Remove Ads From Fire TV Stick: Clean Home Screen and Claude

If you want to remove ads from Fire TV Stick menus, an open source project called CleanYourTV offers a way to do it over Wi-Fi. A recent first person account shows how an AI coding assistant used it to strip out Amazon’s clutter, add a clean home screen and even build in a Claude assistant, all through plain English prompts.

What CleanYourTV is

CleanYourTV is an open source project that disables preinstalled apps on Android TV and Fire TV devices across your home network. The account, published here, used a Fire TV Stick 4K (2nd gen, 2023, model AFTKM) on Fire OS 8, with a Mac on the same Wi-Fi. An AI coding assistant did the work from short prompts. Two features failed at first and were rebuilt, which is worth knowing before you try.

Preparing the computer

First, the assistant was asked to install CleanYourTV from GitHub. It copied the project to the Mac and set up the Python tools that talk to the TV over the network. However, the Mac had no Java or Homebrew, which are needed to build the new home screen.

So the next prompt asked for the build tools. The assistant downloaded Java 17 and Google’s Android command line tools without an administrator password. The owner then accepted Google’s SDK licences, and Android platform 34 with build tools 34.0.0 was added. A test build of the home screen app came out at 574 KB.

How to remove ads from Fire TV Stick menus

The owner turned on ADB debugging in the stick’s Developer Options, then asked for a cleanup that kept Alexa working. The assistant found the stick on the network, read its model number and matched a tested cleanup list for that model. It also backed up the stick’s state before turning off 43 Amazon packages:

• Tracking: telemetry, Automatic Content Recognition and presence sensing.
• Ads: the advertising ID, sponsored previews and recommendation feeds.
• Clutter: the Live tab, Shopping, Amazon Music, Photos, Silk and Luna.

After a reboot, all 43 packages stayed off. Meanwhile Wi-Fi, Settings, Netflix and YouTube still worked.

A clean home screen

Fire OS does not let another app replace Amazon’s home screen. Instead, the assistant installed the project’s own launcher plus a small community helper called Home Return. That helper opens the new launcher whenever Amazon’s home screen appears. Before building it, the assistant read its source, a single Java file with no internet permission.

The theme then set a simple look:

• A plain black background with no banners or sponsored rows.
• A header with a clock, the date, and buttons for Inputs, Wi-Fi and Settings.
• A dock of five streaming apps, with the selected app’s name in large type.
• A grid of the remaining apps below the dock.

How to undo it

The assistant listed three steps to go back. Remove the launcher and Home Return. Then re-enable the 43 packages with the project’s restore script. Finally, turn ADB debugging off.

Building a Claude assistant into the TV

The owner asked for a Claude assistant that works across apps without an API key. So the Mac became the brain. The assistant installed the Claude Code command line tool, which the owner signed in to once with a Claude account. It then wrote a small relay server on the Mac that runs Claude with every tool turned off. As a result, Claude can only reply and suggest opening or searching an installed app.

On the TV, a Claude app adds a dark panel that matches the home screen. Holding the remote’s Menu button opens it over whatever is playing, while a short press still reaches the app underneath.

The first failure

The first version sent Claude only the app name and any text it could read on screen. YouTube, however, draws its interface without readable text, so a question like “What’s this about?” arrived with almost no context. The fix was to capture a screenshot when the panel opens and send it with the question. After that, answers came back in 4 to 8 seconds.

Adding voice input

The remote’s voice button is reserved for Alexa, and the stick has no speech service that other apps can use. So the first version put a Speak button on a web page for the owner’s phone. The owner wanted it on the TV instead.

The assistant then found that the stick lists the remote’s microphone as a separate audio input. It rebuilt the feature into the TV panel. Now a Speak button records the remote’s audio and sends it to the Mac, where Whisper, an open source speech recognition model, turns it into text. On a test sample, Whisper produced an exact transcript in 2.8 seconds, and replies come back in the language used, including Hindi. Still, a test with the physical remote was pending when the account was written.

Getting started

1. Clone the repository on a Mac and set up the Python tools.
2. Turn on ADB debugging on the Fire TV and note its IP address.
3. Apply the cleanup list for your model, keeping the features you use.
4. Install the launcher and Home Return, then push a theme.
5. Start the Claude relay on the Mac and install the Claude TV app.

Why it matters, and what to watch

Streaming sticks are cheap partly because the home screen sells ads and collects viewing data. This project shows how much of that can be switched off, and how AI coding tools let non experts make deep changes with plain prompts. That said, it is an advanced setup. ADB debugging gives deep access to the device, so turn it off when you are done. Also, the Claude panel sends screenshots of what is on screen to the Mac and on to Claude, which is worth weighing for privacy. For more on how these tools work, read our explainer on AI agents.

FAQ

Can you remove ads from Fire TV Stick without root?

According to this account, yes. CleanYourTV disables packages over Wi-Fi using ADB debugging, without root access.

Does CleanYourTV delete Amazon apps?

No. It turns packages off rather than uninstalling them, and a restore script can switch them back on.

Do you need a Claude API key for the TV assistant?

Not in this setup. A Mac runs the Claude Code tool, signed in with a Claude account, and relays questions from the TV.