Apple TV boxes have no ads.

I know everyone here hates Apple, but, there it is.

PiHole takes care of that.

My Roku TV is basically unusable at this point. Opening Netflix takes about 10 minutes to get to the main menu. Then launching the video is like rolling a D12. Except it lands on a 1 every time and crashes. It also restarts randomly for “updates” in the middle of watching something. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it!

I just saw enough ads trying to read the damn story

Anyone ever read the short story "Sales pitch" by Philip K. Dick?

Yeah, that sucks. That will definitely drive me elsewhere.

Like a modified Android TV or Apple TV or something

They've already been adding them to mine. My home screen inputs got smashed into one (because I don't use any of the home screen apps, I only use the two HDMI inputs) so they could jam a bigger ad on the right, and then make suggested things some of the options. Like the last month or so it's been wanting me to watch super girl or Wonder woman or some dumb shit.

My other personal favorite thing they do is that they load slowly so sometimes I'll go to select an input and the cursor will jump to the wrong place because an ad loaded. Fun!

What would one recommend as more of a custom build version of these with a way to connect a convenient remote (smartphone or otherwise)? Alternatively is there a way to sort of jailbreak many of them, or does that just become more cumbersome?