How to Turn Off Ads and Tracking on Your Smart TV, Brand by Brand

Why does my smart TV show ads and track what I watch?

Your smart TV shows ads because the home screen itself carries banners, sponsored rows and trailers that play by themselves. Separately, many TVs have automatic content recognition (ACR), which identifies what is on the screen, in some cases even from a cable box or game console, and can feed that into the ads you see.

Here is what makes it annoying to fix:

• Every brand uses a different name. Samsung calls it Viewing Information Services, LG calls it Live Plus, Vizio calls it Viewing Data, and Roku TVs call it Use info from TV inputs.
• The switches are in different menus. Some sit under Privacy, some under Support, some under General.
• Your brand and your system are not the same thing. A Sony or TCL TV can run Google TV, and a Hisense can run Google TV, Roku, Fire TV or its own system.
• Updates can switch things back on. A big update may reset some of what you changed.

In March 2026, Malwarebytes published how to switch off ACR across the main brands, and the menu paths below follow the same sources the kit uses.

How to turn off ads and tracking on a smart TV by hand, step by step

To turn off ads and tracking on a smart TV by hand, find out which system it runs, then switch off viewing data, ad personalization and autoplay in that system's settings. Each step uses only the remote and can be switched back.

1. Find your TV system. Press Home. A Google account icon in the top right usually means Google TV; a clock or gear means Android TV. "fire tv" or "Roku" on the start-up screen settles those. Then confirm under Settings, About.
2. Turn off the viewing-data feature. This is the ACR switch, and it has a different name on each brand (table below).
3. Turn off ad personalization. Look for Interest-Based Advertising, Personalize ads, or Delete advertising ID. You still see ads, but they are less about you.
4. Turn off autoplay. Trailers and previews that start by themselves usually sit under Home screen, Featured Content or Accessibility.
5. Hide rows you never use. Most systems let you switch off app rows or store rows on the home screen.
6. Write down what you changed. If something you use stops working, you know which switch to turn back on.
7. Check again after a big update. Two minutes with the same list catches anything that turned back on.

Where the tracking switch lives on each TV

Menu paths checked October 2026 against sources such as LG's own Home Promotion help page. Names change by model and year, so if a label is slightly different on your screen, pick the closest match.

What no setting removes

Be clear about this before you start. Ads inside Netflix, Prime Video or Hulu plans with ads, and on free YouTube, come from the app. Google says ads on Google TV cannot be turned off, only made less personal. Samsung, Roku and Vizio keep ads on their home screens, and LG Channels stays on LG TVs. Vizio also says turning off Viewing Data does not stop separate activity data from its home screen.

The faster way: Smart TV Privacy Kit

The faster way is to open one file for your TV and go down the list. Smart TV Privacy Kit is a set of PDFs I put together for that: a page of switches for each of seven TV systems, an undo card, and a 5-minute check for after updates.

Here is how it was made. The menu paths come from manufacturer support pages and recent reviews, every page lists its sources, and all of them were checked in October 2026. Then I tested the steps on real TVs, including my friends' sets at home, and they work. Menus still differ by model and year, so each page says where to look if a label on your screen is slightly different.

How to use it, step by step

1. Buy and download. Gumroad sends the zip right after payment.
2. Open 00-START-HERE. It asks what TV system you have, whether you want a new home screen, and whether you have a computer with an AI coding assistant.
3. Not sure of your system? The find-your-TV page takes about 30 seconds and tells Fire OS from Vega OS, which matters on newer Fire TV Sticks.
4. Print the undo card. Keep it next to the TV before you change anything.
5. Do Level 1 for your TV. About 10 minutes with the remote (about 5 on a Vizio). It is the whole job on Samsung, LG, Roku, Vizio and Vega OS Fire TV Sticks.
6. Want a cleaner home screen? On Google TV and Android TV, the Projectivy path swaps the home screen with the remote only, in about 15 minutes. With an Android phone, the phone path switches off more clutter.
7. Skip Level 3 unless you want it. It needs a computer, an AI coding assistant and about 45 minutes, and it carries more risk. The prompt only switches apps off, in batches of 3 to 5, after saving a before list and an undo file.
8. Tick the checklist. After any update you notice, run the 5-minute check.

Setting up a parent's TV

One file is for doing this at someone else's home. It plans a 20-minute visit: write down the apps they actually use, do Level 1, set up the simple home screen only on a Google TV or Android TV, and show them the Home button. It also has a script to read out over the phone, line by line, for when you cannot be there. It tells you to skip Level 3 on a parent's TV, because if something goes wrong you are not there to fix it.

What it does not do

It does not remove ads inside streaming apps, and it does not include or recommend apps that skip them. It does not replace the home screen on Samsung, LG, Roku, Vizio or Vega OS Fire TV Sticks. Some switches may come back after an update, which is why the after-update check exists. The kit is not made by or connected to any TV maker; brand names only show which TV a step is for. If you want to know who is behind it, my about page lists what I have shipped and what failed, and the products page shows the other kits.