Debug Bridge, or ADB, that Android phones do. According to the README, once an owner turns on USB debugging in the TV's developer options and approves a computer once, "the rest is standard Android tooling." The project does not require a cable: the commands travel over the local network.

The repository describes three stages. A backup records the list of installed packages and settings. A disable stage then turns off "the manufacturer's telemetry, ad services, content rows and preloaded junk" with Android's pm disable-user command. Finally, a small native launcher is installed and set as the default home screen.

"Nothing is uninstalled, so a restore script can undo every step," according to the README. That differs in wording from the original post, which said the assistant "removed" 25 Xiaomi packages. In the repository's terms the packages are disabled in the user profile, not deleted. The project's legal section states that it "works only through settings the TV itself offers to its owner," that it does not root the TV, flash firmware, or bypass "any lock, DRM or copy protection," and that the repository "contains no manufacturer software, firmware or APKs." It also notes that "changing a TV's software may affect its warranty or support."

Because the packages differ by brand, the core of the project is a prompt file, PROMPT.md, which has the coding assistant discover the bloat on a specific TV and ask the owner before touching anything they might use. According to the README, the assistant backs up, debloats, builds and installs the launcher, "and checks each step with screenshots pulled from the TV." With the repository as context, the project puts the process at about fifteen minutes. A community-built Android phone app by a separate contributor offers the same steps without a computer, in about five minutes, according to the README.

The tooling

Behind the prompt sits a set of Python and shell tools. The repository describes tools/tv.py as a "pure-Python ADB client" that "works where the stock adb binary is blocked." Other tools apply or undo a debloat list, upload large files in base64 chunks with checksum verification, forward a local port for assistants whose sandbox cannot reach the home network, and check whether the TV's network ADB port is closed once debugging is switched off.

One tool, tools/check.py, compares the TV against the list that was applied. This matters because, according to the README, a firmware update "installs over the cleaned-up system: the listed packages come back, Home goes to the stock launcher, and new preloads appear that no list mentions." The project suggests a weekly scheduled job to detect that drift. Lists that also disable the system updater, it notes, "get no updates at all."

The project also documents failure modes. On Google TV, the setup wizard package can take over the home function and crash-loop the system once the stock launcher is disabled, according to the README, and disabling it can delete a Wi-Fi network saved during setup. On Google's own Chromecast and the Google TV Streamer, the repository says, disabling it also costs phone casting.

The launcher

The replacement home screen is about 497 KB of plain Java, "built for TVs with 1 GB of RAM," with "no blur, no video, no network permission, no background services," according to the repository. It needs Android 8.0 (API level 26) or newer. It presents a dock of favourite apps, a grid of the rest, input buttons for HDMI and live TV, and a clock screensaver, and follows the TV's language in 25 languages, including a mirrored layout for Hebrew. Themes are pushed over Wi-Fi without a rebuild. The README says there are "no prebuilt binaries": owners build the launcher themselves with a script.

The project's summary of the result is blunt: "no sponsored rows, no 'Discover' nags, no analytics phoning home, no apps you never asked for."

Growth in one week

The numbers have moved quickly, and the repository's own figures do not always agree with each other. The README says the October 17 post "reached 7.4M views" and that replies turned into "170+ TV models from 200+ contributors in four days." By October 24 the X post showed 8.4 million views. The repository's badges counted 260 TV models, 77 brands, 25 languages and 385 contributors, while the GitHub sidebar showed 393 contributors and the v2.7.0 release, published October 23, was titled with 248 TVs.

Other counts on the repository page on October 24: 30,900 stars, 3,600 forks, 2,227 commits, 848 merged pull requests, 148 open pull requests and 69 open issues. The code is 54.1% Java and 34.2% Python. The README cites press coverage of "196 articles from 32 countries and 41 videos," and says SHOWCASE.md lists eighty-one projects built on top of it. The repository was called tv-vibehack until October 19. The project also warns that other domains using the name, "such as cleanyourtv.com, are not run by this project."

The contributed lists break down by brand as TCL 57, Sony 32, Xiaomi 29, Philips 14, Hisense 10, Skyworth 9 and Amazon Fire TV 7, followed by dozens of smaller manufacturers and a set of projectors.

Where it does not work

Coverage is limited to Android TV and Google TV. On Fire TV, only the debloat half runs, "since Fire OS will not hand Home to a third-party launcher," according to the README, and on the 2015 Fire TV Box "even that half fails." Some China-market TCL sets refuse to install any launcher. Samsung's Tizen and LG's webOS are "different systems": a 2021 Samsung set has no ADB, so there is no pm disable-user route. Three webOS ports exist as separate community projects.

