README.md
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# Hisense VIDAA DNS Clean TV Blocklist
_Русская версия: [README.ru.md](README.ru.md)_
A structured and annotated DNS blocklist for Hisense televisions running VIDAA.
The list is designed for AdGuard Home and other DNS filters that support AdGuard-style rules. Its purpose is to reduce or disable advertising, promotional recommendations, telemetry, analytics, message services, voice services, and other optional cloud traffic generated by VIDAA.
This repository began as a practical blocklist built from real DNS observations on an earlier Hisense television. The current extended edition preserves those working legacy endpoints and adds a broader, categorized set of endpoints observed on a later, different Hisense television with 2026-generation VIDAA firmware.
The two devices do not necessarily use the same endpoints. A rule marked as
`observed on the newer 2026-generation TV` is a real DNS observation; the
hostname's functional description can still be inferred unless otherwise stated.
Private DNS blocklist for a Hisense Smart TV running VIDAA OS in Europe / Germany.
This list is made for a TV used mostly as a clean Smart TV screen for apps like YouTube and Netflix, without German live TV, HbbTV, Red Button, VIDAA Free channels, recommendations, promo tiles, banners, and other home-screen clutter.
## Get the list
Add the list as a blocklist URL: you get every future update on a filter refresh and there is
nothing to download by hand.
```text
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ipanalytics/Hisense-VIDAA-DNS-Clean-TV-Blocklist/main/Blocked_Domains_AdGuard.txt
```
AdGuard Home: **Filters → DNS blocklists → Add blocklist → Add a custom list**, paste the URL,
name it `Hisense VIDAA`, save, then **Update filters**. Pi-hole and other DNS filters take the same
URL; use [`Blocked_Domains.txt`](Blocked_Domains.txt) if your filter wants plain hostnames without AdGuard syntax.
After a filter refresh the home screen stops loading ads, promo and recommendation tiles, VIDAA Free
promos and telemetry, while YouTube and Netflix keep working. If something you need breaks, remove
the list and refresh the filters — nothing on the TV is modified.
## Tested Environment
- Region: Europe / Germany
- TV brand: Hisense
- TV OS: VIDAA
- DNS blocker: AdGuard Home
- Device DNS: TV points to a local Raspberry Pi running AdGuard Home
- Main goal: clean VIDAA home screen and reduce telemetry/recommendation traffic
## What This Blocks
This list targets Hisense / VIDAA domains related to:
- VIDAA home-screen recommendations
- VIDAA Free / FAST channel tiles
- promo and e-commerce tiles
- UI recommendation layouts
- telemetry / journal endpoints
- A/B testing
- voice / IoT telemetry
- device status reporting
- image/banner CDN used by VIDAA recommendations
- Hisense / VIDAA launcher and message endpoints
The result on my TV:
- VIDAA home screen became much cleaner
- recommendation rows disappeared
- empty recommendation boxes disappeared
- Free TV / channel promo tiles disappeared
- YouTube still works
- Netflix still works
## Current scope
The extended list currently contains:
- **137 active rules**
- **43 documented but disabled rules**
- **180 total domain rules**
`Blocked_Domains_AdGuard.txt` is the canonical list. Every rule has a nearby
one-line annotation; descriptions explicitly distinguish inferred behaviour from
observed behaviour. `Blocked_Domains.txt` is a generated human-readable reference
and must not be edited by hand.
Regenerate and validate it after changes:
```sh
awk -f scripts/generate-reference-blocklist.awk Blocked_Domains_AdGuard.txt > Blocked_Domains.txt
bash scripts/validate-blocklists.sh
```
## Functional groups
### 1. Advertising, impressions, and promotional assets
These endpoints are associated with advertising, campaign components, impression reporting, shopping cards, promotional images, and other commercial material.
Typical effect:
- fewer promotional rows;
- fewer advertising images;
- reduced impression reporting;
- a cleaner VIDAA Home screen.
Possible side effect:
- application icons or artwork may briefly appear as empty placeholders after startup;
- YouTube and Netflix icons may load only after several seconds;
- the launcher may wait for a blocked resource and then use a cache or fallback.
### 2. Recommendations and Home feeds
These endpoints appear to provide content recommendations, launcher suggestions, carousels, discovery feeds, and personalized Home-screen rows.
Typical effect:
- recommendation rows disappear;
- promoted content is reduced;
- the Home screen becomes less cluttered.
