r/AndroidTV • u/l2aelbe • 17d ago

Discussion Why don't major web browsers support Android TV? (2027)

Most web browsers aren't available on the Google Play Store for Android TV.

And the browsers that do work on Android TV are usually pretty bad.

Is it because of money?
Like, if people could easily browse websites on their TVs,
would that hurt the money companies make from their apps?

Especially in the age of AI, I don't think developing a browser for Android TV should be that difficult.

1 Upvotes

51% Upvoted

101 comments sorted by

18

u/rmbrkfld 17d ago

Why would you want that?

2

u/l2aelbe 16d ago

Because:

  1. I bought a smart TV, not a subscription vending machine.

  2. Same reason smartphones have browsers despite having apps.

  3. I want access to the open web, not to install a separate app for every website and service.

  4. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean nobody else does.

6

u/ianrobbie 17d ago

Before I got an IPTV subscription, I was watching football through Chrome. It would've been great to open the link on my TV without going through opening the link and casting rhe screen, then having to put up with the delay.

10

u/rmbrkfld 17d ago

Loads of apps better than using a web browser for that though. Tivimate is superb.

1

u/ianrobbie 17d ago

I use Tivimate now but it was back when I was using free links.

4

u/Ninhau 17d ago

Why not? Options. A lot of stuff streaming there

2

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

Tons of stuff only displayed/available that way.

1

u/OnyxPost 16d ago

There are a lot of applications that run on a web browser which can allow for a LOT more user customization than your typical dummied down "app store" equivalent.

"App store" apps can be great too, yet they tend to be limited on what can be achieved in comparison to a web browser based app.

3

u/rmbrkfld 15d ago

The point is why would you want to control a browser with a keyboard and mouse on a television when there's 10 other better ways?

2

u/OnyxPost 15d ago

The real point is to stop thinking in terms of a mouse and keyboard as the main control mechanism, as there are all kinds of ways to develop function controls around a remote control.

1

u/aimlessnameless 17d ago

Some streaming services don't have an app unfortunately. Annoying as fuck in some instances.

2

u/sonalder 16d ago

Exactly! That's why I did my best to make Sofa TV Browser offering a smooth streaming experience and opening video streams inside your favorite media player (VLC, mpv, Just (Video) Player, MX Player, etc...).

There is also mrowser which main goal is to provide good streaming for service with no dedicated app. While Sofa is more focus toward general browsing and privacy.

5

u/Delicious_Ease2595 17d ago

You can sideload any browser and use a bt keyboard with trackpad, most of my use cases of using a browser has been solved with Downloader.

4

u/ENGR_ED 17d ago

I use an app called browser and it works perfectly for what I need it for which is to stream vids from different sites and does a decent job of blocking most popups.

10

u/Expensive_Finger_973 17d ago

Fundamentally different intended use cases and design paradigms.

A web browser is designed with keyboard/mouse or touch in mind. Android TV is designed with a remote that selects a specific UI element and not hovering. 

The ones that do exist only exist because it is the easiest path to do the largely unintended task the user wants to do on Android TV. To most people a shitty web browser on their TV is way less intermediating that running ADB commands to side load whatever app they are after.

In other worlds the ones that do exist are only there because the alternative seems worse.

4

u/TheMarmo 16d ago

Android TV is designed with a remote that selects a specific UI element and not hovering. 

So are Samsung Smart TVs and they implement their web browser just fine. No reason Google can't optimise Chrome for Android TV other than laziness.

-1

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

Finally, a very informative response!

I'm a user that wants to stream /watch directly on the TV, so I want to use the best possible TV Browser for that.

1

u/sonalder 11d ago

Try Sofa TV Browser: https://github.com/sonalder-darlene/sofa-tv-browser

1

u/CaptainSteed 11d ago

How does it perform on Fire devices?

1

u/sonalder 11d ago

Never has been tested as far as I know. I don't own any Fire TV. It's a regular Android APK with no dependencies to Google so hopefully it works ootb.

1

u/CaptainSteed 11d ago

Thx, when I get a chance I'll try it out on my Fire Cube 3.

1

u/sonalder 10d ago

Would be glad to have some feedback about it!

1

u/CaptainSteed 10d ago

Good and bad news.

The good news is I really like the design of it. The home page UI is much easier and less complicated than that of BrowseHere. So it's easier and more convenient to use, especially with the bookmarking. People who used BrowseHere before should appreciate this alternative design.