The project also does not claim to block advertising inside streaming apps. Its disable step targets the system layer - the manufacturer's ad services, content rows and launcher - not the ads that apps such as YouTube or Netflix serve within their own players.

The ad tech angle

What CleanYourTV switches off is a product that device makers and platforms sell. Home screen advertising - paid placements shown when a smart TV is switched on - has become one of the faster-growing parts of connected TV. LG Ad Solutions reported in November 2025 that general-market advertisers using smart TV home screen placements rose more than 60% year over year, and that 97% of LG smart TV users begin their viewing on the home screen, visiting about three times a day.

Google TV is part of that market. Teads secured a Google TV partnership in February 2026 covering the masthead placement, the first visual impression shown when users turn on or return to Google TV devices, with the United States and United Kingdom named. Teads' combined home screen inventory reaches more than 500 million devices, and the company added Whale TV in September 2026, having delivered more than 6,000 home screen campaigns since 2023. Programmatic buying of these slots is also growing: H/L became the first agency to buy smart TV home screen inventory through Nexxen's DSP in April 2026, and Nexxen added TCL and TiVo inventory in May 2026, with select placements on TCL Android TV devices in the US and Canada exclusive to Nexxen. TCL is also the brand with the most contributed lists in the CleanYourTV repository.

The value of the screen explains the stakes. When Fox agreed to buy Roku in June 2026 for an enterprise value of about $22 billion, the home screen was described as "beachfront property in the streaming ecosystem." Roku's advertising revenue reached $2.327 billion in fiscal 2025.

Telemetry and viewing data

The second target is data. Smart TV makers, the OEM layer of the CTV market, sell viewing data as well as ad slots. Texas sued Hisense in December 2025, alleging that its TVs captured screen content every 500 milliseconds through automatic content recognition without adequate consent. The VAB said in August 2026 that ACR viewing data requires consumer opt-in.

CleanYourTV includes a privacy audit, tools/privacy.py, that lists voice, ACR and telemetry candidates on a set, with the evidence for each. The README is careful about what that shows. On many sets most packages run under the system user ID, so "fifty of them show RECORD_AUDIO: granted=true and none of them record anything," while "a package with no audio permission at all still sees everything on screen." It names one example, tv.inscape.tvclient.inscapeacr, as an ACR client that identifies content from the picture "and need[s] only INTERNET." The project concedes the limit: "What the audit cannot do is prove intent," and "no scan of package names proves a TV is or is not recording."

How much it could matter

The scale is the open question. Thirty thousand GitHub stars and 260 model lists are large for an individual developer's project and tiny against a market where one sell-side company alone counts 500 million addressable TV devices. The process still requires a developer menu, a debugging toggle and, in most cases, a coding assistant with shell access. And the changes do not hold on their own: a firmware update re-enables the packages and restores the stock launcher, according to the project's own documentation.

The CTV home screen also has other pressures. Philips dropped Google TV for Titan OS on all of its 2026 models, which takes those sets out of the Android TV and Google TV base that CleanYourTV supports. Philips accounts for 14 of the project's lists, all on earlier software.

For buyers, the more concrete point concerns measurement. Home screen ads are sold on reach claims such as the 97% figure from LG. Sets running a replacement launcher do not render those placements at all, and a set with its telemetry packages disabled sends less viewing data back to the manufacturer. The repository gives no estimate of how many televisions now run the launcher, and because the project ships no prebuilt binaries, there is no download count to answer that question either.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Gathin, an individual developer who works in developer relations at 0G Labs, and the CleanYourTV open-source project, with 385 to 393 contributors listed on GitHub.

What: A prompt and tool set that uses an AI coding assistant to disable a TV's manufacturer ad services, sponsored content rows and telemetry over Wi-Fi through Android's debug bridge, and to install a 497 KB replacement home screen. Nothing is uninstalled, and a restore script undoes the changes; firmware updates bring the packages back.

When: The original X post is dated October 17, 2026. The repository was renamed on October 19, release v2.7.0 followed on October 23, and the counts in this article are as of October 24, 2026.

Where: On GitHub and X, applied to Android TV and Google TV sets from 77 brands, starting with a Xiaomi Mi TV 4A whose home screen carried Indian streaming apps. Fire TV is only partly supported; Samsung Tizen and LG webOS sets are not.

Why: The home screen is a growing, separately sold layer of CTV advertising, and TV makers also sell viewing data. A free tool that switches both off on owners' sets, even reversibly, removes, on every set where it runs, the placements that home screen sellers count in their reach figures, though how many sets that is remains unknown.