Why Claude cleaning the bloatware from your TV is not the best idea

Even fresh out of the box, most smart TVs are clogged with unnecessary software, including unwanted apps and adware. One developer recently had enough, and gave AI agent Claude full access and instructions to debloat his TV.

Mert Cobanov gave Claude a series of debloating requests and posted about it on X, saying that his four-year-old TV is now running better than ever. He encourages followers to follow his workflow, publishing it completely online. But even if you’re frustrated with your smart device, it’s not necessarily the best practice to hang up and let it go – as we well know, agents often make mistakes and are less likely to admit they don’t know the answers. Let’s explore why auto-debloating can go wrong, and check out some options for streamlining your TV that don’t involve leaving an AI agent to its own devices.

Smart TVs are becoming more common: By the end of 2026, more than 50 percent of households are expected to own one—up from 34 percent in 2020. But chances are good that your TV comes with some preloaded software you don’t want or need. Samsung TVs, for example, ship with about 20 percent of the total storage already taken up by its operating system. The majority of preloaded software consists of streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video – and some companies even prevent customers from installing them.

Another major source of bloatware is software that enables data collection about user behavior for advertising purposes, including Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) – which regularly captures screenshots of content on users’ TVs. Not only has such software led connected TVs to become a “privacy nightmare” for viewers, as the Center for Digital Democracy concluded, it can also slow down your operating system.

Many users are looking for ways to reduce the amount of unused software on their smart TVs. In Cobanov’s case, he opened developer options on his Android TV, then told Claude to connect and debloat. His Claude prompt, which he published in its entirety online, instructed the agent not to uninstall anything, but instead to disable unused applications, shorten animation duration and keep a record of all actions for later review.

Cobanov also criticized Google TV’s home screen, which he said is mostly full of ads and “recommended for you” content. He instead installed FLauncher, a free and open source app available on the Play Store that simply displays a grid of the TV’s apps.

“The big payoff was that the TV now runs smoother than when it was new, four years ago,” Cobanov posted on X, adding that he did it all without root access.

While Cobanov included some safeguards in his prompt to prevent Claude from overriding and disabling important applications, users should be careful when following his lead. Claude’s full debugging access risks making your TV unstable or unusable – AI is prone to errors, and if it hallucinates or makes a wrong move, you risk disabling a critical component. If key packages are uninstalled or disabled, your TV may not be able to perform system updates in the future. What’s more, AI prompts can also be hacked by malicious actors.

While the complete overhaul of a Smart TV with Claude seems to have worked for Cobanov, it is not always necessary: ​​sometimes freeing up memory can be as simple as clearing your cache, without app deletion or deactivation required.

And as is often the case with AI, most of what has been done to debug this developer’s TV is – and safer – for a human to do manually. FLauncher, the app intended to replace the Google home screen, is available to download without giving Claude system access. Other apps are readily available in the Google Play Store that can perform similar functions, allowing you to choose which packages on your TV you want to run and which you don’t.

To make the TV faster, you can adjust a number of settings under the hood to change functions that slow down the device. Many of these can be accessed in the Developer Options section of the Android TV “Settings” app. Once enabled, you can adjust animation-related controls, lowering them from 1x to 0.5x to make your TV faster and more responsive. You can also disable autoplaying videos on your home screen, disable usage diagnostics, and enable “apps only” mode.