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Chromecast with Google TV is now serving full-screen, auto-playing Chicken Tender Wrap ads (www.androidauthority.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by machinin@lemmy.world to c/android@lemmy.world

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Reddit users thevincentasteroid and MMD3_ posted about an auto-playing video ad (with sound) on the home screen. The ad is for Chicken Tender Wraps from Carl’s Jr. When it begins auto-playing, it pushes all the other UI elements out of focus and goes almost full-screen, returning to the home screen after it has played through once.

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[-] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 141 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Nope.

That's just how the ad at the top looks and always has, and yes, it plays if you hover over it, they always have, and yes, it expands out if you keep watching it and don't touch anything.

If you use the UI normally the ad doesn't play, the person in that video explicitly played the ad.

plays ad

ad plays

SurprisedPikachu.jpeg

Get this clickbait shit outta here. It's literally an ai generated article that stole content off a reddit post as it's "source". Have some standards people.

[-] aniki@lemm.ee 85 points 11 months ago

Why the fuck are there ads at all?? The advertisement did exactly as the article says it does -- it autoplays full screen if you cursor over the fucking advertisement.

Not clickbait at all.

[-] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

You have to cursor over it for several seconds and click nothing before it plays, you have to intentionally opt into triggering it.

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[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 70 points 11 months ago

As an AppleTV user I’m honestly shocked folks are ok with their product they paid for having advertisements on it like that anyways?

It’s one thing to advertise a show or an app / service that is in the App Store but another to show actual ads.

It’s weird to me.

Then again, you and your advertisement ID are googles business.

[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 11 months ago

We are not okay with it.
But else you have this, some flavor of AndroidTV + Launcher, an AppleTV which probably doesnt have feature parity with all apps available for the AndroidTV or you setup your own device which involves (probably) work.

[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

I’m not sure what app feature parity you are talking about, unless it’s a specific application for android(?)

For what it’s worth the Apple ecosystem is the “popular/trendy” one and businesses will cut their balls off to have their app work well on Apple stuff. I say that entirely from a “Apple is the zeitgeist” not one is better than the other standpoint.

[-] fushuan@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago

Lmao no. The apple ecosystem is not the popular/trendy one, it's the expensive one where devs must pay a license to publish their apps. There's tons of open source apps that publish to the play store but don't publish in the apple store because it costs them money to do so. I use several apps that don't have parity in ios. TachiyomiSY, Wow (weather app that apparently was published to the iPad store, not the iPhone store..., it has no ads, customizable interface and it can connect to the local weather provider which is usually the most accurate), Notify (app that let's me configure extra stuff on my MiBand), Boost (no, voyager's interface sucks for me), newpipe(! There's a newpipe in ios but it's another app and has ads lmao).

Basically, if you want popular brand company apps, sure, they will be on ios, but I bet you they will be on android too, if not earlier because it's free to publish and nowadays if we are honest you can develop a single app with react native and voilà, make it into a functional app in both systems with minimal effort. However, the difference exists on the open source apps, on the small apps created by small devs that offer stuff for free, those don't publish into apple because it would cost them 99 USD per year just to be able to publish.

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 4 points 11 months ago

Can Apple have third party home screens?

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[-] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

I don't even notice it, the ad starts out small at the top and your cursor starts out on the Apps row, you have to very intentionally trigger the ad.

90% of the time the ads are for movies or TV shows on the streaming services you have installed (and presumably an account for) anyways, so there's been non zero times where I did go abd hover the ad to watch it cuz I was like "oh hey I actually wanna watch that, is it coming out soon? No shit!"

The other 10% if the time it's mcdonalds or Harvey's or whatever, I barely notice it as I spend pretty much all of my time with the Google tv "inside" an app.

Very little time gets spent on the home screen, it's a glorified Start menu to pick an app and open it up, so I don't, to be blunt, give much of a shit that for half a second I can see a big Mac at the top of my TV screen before I click the 1 button to open Netflix.

Also more often than not I use my phone app to push to the TV, so my process is:

TV is turned off atm, I open on my phone (Netflix, Disney plus, crunchyroll, Amazon prime, YouTube, etc)
I click the cast button on my phone
TV auto detects activity, starts turning on, meanwhile my chromecast is already loading up the app and booting into it
By the time my TV screen flips on, the app is opened as well and my content starts to play, so u never even saw the home screen in the first place

End result: I rarely even see the app realistically anywho.

[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago

I guess to me I’m just confused that they have a spot to show ads to the user.

[-] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

It’s one thing to advertise a show or an app / service that is in the App Store but another to show actual ads.

Most of the time it's this, rarely mcdonalds or Harvey's has an ad like this you need to hover over for several seconds to play, intentionally, and people turn it into rage bait garbage posts.

90% of the time it's just an add for a TV show or movie, and you still have to purposefully hover over it unmoving to start it playing, it's pretty opt in.

[-] Esqplorer@lemmy.zip 5 points 11 months ago

A single apple TV is like $80 more than Google TV devices to do the same thing. I don't like the ads and they irritate me, but I have 4 TVs with streaming boxes (so I don't have to replace the screens. I'm not paying an extra $360 just to not have ads on the home screen.

It's just a situation where I'm not really okay with either option.

[-] fushuan@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

I have an android tv from Sony which is basically android tv without any kind of skin AFAIK. No ads. I had suggested videos from apps and stuff but hat was configurable and removed years ago.

[-] machinin@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

I've had an Android TV for about five years. I recently bought a TV with Google TV. I don't know if this is how Google TV has always been, but it wasn't that way in Android TV.