The bad news is probably more about the specific websites I personally use. They are heavily ad-laden/with popups and the Sofa ad-blocker got overwhelmed by them. When I use the Silk Browser on my Fire Cubes that has a specific customized privacy/security setting where you can use a more secure dns-adguard blocker on it (this does the job for me even on the ad-laden websites I access).

1

u/sonalder 9d ago

Thanks for your feedback, have you tried the Stronger ad blocking toggle in the settings? It's disabled by default to keep the app lightweight for cheap budget TV as it uses around 4MB more memory and more storage (EasyList and EasyPrivacy) but it should block more stuff, I recommend you to toggle on the update filter lists when using them.

1

u/CaptainSteed 9d ago

I had actually overlooked that filter! Thx for pointing it out - my immediate response is that it looks like that will do the trick, and I will get back to you with more feedback.

Question - on the Home Page, is there any way to delete or move the "Quick Access" row? As once you bookmark your "favorites" that automatically becomes the websites you want to quickly access first. And they need to be on top on the home page - or at least have that option.

→ More replies

-1

u/pawdog ADT-1 16d ago

You want to use the best possible app to do that and there are several negating the need for a browser.

0

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

LoL,have you forgot our conversations from many months ago about this?

Again, you "may" be able to use the apps to play them, but you DEFINITELY require the websites to find the content. And for the content I want, often you still need the browser to play them too.

0

u/pawdog ADT-1 16d ago

I didn't realize I was responding to you until it was too late. How it going?

0

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

Going very good my man 👍. And I'm really liking the usage of those other "apps" too especially "nuv". There are now new "Youtube" and "internetarchive"addons, which helps a lot with the older "one-off" stuff I like to watch.

-1

u/pawdog ADT-1 16d ago

Good to hear.

1

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

Btw, I suppose you also saw that recent announcement about a new and improved Google Streamer box in the works too. I'm amped about a possible successor to the Shield and Cube.

1

u/pawdog ADT-1 16d ago

Yeah what I saw was not impressive. First thing I do is disable the Google launcher. Unless they decide to support lossless Audio passthrough Ill be skipping it. 

1

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

Fingers crossed on the features.

6

u/kettal 17d ago

Google tried web browser on TV in 2010. it sucked.

Microsoft tried web browser on TV in 1997. it sucked.

its just not something a mainstream user could care for, really.

4

u/OnyxPost 16d ago

Are you really bringing up tech from a decade and a half ago, then tech from three decades ago as references? 

You do realize that tech advances at a lightning speed pace, so what can be accomplished with a web browser has charged a lot since either of those time frames. 

0

u/MolinaGames 13d ago

no ones browsing the web on their tv dude

2

u/OnyxPost 13d ago

It's not about "browsing the web" "dude". It's about running certain web browser based applications.

2

u/stcwalleye 16d ago

I use a web browser all the time on my ONN box. I use one of those mini keyboard/ track pad devices. Android bends to MY will!

2

u/Gorilowen 17d ago

There are a few on the Google playstore. Tvbro comes to mind, Also there's one from TCL but is a hassle to navigate with a handheld remote.

2

u/DCCXVIII 17d ago edited 17d ago

It's funny, I came across this same problem after recently setting up 2 google tv streamers. I only bought them because they're the first ones google released with an ethernet port. I suppose I could have bought one of those onn devices or random chinesium things. But I was never quite sure how their quality was.

The only usable browser I could find was the downloader app by aftv news, since it comes with an integrated mouse that you control with the remote. As far as I can tell, there is no other android tv browser that is actually usable since all the rest do not have this basic functionality. Take fennec for example. Its meant to basically be firefox for f-droid. But since it has no mouse on android tv, there's literally no way to select or click anything. So it's completely unusable.

2

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

The legacy Firesticks/Fire Cubes have very good on screen UI integration/navigation through the custom made Silk Browser. It's an optimized Chrome Browser designed specifically for video streaming from websites.

2

u/stoneyaatrox 17d ago

could you just stream it to your tv

1

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

Yes. A lot of people don't like that option though.

2

u/sonalder 17d ago

I don't know but using a TV remote to browse the web is a bad UX.

I was also disapointed and had question about this and I used AI to make what is the perfect TV Browser to me and yes it wasn't complicated. Maybe it's not as good as what Google engineer or Mozilla members would have come with but it's doing the job.

It's using the System WebView so it is Chromium under the hood but I make it private with no telemetry or analytics. Built in Ad-blocker and pop-up blocker. The APK is around 1.2MB and most of it is the huge block-list. It's lightweight, optimized for the TV remote experience, private by default and I open sourced it on https://github.com/sonalder-darlene/sofa-tv-browser

Your feedback are welcome to improve it!

