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Sony Bravia (Google TV / Android TV)

Every current Sony Bravia runs Google TV or Android TV [8], so the platform work lives in google-android-tv. Read that page for the DNS path, ADB setup, the VpnService approach and the Google endpoint set. This page covers what changes on a Sony.

Two things matter more than the rest. tv.samba.ssm is Samba TV, the genuine content recognition package on a Sony set, described in the community Sony debloat work as ad tracking and viewing data collection [1][7]. Disabling it is the highest-value single action available on this hardware.

And the widely shared Sony debloat one-liner removes com.android.vpndialogs, which permanently destroys your ability to run any network monitoring app on that television [1][7]. Read the Tier 3 warning before you paste anything from the internet into a shell.

Covers: Sony Bravia televisions running Google TV or Android TV Also sold as: nothing. Other Google TV brands are in google-android-tv and tcl. How far you can get: Tier 3. ADB package disabling works. Root does not exist for Sony TV hardware.

What this device sends home

Samba TV also supplies recognition on Toshiba sets and, through flingo.tv, on some Philips sets [2][9], so one blocklist entry covers three brands.

The ssm<N>.internet.sony.tv hosts carry a 32-character hexadecimal prefix per device [2]. A hostname that identifies the individual television is the pattern this project’s collector redacts to {id} before anything is published. See PRIVACY.md.

The one piece of direct evidence from a Sony television rather than from a package list is a bug report filed against Blokada, which carries a log from a Sony Android TV blocking googleads.g.doubleclick.net and securepubads.g.doubleclick.net [3]. It confirms the traffic on this hardware, and it shows that a VpnService-based tool runs on an Android television.

Google’s platform telemetry is a research gap. It is co-mingled with load-bearing *.googleapis.com hosts, the community has isolated only the three -pa hostnames above, and HaGeZi publishes no list for Google or Android TV [10][7]. Do not wildcard googleapis.com.

Tier 0: settings only

Time: about 5 minutes. Risk: none. Reversible: yes.

What this breaks: nothing we have documented. Recommendations on the home row get less personal.

Turn off content recognition

Sony’s settings-level equivalent of disabling tv.samba.ssm is the Samba TV consent, usually presented during setup and commonly labelled Samba Interactive TV. We have no verified menu path for it on any Sony firmware. Not yet documented. See Open questions.

If you cannot find the toggle, Tier 3 removes the package outright, which is a stronger result anyway.

Turn off ad tracking and personalisation

Google’s own documentation page for these settings could not be located during research, which is why both rows are unconfirmed [7]. The rest of the platform settings are in google-android-tv.

Other settings worth changing

Not yet documented for Sony specifically. See Open questions for the microphone and voice paths we lack.

What this does not fix: the Samba TV package keeps running whether or not you found its consent toggle, unless you disable it in Tier 3. Opting out has been measured as genuinely effective on Samsung and LG [4], never on a Sony.

Tier 1: DNS

Time: 30 minutes at the router. Risk: none to the TV. Reversible: yes.

On the device

Android TV has DNS fields, bundled with a full static IP.

The screens carry the placeholder text “Enter a valid IP address or leave empty. Example: 8.8.8.8”, which is how you know you are in the right flow [5]. Sony ships its own settings skin over AOSP, so the wording may differ on your set and that is worth a bug report.

Stock Android TV has no Private DNS preference in its settings XML, even though the framework has supported it since Android 9 [5][7]. The ADB workaround is in google-android-tv. Whether Sony exposes it is UNVERIFIED.

At the router

Read Why do it at the router and Router enforcement. The short version for this platform: hand your resolver out with DHCP option 6, redirect outbound TCP and UDP port 53, reject port 853, and mirror all of it on IPv6 [7]. 68% of the smart TVs in a 200-plus-home study reached Google Public DNS directly instead of the resolver they were handed [6], and Chromecast before Google TV hardcodes 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in the same code lineage [7], so do not trust the field on the TV.

What to block

The endpoint sets live in data/endpoints/sony.yml and data/endpoints/google.yml, with a breakage flag per entry, rather than being duplicated here. If you block one thing on a Sony, block *.samba.tv.

Generated lists: blocklists/fightback-tv-sony.txt

What never to block

Four entries are Sony’s own. The platform set, which includes *.googleapis.com, play.google.com, *.gvt1.com, the connectivity-check hosts and time.google.com, is in google-android-tv. Do not wildcard googleapis.com.

Note that update.biv.sony.tv and service.biv.sony.tv sit under the same biv.sony.tv domain as the telemetry hosts reg.biv.sony.tv and social.biv.sony.tv. Do not wildcard biv.sony.tv, or you trade your ad blocking for firmware updates.

Hardcoded addresses

None documented for Sony. LG sets are known to dial bare IP addresses that DNS filtering cannot touch [7], so the same WAN-side capture is worth running here. Findings belong in data/hardcoded/sony.yml.

Tier 2: developer mode and sideloading

Covered in google-android-tv. There is nothing Sony-specific to add, and duplicating it here would give us two copies to keep correct.

Tier 3: disable preinstalled advertising and metrics apps

Time: 1 hour. Risk: medium. A wrong package can stop the TV booting. Reversible: yes, by re-enabling or factory reset.

