One of the best things about using an Android TV is the flexibility. If you don’t like something — whether it’s the default launcher or the official YouTube app — you can easily replace it. The only catch is that sometimes replacing those apps means sideloading. It does take some effort, sure, some apps are well worth it.
Arc Launcher
The Apple TV look, without the price
If there’s one thing I can’t stand about Android TV, it’s the default launcher. It’s cluttered and full of ads disguised as recommendations. There’s no shortage of feature-rich TV launchers on the Play Store, but my favorite — Arc Launcher — isn’t available there.
The moment you open it, you get that Apple TV vibe, with a clean grid of apps and no recommendations anywhere. It’s not short on features, either. You can customize pretty much everything, including the app grid layout, home screen background, card animations, and even the status bar. Heck, it can also auto-adjust brightness based on the time of day, and there’s a solid set of built-in screensavers if you want your TV to look good when you’re not watching anything.
Arc Launcher isn’t very popular, mainly because it’s not available on the Play Store. But yes, if you want to make your Android TV feel as clean as Apple TV, it’s definitely worth a shot.
SmartTube
YouTube, minus everything annoying about it
YouTube is everyone’s favorite thing to watch and there’s nothing better than watching those videos or even Shorts on a bigger screen. The only thing is that, unless you’re paying for YouTube Premium, watching videos can get annoying fast. In most cases, you have to sit through multiple ads before even a video begins.
SmartTube is an unofficial YouTube client that doesn’t show any ads. Its best feature is SponsorBlock, which automatically skips those promotional segments within a video. The app doesn’t require a Google account, and still gives you most of the features from the official YouTube app.
And since SmartTube is built specifically for Android TVs, it’s fast and has a simple interface. It also supports 8K, HDR, Picture-in-Picture, and plenty of other useful features. The only thing is that SmartTube doesn’t support casting from the YouTube app on your phone and the voice search feature isn’t that great. But overall, it’s definitely an upgrade over the official YouTube app.
AdGuard
Block ads everywhere
SmartTube gives you ad-free YouTube, but ads are baked into pretty much everything else you do on a TV, from browsing to streaming. AdGuard is a system-wide ad blocker that takes care of all of that in one go.
It works on the network level, much like DNS, so you don’t have to configure it for every app. It also blocks trackers, which is useful if you’re worried about your viewing data getting sent to advertisers. What I like the most about it is the control. You can create custom filtering rules and whitelist specific apps or domains.
It doesn’t catch every single ad, of course. A lot depends on how the ad itself is being served — some apps load ads from the same servers as their actual content, which makes them harder to block. Still, AdGuard is one of those apps that’s worth having around.
Syncler
A cleaner way to stream from scraped sources
The one thing you’re likely to do the most on your TV is stream movies and TV shows, and Syncler can help with that. It looks like any other streaming app, but it doesn’t host any content itself. It’s essentially a shell that pulls video links from third-party addons and sources you add yourself. It also supports Trakt integration, so your watch history and watchlists sync across devices.
The initial setup takes a bit of work since you need to add your own add-ons and sources, but once that’s done, Syncler is one of the smoothest ways to watch content on a TV without jumping between half a dozen streaming apps.
Flicky
An app store Google doesn’t want you to know about
The above apps are great, but there’s one more worth sideloading on your TV. Flicky is an F-Droid client that brings an entire world of open-source apps you won’t find on the Play Store. Since it’s a proper app store, it makes finding and installing apps like SmartTube way easier.
There are other app stores too, but I like Flicky because it mostly shows apps that aren’t on the Play Store. The only downside here is that Flicky lists the entire F-Droid catalog, which includes apps that are built specifically for phones and don’t work on a TV screen. That means you’ll have to sift through some clutter to find apps for your TV. But yes, if you love exploring new apps, Flicky deserves a space on your TV.