Remove bloatware from a Thomson Go TV without root
The Thomson Go range are portable touchscreen TVs on a stand with a battery. They do not run Android TV or Google TV: they run tablet Android, so they come with phone-style preinstalled apps that you will never use on a TV. android-cleanup-agent detects them as the tablet-tv class.
This guide follows a real run on a Thomson Go Plus Pro (Android 14, Rockchip RK3576, 8 GB RAM). The Thomson catalog entry used here (the screen-cast receiver) is marked as verified on this device.
What the audit found
- The TV had been running for 76 days without a restart.
- Preinstalled apps that had never been opened were still running in the background. The Calendar app had woken the device about 64 times to refresh its widgets. Prime Video and the Google app sat in memory.
- The real usage was YouTube and Netflix. Those were named as the main apps in the interview, so they were protected and opened during every health check.
What was changed
| Change | Count / detail |
|---|---|
Unused apps removed (pm uninstall -k --user, data kept) |
17 |
| Apps turned off (disabled) | 4: the Google app, Speech Services by Google, the Thomson screen-cast receiver, Digital Wellbeing |
| Animations | Halved (0.5×), because menus felt slow |
| Radios and scanning | Bluetooth off, location off, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth background scanning off |
| Caches | 2.1 GB of app caches cleared (logins and settings kept) |
| Restart | Yes, after the changes |
The Google app is a high-risk item, so it needed its own yes and was turned off alone, followed by a health check: press Home, open YouTube and Netflix, read the crash log. It passed. Had it failed, it would have been turned back on automatically.
Bluetooth off is offered on tablet-class devices like this one only if you say you do not use Bluetooth. On Android TV and Google TV it is never offered, because the remote uses it. Turning off the screen-cast receiver is skipped if you say you use cast.
The result
RAM in use went from 2.74 GB to 1.91 GB, measured right after the restart. Be fair about that number: part of the drop is simply the fresh restart after 76 days. What the cleanup changes is that the never-used apps no longer come back into memory or wake the device as the days go by.
Restarting a Thomson Go TV
The Thomson menus have no Restart option. A hidden power menu exists, with Go out screen, Shutdown and Restart; holding the power button may show it. Or let the tool do it once nothing is playing:
android-cleanup-agent reboot --yesRestarting every few weeks helps on its own. The audit shows the days since the last restart, so you can see when it is due.
The commands
android-cleanup-agent connect --host 192.168.1.50
android-cleanup-agent audit --summary
android-cleanup-agent plan --uses typing --power mixed --symptoms slow-menus,storage --keep com.google.android.youtube,com.netflix.mediaclient
android-cleanup-agent approvals init
android-cleanup-agent approvals set --category google-apps=true --category oem-apps=true --category performance=true
android-cleanup-agent apply
android-cleanup-agent apply --yes
android-cleanup-agent reboot --yes
android-cleanup-agent resultsThe IP address and answers are examples; use your own. With the Claude Code plugin, /android-cleanup-agent:cleanup asks the same questions in conversation.
Undo
Everything above except the cleared caches can be undone with android-cleanup-agent restore --yes, or with the restore.sh script saved with the run. Removed apps come back with cmd package install-existing; disabled apps are turned back on; settings return to their previous values. A factory reset also brings all the apps back.