Introduction

Roku is one of the few streaming devices that is versatile, user-friendly, and has the potential to compete against similar products from big and powerful players in the market. According to Matthew Davies, one of the few flaws of Roku are the commercials that pop up every now and then and spoil your movie experience. You never know when they are coming. It may be while you are gaming or watching the popular “The Witcher” series on Netflix. The worst thing is that they eat up your network traffic and bring your internet speed down. Let’s check out a few ways to limit those commercials:

 

The Ways

 

1. Limit Ad-tracking - Advertisements are a major source of revenue for Roku. However, the design and execution are completely flawed. These ads are invasive and pop up without any warning and can destroy your kill streak while gaming or take away all the build-up before a climax scene. However, when you disable ad-tracking you can expect a bit of relief.

 

Ad-tracking is activated on all Roku devices by default and since the privacy settings are the same on all Roku devices, you can use this method on your Roku TV set, set-top box, or streaming stick. Head over to Settings>Privacy>Advertising. Here you will find a greyed-out option, “Limit Ad Tracking”. Enable this option and restart your device.

 

As an extra measure you can also reset the ad ID you find under the “Advertising” tab. It prevents advertisers from delivering custom ads to you based on your profile. The things you do in this step works for custom ads. However, you would be prone to generic ads.

 

2. Blocking ads on your router - Okay, you have stopped targeted ads from popping up. Well done. However, to put a stop to those generic ads that still pop up, you need to take the help of your router. This won’t stop all ads but reduces them significantly. 

 

Go to your router’s Advanced option and choose Security. There should be an option that allows you to “Block sites containing these keywords or domain name”. Click on that and add http://cloudservices.roku.com/ as well as http://analytichtpp/cloufservices.roku.com to the block list. If you have options like Enterprise Advertising & Analytics Solution, enable that option. Restart your device and the frequency of ads should be reduced.

 

3. Disabling Interactive Commercials - Since the 9.2 updates, Roku has been shoving interactive ads onto your devices. If regular ads weren’t a headache already, these set of commercials were a nightmare. One of the only positive facts about these ads was that they showed up during commercials breaks. To turn them off go to Settings>Privacy>Smart TV Experience and disable “Use Info from the TV Input” option. Restart the device and those ads should be buried.

 

Conclusion

Matthew Davies believes that commercials aren’t really annoying if they are designed and delivered properly. However, commercials on Roku are way beyond annoying and with these tricks, you should be able to get rid of most of them.