IMHO, Android still has the best ecosystem of TV remote navigateable apps. The problem is just Google.
I have a ‘Google TV’ android based TV.
It started out terrible, but after removing or disabling almost all apps and installing couple replacements, it’s great now.
Most importantly:
- FLauncher replaces the Google launcher and thereby removes almost all ads and ‘recommendations’
- TV Bro is a FOSS webbrowser for TVs that has build-in add-blocking
- SmartTube is a Foss YouTube client that just works great and brings Add- and Sponsor block
- Stremio with Debrid Media Manager and Torrentio (both using a Debrid service!) for streaming in general
- Jellyfin if you have a home server
All of that is FOSS and would work completely without Googles involvement, if you find a way to flash a custom ROM onto a TV or TV box.
Alternatively: Anything with an ‘air mouse’.
An alternative to Android, I have used before, was just Linux with oversized app icons and then a G20s (Pro) remote. These cheap chinese G20s remotes work great as a mouse, similar to a Wii mote. Especially with the G20s Pro you can even set numerical passwords for everything and then just type it on the remote. They also have microphone that only works when you press the button. So if you have some tts service on you device, this is also a solution. I haven’t found a solution for it yet, but I believe, using T9 typing as a text input would also be a great solution when using these remotes.
There are also air mouse with a full keyboard built in, like the W1, W3, Q40… But I think, they are all a bit too heavy and too big, feel clumsy at the slight benefit of having a keyboard.
And then there are devices like the A8, which are just small keyboards with a touchpad, that also work as an air mouse, but fail as a remote IMHO. But that entirely depends, on how much typing you want to do on your TV.




I’m running e/OS in my old Poco F3 right now.
I switched from LineageOS because I though, e/OS would be easier to ungoogle.
In the end, it just defaults to way more compromises than I would have made on LineageOS.
Over all, it’s actually just LineageOS with MicroG preinstalled, a really bad launcher, an ugly 2015-ish iPhone icon theme, and a few mediocre apps preinstalled, that use these ‘Murena’ services that claim to be an alternative to Google services, but they are neither more secure/foss nor reliable.
Their appstore is rather Bad. Yes, it essentially combines something like APKMirror and F-Droid in one app, but it requests a Google account to access PlayStore Apps.
Imho, LineageOS with MicroG, no GApps, F-Droid and APKMirror and a few foss apps is the better solution.
I have my sync services selfhosted through a NAS and simply use WebDAV (backups), CardDAV and CalDAV. This was harder to set up in e/OS than in basic LineageOS, because e/OS is trying to push their own Murena services for that. And if I didn’t have all of these selfhosted, I’d rather use Proton services instead of Murena.
Over all, really sketchy. It’s like a custom Rom that claims privacy but actually just wants you to möge to their own service.