Cleaning up a TCL Android TV

TCL was among the first manufacturers to bet heavily on Android TV at the budget end. The result, ten years on, is millions of televisions that work perfectly and carry an Android version that stopped being updated a long time ago.

What to look for on a TCL

TCL's own packages tend to start with one of these prefixes:

• com.tcl.*
• com.tclmodule.*
• com.tianci.* — the software layer TCL uses internally
• com.ffalcon.* — FFalcon is TCL's sister brand

To see them all at once:

adb shell pm list packages | grep -iE "tcl|tianci|ffalcon"

The usual suspects

On TCL sets running Android 8 and 9 you will frequently find content-recognition services and sponsored recommendation engines. You will spot them by words like acr, recommend, ad, promo or dataservice in the name.

Do not remove them blind. On some TCL models the update service is tangled into the same package that handles recommendations, and removing one leaves you without the other.

What almost always comes off

Preinstalled streaming apps and shop demonstration modes. TCL's demo modes are particularly insistent and usually carry retail or shop in the name.

What does not

Anything containing tianci.launcher, unless you have installed another launcher first. You will be looking at a black screen.

Common models

The ones we hear about most are the P8 series (43P8M, 50P8M, 55P8M), the EP series and the C71. If you have one, send us the model: they are the first we want to close out in the directory.

Before you start

Save the original list and go one at a time. The method is here, and the way back is here.