Block YouTube Ads on TV

I hate advertisements especially on YouTube when they are playing on the TV especially when they are now “unskippable” and I have to watch them for fifteen seconds without being able to skip them. Even skippable ads are also annoying because if you just put down the remote to play that long 10-hour ambiance you have to get up every half an hour to grab the remote and skip them. Recently I found an amazing application for blocking youtube ads and at the same time adding some other pretty cool features.

The application is called Smart Tube Next, Originally I found it after googling a while and found it on one of the many APK sites. But as I later realized there is a Github official version that had the latest updates and not the beta version. According to their Github page they currently support these different devices:

To install all you need is the Downloader AFTNews app for fireTV, once installed use the built-in browser within the download app and type 28544 into the search bar, and hit enter. It will start downloading and prompting to ask for security confirmations, accept all prompts and the app should pop up in your App Library. (for more info on installing the application or for help read the README document on the Github page)

As well as blocking Ads Smart Tube Next has a feature where it auto skips the sponsors/intro outro parts in videos, which is surprisingly useful! Of course, you can always disable it in the settings. One flaw in the app is the lack of voice command support for youtube searches. For example, in my experience, I can’t say “open youtube” when pressing the voice command button on the fire tv remote. all it will do is find the youtube app on the Amazon app store. But I found that in SmartTubeNext if I’m in the search bar I can say “some music video, on youtube” and that seems to work for me most of the time. Overall for me, it’s definitely a great alternative to the regular YouTube app on the fire tv.