[Fire TV General] psymsi:
Edit: WARNING A few reports of AdAway temporarily stopping the service. You could possibly double up with Adguard or a similar connection blocker. But it's not going to be 100%. Router blocking or a Pi-Hole setup is going to be more secure, so only use this as a temporary measure.

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I have been able to block FireTV updates using the latest AdAway. It still has the normal rooted method for the lucky folks (edit hosts) but now has VPN "emulation" for those without root. This supposedly uses "VPN API but does not connect to a VPN server" like with editing the DNS but all local to the device. It's open source, on XDA, and has been around forever, so I trust it more than the OpenDNS option.

I don't know how well this works and for how long, but update checks are coming back with errors. It also has a request logger and shows softwareupdates.amazon.com is being triggered & denied. No other domains are checked by the updater after that one fails FWIW.

Latest version 5.11.0

https://xdaforums.com/t/app-root-nonroot-official-adaway-v5-11-0.2190753/

TLDR setup: Sideload it, select the VPN option during setup, let it sync their block lists (mine kept going, so I just force closed and restarted after a few min), add the 5 domains under the router block method here: AFTV, ensure it's set to autostart in preferences. I also turned on "monitor connection" and IPv6 support but may not be needed. Restart.

INSTALL / SETUP​

Sideload it

Select the VPN option during first run. I had to use my remote w/cursor but may be able to get around this if you just click ok after moving around a bit or force close it and can get it to start up w/out setup.

Let it sync their default block lists. Mine kept going, so I force closed AdAway after a few minutes.

ADDING AMAZON UPDATE DOMAINS​

On the main page, select "Blocked" at the top. Add these from the AFTV article then hit APPLY.

If there are any more, please share. This seems to do the trick though, and the built-in logger doesn't show any other connections triggered when softwareupdates.amazon.com fails. If this prevents another app from working, you can add the app to the exclude list in preferences.

PREFERENCES​

Go to Preferences (bottom left) -> click VPN based ad blocker

Make sure it's enabled at startup

I also selected monitor connection and IPv6 support but no idea if its needed

You can exclude apps. Useful if something isn't working OR one of the domains they block by default messes with an app.

Restart the device

Once you're back up, check the notifications and there should be a persistent notification for AdAway, showing it is active. Go check for an update in the FireTV settings. It should show a connection error.

OPTIONAL AUTOMATION​

If you're super paranoid and want to get fancy, AdAway also responds to external commands. If you use something like Tasker or Automagic, you can send intents to start & stop the service. Example workflow: periodically test the update URLs, if they come back with a normal response then AdAway isn't blocking and probably isn't active, send start service intent.

Automation

AdAway is a free and open source ad blocker for Android. - AdAway/AdAway

github.com