Overscan: an open-source browser you can sideload on a Samsung TV
Overscan is a sideloadable web browser for Samsung TVs. Works on my 2019 set; I need testers on other model years.
The built-in Samsung browser identifies itself as a TV, so sites hand it a stripped-down "smart TV" page instead of the real one. Overscan wraps the TV's own web engine in an app that behaves like a desktop browser: desktop user agent, JavaScript on, a pointer you drive with the D-pad, an on-screen keyboard that types into the address bar and into search boxes on the page, plus favourites and history on a start screen built for a TV.
MIT licensed, all of it public: https://github.com/Apps2Samsung/Overscan
Up front, two things
1. Most of the code was written by an AI agent with me directing it. I made the design calls, did every hardware test, and reviewed what went in but I'm not going to pretend I hand-typed it. It's open source specifically so you can judge the code rather than take my word for it. Where the AI was genuinely useful was the grind: reading TizenFX source to work out which APIs exist on which platform, and building diagnostic tooling for a TV you can't get logs out of.
2. It does NOT make pages load faster. It uses the TV's own engine, so rendering speed is identical and forcing desktop sites can make it slower, since desktop pages are heavier than the TV versions. If YouTube crawls on your set today, this won't fix that. There's an images-off toggle and a mobile-UA option that genuinely help, and youtube.com/tv will always beat the desktop site on old hardware.
What actually works, and where
| TV year | Status |
|---|---|
| 2018 (Tizen 4.0) | Builds, not yet tested |
| 2019 - 2020 (Tizen 5.0 / 5.5) | Works, tested on my UE55RU7020 |
| 2021 - 2024 (Tizen 6.0 / 8.0) | Builds, not yet tested |
| 2025+ (Tizen 9.0 / 10.0) | Build, not yet tested |
Known problems: pages render vertically stretched on Tizen 5.0 the TV's own keyboard can still flash up on sites that autofocus their search box.
The catch for 2019/2020 sets: the package has to be signed with a partner-level certificate. That's not a preference the TV's web engine links its DRM stack, and an ordinary app isn't permitted to load it, so the browser won't start at all. Finding that out took building a separate diagnostic app that walks start up one call at a time and reports over HTTP, because these TVs give you no shell, no logs and no crash dumps. Newer sets don't have the restriction.
What I need
- Anyone with a 2018, 2021–2024, or 2025+ Samsung TV willing to sideload and report back.
- Reports on real sites. Everything so far has been DuckDuckGo and Wikipedia. I'd like to know what a 2019 engine actually does with news sites, webmail and video.
With Apps2Samsung (https://apps2samsung.com/) you can side load the app on your TV and create the required certificates just click the gear icon
And toggle Force Samsung Certificate and Partner signing (experimental)
Once you've created a Partner certificate you can untoggle Force Samsung certificate again
Oh and once you've installed the app and opened it, you can monitor it's debug log via http://[TV-IP]:8081
Issues and releases are on the repo. Happy to answer anything about how it works.