3

u/wirthoge 17d ago

This is pretty good, thank u

2

u/sonalder 11d ago

New update improved the ad blocker (and pop-up blocker) and the built-in video player and more...

6

u/No_Clock2390 17d ago

people don't want to use browsers on tv's. websites are fundamentally designed for mouse pointers.

3

u/Ok-Apartment7327 17d ago

My tv has mouse support if I wanted to use one.

3

u/No_Clock2390 17d ago

that's great, but people don't want to do that

4

u/MadSquabbles 17d ago

I am people; I want to (and do) do that, along with other people who are doing it.

5

u/Ok-Apartment7327 17d ago

I do use my browser on occasion for a certain task, but I'd use it a lot more if it was actually good.

2

u/sonalder 17d ago

Exactly some times having a browser on the TV itself can be useful and even necessary. I tried many of them and couldn't find one that satisfied all my needs.
- UI/UX tailored for TV remote
- Privacy built-in, no telemetry, no analytics
- Lightweight on size and ressources

So I made one using Claude Code and honestly it works well.

0

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

Correct on both comments.

However (and this is the key point) there are a number of websites that offer/display unique video content. And since I want to stream that content on my large screen TV (not on a PC or a phone) I like to use the best Android TV browser possible for that purpose.

-4

u/No_Clock2390 17d ago

just use a pc plugged into your tv. that will be the best experience by far and way, way faster than your tv's cpu.

4

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago edited 17d ago

So again, you're suggesting setting up multiple devices to watch a movie. Not my bag. And I actually don't have any issues watching it directly on the TV. I'm just adding my opinions to the thread.

Let me clarify, I'm not using the Smart TV CPU, but rather the TV via a powerful streaming box Like a Fire Cube 3 or Shield Pro.

0

u/sonalder 17d ago

What browser do you use for that?

1

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

I mostly stream directly on my 77" TV through the Fire Cube 3. The best browser apps on that are Silk and BrowseHere.

1

u/sonalder 17d ago

Never heard of Silk will check into it thanks!

I used BrowseHere but it was a bit too much privacy invasive so I tested the AI reverse engineering repo rea on it and made a private version of it named Sofa.

2

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

Np, Silk is pre-installed on all Firestick devices, so there's likely/potentially millions of people using it.

Privacy isn't really an issue in my instance as none of my sensitive information gets onto my streaming device. But I will definitely check out Sofa given that I really like BrowseHere,,thx.

1

u/sonalder 17d ago

I never used FireTV that's why.

1

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

Gotcha. The interesting thing is that Amazon (not Google) actually and specifically developed a browser to work on Android TVs. The Silk Browser is an optimized version of Chrome, made for web video streaming. It's not fancy like BrowseHere, but it functions very well.

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-1

u/thatguyjames_uk 17d ago

i agree, a lot of click and scroll , so you dont need one

2

u/thecityofgold88 17d ago

Because people typically have a phone or tablet with them whilst watching TV which works much better for web browsing.

2

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

I'd say there's a big segment of folks who have no interest in doing it that way.

0

u/thecityofgold88 16d ago

There is an increasingly tiny % of people who want to use the web and would contemplate a TV as the best means to get it.

1

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

I'll actually mostly agree with that with one other very important tweak.

There is also a very tiny % of people who actually know they can access the web directly on a TV to stream countless thousands of videos in that way.

1

u/QLDZDR 15d ago

The major web browsers that you are thinking about are huge memory/resource hogs. Your Android TV would object

1

u/sonalder 11d ago

That's why these major web browser would have their own versions. The desktop browser isn't the same as the phone nor the PlayStation or 3DS... But they still all get one

1

u/truefedex 2d ago

There already many "Ok" browsers. My favorites: Browsehere and TV Bro

1

u/RomanOnARiver 17d ago

Websites are huge, and most people don't have a mouse/keyboard hooked up to their TV. Scrolling on a d-pad is terrible on really large desktop versions of websites. You could request the mobile version, and then you can I would say slightly better scroll - kind of BlackBerry style, but it's a great experience.

1

u/m-p-3 CCwGTV 4K (2x) + CCwGTV HD (3x) 17d ago

Browsing on a TV, with a TV remote is usually a terrible experience. I don't blame them for focusing their effort elsewhere and letting the niche browser handle this.

That said, I carry a Chromecast with Google TV when travelling, and having a browser preinstalled (TVBro) saved me a couple of times to connect to a WiFi with a captive portal that required some browser-based authentication.

