Keen

A browser and media player built for Android TV.

Navigation is optimized for the D-pad: focus states are crisp, transitions are fluid, and menu traversal is instantaneous. A native pointer layer is available for complex sites.

Media streams are handed directly to the television's native hardware decoders via Media3, with support for formats such as E-AC-3 and DTS. When the video starts, the browser disappears.

Films that carry more than one audio track start in English when an English track is present, and the player controls switch to any other, so a dual-audio release plays in the chosen language.

A multi-layered defense system neutralizes aggressive auto-play ads, deceptive redirects, and malicious overlays before they reach the screen, distinguishing a necessary login prompt from a deceptive popup.

Keen leverages the native Android System WebView and is distributed in a package smaller than 20 MB. It contains no telemetry, no bundled bloatware, and no walled garden. It is open-source.

Features

- Continue Watching: pick up exactly where playback was left off, with home-screen cards. - Smart History: address completion driven by browsing habits. - One Live View: a single, optimized WebView environment, with no stacks of forgotten tabs. - Season packs: files are offered in episode order, and the next episode is offered as the current one ends and starts on its own when it does.

Installation

Keen is not currently distributed through the Google Play Store. Download the APK and sideload it onto an Android TV or Google TV device.

Install the 32-bit build unless the device is certain to run a 64-bit Android system. It is the right one for virtually every television and streaming box, and it updates an existing install in place, keeping favourites, history, watch positions and saved downloads.

The 64-bit build is only for devices running a 64-bit Android system, in practice the Nvidia Shield TV and the 2nd-generation Fire TV Cube. Nearly all TV hardware runs a 32-bit system on 64-bit silicon, including the Google TV Streamer and the onn 4K Pro. If unsure, install the 32-bit one; the 64-bit APK simply refuses to install (INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS) on a device that cannot run it.

Check with:

adb shell getprop ro.product.cpu.abilist

The 64-bit build installs alongside the 32-bit one rather than upgrading it, so the two do not share favourites or watch positions.

Install over Wi-Fi with ADB

- Open Developer options on the television. - Enable Wireless debugging or USB debugging. - Note the IP address and port displayed by the television. - Connect from a computer with Android platform tools installed. - Install the downloaded APK.

adb connect <tv-ip>:<port> adb install -r <keen-apk-filename>

For example:

adb install -r keen-0.2.28-32bit-armeabi-v7a.apk

Use the exact IP address and port displayed by the television. Wireless debugging may use a port other than 5555. The -r flag updates an existing installation while preserving its local data.

Tested hardware

Keen is developed and tested on a Xiaomi MiTV-AFMU0 (twilight) running Android TV 14, which is a 32-bit (armeabi-v7a) system. The 64-bit build runs on 64-bit hardware, verified on a Galaxy Note 10 (arm64-v8a), but it has not yet been run on a 64-bit television.

Licence

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0