Read this before anything else in this section.

☠️ Never run pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.vpndialogs. That package is the system VPN consent dialog. Remove it and VpnService.prepare() can never be granted again on that television, so no network monitoring or DNS filtering app will ever work on it [1][7]. The most widely shared Sony debloat one-liner contains exactly that command [1]. If you have already run it, a factory reset is the only documented recovery.

☠️ A VPN service caused boot loops on some older Sony firmware [7]. If you are planning to run a VpnService-based tool, know that before you start rather than after.

Prefer pm disable-user over uninstall. It is reversible with one command and it survives less awkwardly.

adb connect <ip>:5555
adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 tv.samba.ssm

Safe to disable

Package safety is per model. These come from data/packages/android-tv.yml, which records the models each entry was tested on and refuses to emit a command for an untested one [9]:

The last three are generic Android TV rather than Sony, and the same entries apply on TCL, Hisense and Philips Android TV sets [9].

Leave com.google.android.tungsten.setupwraith alone. It is widely recommended as a telemetry removal and it is the Android TV Setup Wizard and fallback launcher [7]. See google-android-tv.

Do not disable

com.google.android.tvrecommendations is the primary safe-debloat target in a TCL toolkit and a documented boot loop in the Sony guide [7]. Both are probably correct for their own hardware, which is why this project gates package data per model and why you should not run a list written for another brand. See tcl for the other side of that contradiction.

Undoing it

adb shell pm enable tv.samba.ssm

If the TV will not boot, a factory reset restores every package. Recovering a set that boot-loops before the network comes up needs the physical recovery procedure for your model, which we do not document.

Tier 4: root and custom firmware

Risk: high. Warranty: void. We do not publish the steps.

Sony television hardware has a locked bootloader, and no root or custom firmware project exists for it [7], so there is nothing to link. The one device in this category with a supported unlock is the Nvidia Shield, which LineageOS supports as foster and for which NVIDIA publishes stock recovery images [7]. That is a streaming box, not a Sony television.

What root gets you: on a Sony TV, nothing available today. What it costs you: not applicable, there is no path. Where to go: nowhere. See LEGAL.md for our policy if that changes.

What breaks, by tier

Verify it worked

Do not assume a block is working because you configured it. Follow Verify it works. For this platform, the check that matters most is watching your resolver’s query log for samba.tv and flingo.tv. Those are the Samba TV endpoints [2], so a query count that drops to zero after you disable tv.samba.ssm is direct proof, and a count that stays up means the package is still running or something else on the TV is doing the asking.

googleads.g.doubleclick.net gives you a second signal, and it has been observed on real Sony hardware [3].

Start the capture before the TV boots. Most DNS requests fire in the first seconds after activation [7].

Open questions

Answer any of these with a Sony in front of you and it is a direct contribution. Use the device report form.

• How often does tv.samba.ssm contact samba.tv? We have the hostnames from Perflyst [2] and no cadence at all. Samsung and LG cadences were measured to the millisecond [4]. Nobody has done that for Samba TV on a Sony, and it is the highest-value measurement available on this hardware.
• Where is the Samba TV consent toggle in Sony’s menus, what is it called, and on which firmware?
• Does that toggle stop traffic to samba.tv, or only change what Samba does with the data? Opt-out was measured as effective on Samsung and LG [4], never here.
• Does content recognition keep running when a Sony is used as a plain HDMI display? Confirmed on Samsung and LG [4].
• Does Sony’s settings skin expose a Private DNS preference, and does the AOSP static-IP wording match it? Both UNVERIFIED [5][7].
• Which older Sony firmware versions boot-loop with a VpnService app active, and which are fine? [7]
• Is com.google.android.tvrecommendations a boot loop on every Sony model, or only some? [7]

Sources

1. sony-google-tv-debloat. The tv.samba.ssm identification, the diagnostics package list, the boot-loop warnings, and the com.android.vpndialogs trap.
2. Perflyst, PiHoleBlocklist SmartTV.txt. MIT, stale since 13 July 2023. Source of the Samba TV, ndmdhs.com, internet.sony.tv and biv.sony.tv hostnames and of every never-block consequence in the table above.
3. Blokada issue 134. Log from a Sony Android TV blocking googleads.g.doubleclick.net and securepubads.g.doubleclick.net.
4. Anselmi et al., IMC 2024, Watching TV with the Second-Party.
5. AOSP TvSettings. AdvancedWifiOptionsFlow.java and strings.xml for the DNS flow, network.xml for the absent Private DNS preference.
6. Mazhar and Shafiq, IoTDI 2020, Characterizing Smart Home IoT Traffic in the Wild §IV-C.
7. Project research notes, Google Android TV section and cross-cutting facts.
8. Project research notes, “Which OS is it” table.
9. Project endpoint and package data, data/endpoints/sony.yml and data/packages/android-tv.yml, where every entry carries its own upstream source and per-model scope.
10. HaGeZi, dns-blocklists. GPL-3.0. No Google or Android TV list.

Found something wrong on your model? A corrected menu path is the most useful contribution this project gets.
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