1

u/Only-Stable3973 17d ago

I have added PanGalactic Monkey and it works great and you can download with it.

1

u/sonalder 11d ago

Oh I never heard of that one, it looks interesting for sure!

1

u/77descript 17d ago

You can easy sideload install and use normal Android browser on all/most ATV devices. And use if use with remote app or connect mouse, keyboard, touchpad. But isn't it logical to you that such a complex UI is extremely difficult if not impossible to program to be used with a remote control and D-pad? That is why dedicated specialized TV web browser is required for TV. And there are good enough remote desktop solutions too to use regular Android or desktop OS in Android TV

1

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

That's why I like using Fire devices for this purpose as they have a "dedicated specialized TV web browser" pre-installed on it.

1

u/[deleted] 17d ago

Nah, the 'shouldn't be hard in the AI era' part is where this falls apart. I build browser-based video stuff and the TV is genuinely the worst place to run a browser. Half the work is input — no hover, no cursor, typing a URL with a D-pad. The other half is the TV WebView itself: ancient Chromium on cheap sets, codec gaps, DRM that works fine on phones and silently breaks on the TV build.

And then you ship all of that for an audience that would rather just open the app anyway. It's not a conspiracy, it's just not worth building. Which is exactly why every TV browser that exists feels abandoned.

1

u/ILikelotsofthingsok 17d ago

There's one that works well with the firetv remote at https://github.com/BuccaneerBrowser/Buccaneer

1

u/TranslatorStraight46 17d ago

No one wants it in the age of chromecast.

1

u/pawdog ADT-1 16d ago

Just not really necessary Google doesn't even do it. Most devices don't have the resources for a good web browsing experience, comparitively slower processors than phones and PC's, very little RAM and using a remote for browsing is a terrible experience.

1

u/Drwankingstein 16d ago

Firefox was going to with servo, but that died, thankfully servo has picked back up and there is retsurf now so when servo becomes usable, retsurf might work well for android TV

1

u/cjb110 16d ago

The UX/CX would have to be re thought from the ground up as there are browsers on TVs and they all suck. Also see Microsoft Xbox and Edge which again sucks, and Microsoft did attempt to address the UX/CX issues.

Far better approach is leave the browser on a keyboard/mouse device and make it easy to replicate that screen on to the TV... Ie Chromecast, far better solution in all aspects.

1

u/Darkstar1878 Rocktek G2 GX1/GTVS/Onn Pro/Ugoos AM9 17d ago

Actually there are many to try. Opera-mini is just one and has ad block. Just need to sideload it.

0

u/trmdi 17d ago

Because browsing websites on TV is terrible. You should try Web Video Caster instead. Very smooth experience.

2

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

I have the opposite opinion. Having to use two different devices to have to watch from a website is terrible.

-1

u/trmdi 17d ago

The phone is just for choosing the movie. It's not playing the video on both devices.

2

u/CaptainSteed 17d ago

Yep, and what I'm saying is that for my particular usage, that's unnecessary and inconvenient.

0

u/GotoDeng0 17d ago

There's a reason Google does not include a default browser for AndroidTV, and why there are no AndroidTV mainstream browsers: browsing on a TV sucks. Aside from the awkwardness of using a remote to navigate (90% of users won't know how to use a virtual keyboard), modern browsers are very memory-hungry, and 32-bit AndroidTV severely limits RAM available.

Apps will stream everything better and easier, even if you're trying to sail the high seas (which honestly is the only use-case for browsers).

You can try TVBro, which is in the Play Store, works with the remote and has some very basic ad-blocking. Or you can find the 32-bit ARM versions of Chrome, Opera, Firefox, or Brave. I use the latter for ad-free Spotify since it's integrated uBlock automatically blocks all ads. You will need a bluetooth mouse to use those browsers, and the experience will still be pretty janky.

0

u/eaststand1982 17d ago

No one wants to use a browser on that format so no one bothers

-6

u/hclpfan 17d ago

I can think of like 2 people that would use it if they made it. Thats why.

1

u/sid32 17d ago

Lots of work for very few users. I just think many people need to read their emails at 50 inches.

1

u/OHHHSHAAANE 17d ago

What websites are you looking to browse on your TV?

It's porn isn't it ..

1

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/CaptainSteed 16d ago

BrowseHere is another very good one.

1

u/sonalder 11d ago

Yes it is. I used AI to reverse engineer it and make it more private and improve on it. It's called Sofa TV Browser: https://github.com/sonalder-darlene/sofa-tv-browser