Possible side effect:
- empty placeholders;
- delayed launcher rendering;
- short request timeouts before fallback data appears.
### 3. Telemetry, logging, analytics, and device detection
These endpoints are associated with logging SDKs, device detection, regional selection, metrics, analytics, event reporting, and cloud diagnostics.
Typical effect:
- reduced diagnostic uploads;
- reduced usage-event reporting;
- reduced network and device telemetry;
- fewer analytics requests.
A television may retain events locally when DNS requests fail and retry them later. Therefore, temporarily disabling DNS blocking may allow queued events to be transmitted. This behavior depends on firmware and is not publicly documented by Hisense.
### 4. Message, push, and notification services
These endpoints provide regional and general message infrastructure.
Typical effect:
- fewer promotional messages;
- reduced push traffic;
- fewer server-side notices.
Possible side effect:
- legitimate system notifications may also disappear;
- some background services may no longer receive remote events.
### 5. Voice and assistant services
These endpoints support cloud-based voice recognition, VIDAA Assistant, and related authentication.
They can be blocked when voice input and cloud assistants are not used.
Possible side effect:
- voice search stops working;
- VIDAA Voice or assistant features fail;
- Alexa-linked functions may no longer operate.
### 6. Application store and catalog services
These endpoints provide application metadata, application artwork, and VIDAA Store functions.
Possible effect:
- the application store becomes unavailable;
- application artwork or icons may not load;
- installation and updates of applications may fail.
### 7. Regional and legacy endpoints
This section contains regional endpoints retained from the original working blocklist.
They include older `EU`, `EM`, and `NA` authentication, messaging, launcher, and API endpoints. Some may no longer be queried by newer firmware, but they remain useful for compatibility with older televisions and regional fallback behavior.
### 8. OTA, firmware, and system updates
These rules are included but disabled by default.
They cover update checks, firmware downloads, launcher updates, backup update servers, and VIDAA OTA infrastructure.
They can be enabled when the goal is to prevent automatic or background update access.
A practical manual workflow is:
1. keep update endpoints blocked during normal use;
2. temporarily disable the relevant blocklist or update rules;
3. run a manual update check on the television;
4. install an update if required;
5. enable the rules again.
### 9. Authentication, account, and licensing
These rules are included but disabled by default.
They may be required for:
- VIDAA Account;
- authentication tokens;
- cloud profiles;
- application licensing;
- protected services;
- application-store access.
Blocking them can remove unwanted account traffic, but it can also break legitimate platform functionality.
### 10. Core Home, launcher, layout, icons, and resources
These rules are included but disabled by default because they can alter the central VIDAA user interface.
They may control:
- Home-screen layout;
- launcher configuration;
- application ordering;
- channel cards;
- icon files;
- image assets;
- remote launcher resources.
Blocking them may create the observed behavior where application placeholders appear immediately, while YouTube and Netflix icons arrive only three to five seconds later.
Candidate endpoints related to that behavior include:
```text
icon-launcher.hismarttv.com
pic-launcher.hismarttv.com
resource-launcher.hismarttv.com
cdn-home-launcher.hismarttv.com
```
These names are inferred candidates. Their use must be confirmed through the DNS query log of the specific television and firmware.
### 11. Time, region, and connectivity
These rules are included but disabled by default.
They may provide:
- NTP or system time;
- regional backend selection;
- IP-based geolocation;
- connectivity checks;
- captive-portal detection.
Blocking them may affect:
- system time;
- TLS certificate validation;
- EPG data;
- application startup;
- regional services.
### 12. DRM, media, and content delivery
These rules are included but disabled by default.
They may be involved in:
- DRM;
- playback authorization;
- Widevine;
- certificates;
- streaming manifests;
- content catalogs;
- media delivery.
Blocking them may break Netflix, VIDAA Channels, protected applications, HDR, or Dolby Vision playback.
### 13. Third-party TV, HbbTV, and FAST-service rules
This active group contains TV-labelled rules taken from a separate custom DNS
list: HbbTV / Red Button services, broadcaster applications, connected-TV
advertising, and audience measurement. They are not claimed to be VIDAA platform
endpoints. Allow individual domains if a required broadcaster or application stops
working.