Seeing the home screen on the Google TV made me immediately regret the purchase. Unfortunately, the model I bought disabled the ability to make alternate launchers default. I was able to put it in app mode, but it was still plastering ads everytime you turned on the TV or hit the home button. Absolutely disgusting.

The home screen is so bad I finally set up pi-hole on my network. Now there is just a blank area where the ads used to be with a notification saying I'm not connected to the internet, although my services are fine.

I'll never by a Google TV again unless I can make alternative launchers default. I'm really glad I installed pi-hole, those TV send so much info back to Google. I recommend it to anyone.

[-] LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch 4 points 11 months ago

Apps Only mode is a decent workaround… for now. https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10070784?hl=en

Really cuts down on the amount of clutter and suggestions on the main screen.

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[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I've never heard of the ads people complained about. Mine was just what new streaming show was being promoted. Kind of an add, but relevant and only on home screen.

But....

My Sony TV 100% was playing the Hardee's ad today.

It's not a huge deal, but still worse than it was yesterday

[-] TunaCowboy@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Have some standards people.

Yeah, we should all be out protecting mega corps from bankruptcy by fighting inconsequential misinformation on obscure social media platforms. Where would the world be without heroes like you? Thank you for your service.

🏅

[-] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

So you think it's okay to spread misinformation if it's about a giant corporation?

Misinformation is never okay, as it muddies the waters and makes it hard to know what you can trust. If we idly stand by and let a lemmy instance degrade to the point where garbage posts like this are commonplace, it becomes difficult to sift apart the actual news and stuff that matters from the shit deluge of misinfo.

Which means, yes, calling out misinformation / shit posts even if it's about a megacorp, because shit in the water is still shit in the water.

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[-] danhakimi@kbin.social 61 points 11 months ago

It's weird how much better Chromecast was when it came out than it is now. Stronger hardware, sure, but no real antifeatures, you could set it up without installing the app, you could use the app without giving it location data, casting was way more straightforward...

[-] dingus@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

Idk...I had to throw out my first gen Chromecast because it does fuck all compared to literally any other streaming stick and it could no longer play HD videos without lagging to shit. When they added Android TV, it became a hell of a lot more useful.

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

I have the first Chromecast. Google emailed me a few years ago that it's no longer supported, and that it'll be a brick soon. That was about 3 years ago. As long as I can project my desktop, it works for me!

And I was getting really concerned about getting the latest model too.

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[-] LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch 24 points 11 months ago

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

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago

Damn I wish my firestick had that.

[-] MysticKetchup@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

It's not even "apps only" since they still show sponsored shows at the top. Probably only a matter of time before more ads worm their way in.

[-] machinin@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago

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

androidtvchannels-pa.googleapis.com

androidtvlauncherxfe-pa.googleapis.com

[-] kratoz29@lemm.ee 9 points 11 months ago

Amazing that blocking DNS is still a thing for gadgets like this.

[-] Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Dns resolution is integral to load balancing and regional content delivery. There is no universe where a single server, even a specially designed asic, could handle proxy routing if there was a DNS outage and every iPhone or android device or whatever failed to a single IP. Thank God the Internet works this way tbh, dns-based content blocking will probably be the only thing we can do eventually

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[-] lone_faerie 5 points 11 months ago

There are apps that circumvent DNS blocking. They hard code the DNS server into the app, so instead of making requests to your set DNS, they make them directly to, say, Google's DNS (8.8.8.8)

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[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 11 months ago

Ty.

[-] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 20 points 11 months ago

Google ecosystem problems :(.

[-] xonigo@lemm.ee 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Download another launcher, set it as default home, and forget about google's excessive ads. Depending on your model, you may need to run an ADB command. You may need to get a remote remapper app to remap the home button to open the launcher

I am using this one for my android tv https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spocky.projengmenu

And flauncher for my chromecast https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.efesser.flauncher

[-] ToppestOfDogs@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I wanna piggyback onto this comment to say that you can change the home launcher on a Chromecast With Google TV (And some other Android TV boxes) by downloading another launcher first (I use FLauncher) and disabling the default home launcher.

1.Download FLauncher first

2.Enable USB debugging

3.ADB into your TV's IP from a computer

4.adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx

This will disable the original launcher

5.adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.tungsten.setupwraith

This will disable the service that re-enables the launcher

This will cause the home button on the remote to fall back to whatever other home app is installed. No button remapping needed. It will also break the YouTube button, but not the Netflix button.

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[-] GustavoFring@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

Projectivity Launcher ftw

[-] LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 months ago

Just discovered this last night. I will never go back to the bloat that is the Chromecast launcher. Holy fuck is this so much better.

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[-] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 11 months ago

All the more reason to fire up adb and replace that launcher before they take that ability away.

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[-] sramder@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

Show your local Carls Jr. how much you appreciate this shit by throwing a brick through their front window today.

[-] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

Brought to you by Carl's Jr

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[-] raynethackery@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

Step 1. Open window.

Step 2. Grab TV.

Step 3. Launch TV.

Step 4. Start pricing monitors.

[-] treesquid@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Or just don't connect the TV to your network. It has inputs. Use an input device you have control over. The end.

[-] exocortex@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 11 months ago

a Chromecast is one of those inputs. And it has been a nice product. The reason people are mad is that they Google changed the product after they bought it significantly.

and yes. Today the only reasonable good TV is a computer monitor connected to a device I have control over.

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[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 12 points 11 months ago

I wanna see what the "they're not ads, they're recommendations!!!" crowd has to say now

[-] spez_@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

We need Matter Casting

[-] Yoz@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Checkout adbapp control and install flauncher.

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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024

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