Smart TV Ad Blocker CleanYourTV Racks Up 37,000 GitHub Stars In Just Over A Week, As Version 3.0 Adds Pi-hole And Home Assistant Controls – Wccftech

Smart TVs have become increasingly notorious for their intrusive advertisements, unnecessary preinstalled applications, and telemetry services. Fortunately, a rapidly growing open-source project called CleanYourTV promises to give users back control of their televisions, removing unwanted bloatware and replacing their cluttered home screens with a clean, Apple TV-inspired interface.The project started on October 17, when developer Gathin (@gathint) shared an experiment on X involving his parents’ Xiaomi TV, which was displaying sponsored advertisements before they could even launch Netflix. Using Anthropic’s Claude Code, he connected to the television over Wi-Fi, disabled 25 Xiaomi packages, and created a minimalist replacement launcher.Vibe coded my parents’ TV this afternoon!It was showing a sponsored ad before you could even get to Netflix. Gave Claude Code the model number, it found the TV on wifi, removed 25 Xiaomi packages and wrote a new launcher.Looks like an Apple TV now lol pic.twitter.com/E5Q4A1b0yIThe experiment quickly went viral, attracting millions of views and inspiring hundreds of contributors to improve the project. Just over a week later, CleanYourTV has surpassed 37,000 GitHub stars, and its developer has announced CleanYourTV 3.0 (again on X), bringing substantially expanded device compatibility and functionality.CleanYourTV 3.0 is here 📺Your TV can now:• Show your Home Assistant lights and locks• Pause your Pi-hole from the couch• Get cleaned from your phone, no laptop needed• Turn any remote button into a shortcutPlus 52 new TVs and 28 languages, from 169 contributors 🙏 https://t.co/0wdu7zWMx5 pic.twitter.com/mUr5pfkvFMAccording to the official release notes, CleanYourTV 3.0 introduces support profiles for 300 TV models across 86 brands, alongside 28 languages and 20 optional add-ons. The latest improvements include:CleanYourTV operates through Android Debug Bridge (ADB), which allows users to manage their television over Wi-Fi after enabling debugging in Developer Options. It backs up the existing configuration, disables unwanted packages using Android’s pm disable-user command, and installs a lightweight replacement launcher.Crucially, root access isn’t required, and the disabled packages aren’t permanently uninstalled, meaning users can restore their original configurations through the project’s recovery tools.The main workflow supports Android TV and Google TV devices from manufacturers such as Sony, TCL, Xiaomi, Hisense, and Philips, as well as NVIDIA Shield devices. Amazon Fire TV devices have more limited support, while Samsung Tizen and LG webOS televisions aren’t compatible with the standard procedure.There are some caveats, however. Disabling certain system packages can interfere with essential television functionality, so users should consult the project’s model-specific compatibility lists and backup instructions before proceeding. Furthermore, removing home-screen advertisements doesn’t necessarily eliminate ads within streaming applications.Nevertheless, CleanYourTV represents an interesting example of AI-assisted development evolving into a community-driven open-source project, offering users a practical alternative to the increasingly advertisement-heavy smart TV experience.The project, installation instructions, compatible television lists, and source code are available on GitHub and the official website.News Source: r/singularity subreddit About the author: Sebastian Castellanos is a data scientist by education and training. He’s also deeply passionate about PC gaming hardware and software. He has recently started writing technical articles and guides on Wccftech about PC hardware, games and mods. Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds. © 2026 WCCF TECH INC. 700 – 401 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canadasource