### 14. Third-party TV-app and FAST-content blocking
This active group blocks TV-labelled streaming-app endpoints such as DAZN,
Rakuten TV, Kidoodle.TV, and Haystack News. It intentionally disables unused
online channels and their sign-in, catalog, artwork, or media services.
### 15. Root-domain wildcards
The root-domain rules are included only as aggressive manual options and remain disabled.
Examples:
```text
! ||hismarttv.com^
! ||vidaahub.com^
! ||vidaa.com^
```
Enabling them blocks almost the entire corresponding cloud namespace and can disable most VIDAA online functionality.
## Why application icons may load late
On a blocked setup, VIDAA may show placeholders for YouTube, Netflix, or other applications during the first seconds after startup.
A likely sequence is:
1. the launcher starts with a locally stored layout;
2. the launcher requests remote icon or resource data;
3. the DNS request is blocked;
4. the launcher waits for a timeout or fallback path;
5. a cached, embedded, or alternative icon is displayed.
The exact hostname responsible may vary by firmware. The extended blocklist therefore documents icon and launcher-resource candidates but leaves the most disruptive ones disabled by default.
## AdGuard Home installation
1. Open **Filters**.
2. Open **DNS blocklists**.
3. Select **Add blocklist**.
4. Select **Add a custom list**.
5. Enter a descriptive name.
6. Paste the raw GitHub URL for `Blocked_Domains_AdGuard.txt`.
7. Save the list.
8. Update filters.
The repository list is intentionally device-independent. It does not contain `$client` restrictions and can be used as a normal additional list in an existing AdGuard Home installation.
## Updating and maintenance
Newer VIDAA firmware may introduce new hostnames, regional variants, CDNs, launcher resources, or telemetry endpoints.
Useful sources for maintenance are:
- AdGuard Home Query Log;
- DNS requests captured during first startup;
- requests generated when opening Home;
- application-store activity;
- manual firmware-update checks;
- sleep and wake cycles;
- voice-service activation;
- recommendation and advertising refreshes.
When adding a new domain, record:
- the complete hostname;
- the action that triggered it;
- whether blocking changes visible behavior;
- whether any unrelated feature breaks;
- the firmware generation or approximate TV year;
- the functional group to which it belongs.
For a candidate imported from a personal or mixed-device DNS list, also record
that source and keep it disabled until it is confirmed by a TV query log. Do not
add unrelated Mac, iPhone, browser, torrent, or streaming-service allow rules to
this device-independent list.
## Testing method
A practical domain-classification process is:
1. capture the baseline DNS traffic;
2. perform one television action;
3. identify new hostnames;
4. block one hostname or one coherent group;
5. repeat the same action;
6. record the visual and functional result;
7. keep the rule only when the result is understood.
Examples of actions:
- cold boot;
- opening Home;
- launching YouTube;
- launching Netflix;
- opening VIDAA Store;
- checking for firmware updates;
- entering standby;
- waking from standby;
- changing inputs;
- enabling voice search.
## Important limitations
DNS blocking cannot distinguish individual URL paths behind the same hostname.
If one domain serves both advertising and required application data, blocking the domain removes both.
DNS blocking also cannot reliably remove YouTube advertisements because YouTube may deliver advertising and normal video through shared infrastructure.
Some listed domains are confirmed legacy endpoints from an earlier tested Hisense television. Some newer entries are inferred candidates based on hostname structure and current VIDAA service naming. Those distinctions are stated in the blocklist comments.
## False positives and recovery
If a feature stops working:
1. check AdGuard Home Query Log;
2. identify the blocked hostname requested at that exact time;
3. temporarily allow that hostname;
4. repeat the action;
5. move the domain to a disabled or optional section if required.
The blocklist is intentionally readable and categorized so that individual rules can be adjusted without discarding the entire list.
## Privacy note
Blocking a telemetry endpoint prevents immediate DNS resolution, but does not prove that the television discards the event.
A firmware implementation may:
- drop the event;
- retry it;
- queue it locally;
- send it through another hostname;
- use a cached IP address;
- use a different protocol or resolver.
This project reduces observable DNS-based communication. It does not claim to provide complete traffic isolation.
## Disclaimer
This project is independent and is not affiliated with Hisense, VIDAA, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, or AdGuard.
Use the list at your own risk. Some rules can disable television functions, account services, updates, application-store access, voice services, or protected media playback.
All endpoint descriptions are best-effort classifications based on observed DNS behavior and hostname analysis unless explicitly described as confirmed.