• nshibj@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    What’s with the clickbait title?

    This is not news, it has been happening since Smart TVs started being a thing.

    One of the most common TV OSs is AndroidTV / GoogleTV. Google is the biggest ad company in the world.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    “A convicted felon and sex offender wants to control your next country”

  • MrSoup@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    Ehm, it is already like that. Most of smart TVs use Android which is under Google control, a big (if not the biggest) ad company.

  • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Good thing I don’t care about owning a tv I don’t already know how to jailbreak.

    • capital@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You’ll see these marketed as monitors sometimes, from what I’ve seen. Mostly it’s for businesses but if you want a dumb screen to connect things to, it might be called a “monitor” even if it has the form factor of a TV.

    • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      It’s hard but not impossible, as even ‘retail displays’ run an OS in the background to control input switching, image settings etc.

      Honestly the best thing to do is buy whatever TV you want (we have a couple of the LG OLEDs in our household), and don’t ever plug them into your network (or WiFi). Otherwise, with updates OS and apps become sluggish, with more ads crammed in.

      Instead, use a seperate media player (e.g. Apple TV if you’re already on the iOS ecosystem, Nvidia Shield or similar for Android, HTPC if you’re so inclined etc.) - they’re more powerful, arguably more secure & private, and portable between displays if/when you upgrade.

      • coolmojo@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Unfortunately EtherNet over HDMI exists so your your TV can still access the Internet if the Apple TV or Nvidia Shield has Internet access. To prevent that you have to make sure use older HDMI cable less then HDMI 1.4.

        • Majestic@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Never been implemented. It doesn’t exist.

          Cables support it but zero devices made it to the consumer market and both devices would need to support it for it to work. It’s a dead standard from another era at this point. WiFi speeds have become so significant that there’s just no reason for the additional costs that would be involved.

          I admit if half of the people out there who bought smart TVs started refusing to connect them to the internet and bought streaming boxes instead there might be an incentive for TV makers to try it but no incentive for streaming devices to help them do it and at that point it’s just easier for TV makers to require an internet connection or the TV doesn’t work.

        • teft@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Then you turn around and return it. Don’t encourage that behavior by just letting it happen.

          • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            If your retailer has a generous enough policy to let you return an opened TV because simply because you don’t like it. I spent $1,200 on a Sony TV with backlight bleed issues that were so bad that half the screen was tinted blue. I tried to return it or get a replacement but was told by both the retailer and Sony support that half the screen being blue was “normal for LED TVs and within acceptable parameters” and to go fuck myself.

            • teft@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              That’s what chargebacks are for. You don’t have to rely on shitty retailers return policy.

              • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                You’re not going to win a chargeback determination in this case either.

                You will be, as I was, shit out of luck.

  • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Don’t ever connect them to the internet. Period.

    If it’s required, buy a different tv. It’s not difficult to look that up beforehand.

    • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 days ago

      I suspect in the near future it will be impossible to buy a TV without spyware/adware. The only option will be to not connect it to the internet and run your own Raspberry PI/SBC based solution.

      • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Monitors aren’t being pumped full of this stuff and so won’t the premium televisions.

        The super budget/sold at a loss TVs will absolutely be gutted for spyware.

        • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOP
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          4 days ago

          Monitors aren’t being pumped full of this stuff and so won’t the premium televisions.

          I have a feeling premium TVs won’t escape adware/spyware either. They can get their margin on the hardware and earn some more money on spyware; I don’t see what incentive they have to not do both. I hope I am wrong though.

        • Redredme@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Looks at the top of the line Samsung Odessey 49"/54" ultrawide monitor. Looks at specs. Reread this comment.

          Uhuh

      • slumberlust@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        If I worked for the manufacturer I’d just piggy back on other TVs networks to communicate. Wouldn’t work if you live in the country but for everyone else I’d just need a similar brand within wifi range.

    • Ⓜ3️⃣3️⃣ 🌌@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 days ago

      Checking before buy buying will be possible for computer and privacy « educated » people only, that leaves almost everyone helpless in the real world, in a store facing TVs all playing the demo video. Maybe some will read Amazon reviews or do actual research… hope.

  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    I have an old 60 inch 1080p TV from the early days of smart tvs. It has a built in app for plex and youtube, a remote that works as a pointer, it’s insanely slow but it has zero ads and I’m never ever getting a newer model.

  • ftbd@feddit.org
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    3 days ago

    FYI for those using DNS-based adblocking: I discovered that my AndroidTV box asks 8.8.8.8 when my local DNS server blocks a request.

    • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I always have issues with dns blocking so I tried something sneaky I redirected all DNS requests to 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1 and it worked brilliantly, for about a month when it stopped working all together, I don’t know if a cache was wiped or google saw what I was doing and made a special exception just for me, obviously I want to believe I’m a special snowflake taking the world’s largest internet company head on in an epic battle of wits and skill but I think the cache thing might be more likely for some reason.

      • ftbd@feddit.org
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        3 days ago

        You mean redirecting on your router? How should google stop you from doing that? And why would you redirect to cloudflare lol

    • wrekone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      Depending on your router you can forward all request on port 53 to your DNS server regardless of the IP they try to use.

    • addie@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      What a shower of twats. Don’t block the request in that case, just redirect it to your local server that returns a 1x1 transparent png for all requests.

    • HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Not good enough. Any OTA updates your TV can get over the web will eventually be trying to circumvent your IP blacklists to shove in any ad-riddled garbage they can.

      Literally just blacklist your TV’s MAC address, and use a dedicated set top box of some kind to avoid this shit. My current choice is my NVIDIA Shield Pro 2019, which I installed a 3rd party WOLF launcher (there’s also F-Launcher) and turned off auto-updates so I could avoid NVIDIA and Google doing the same.

      At some point, I will probably need to switch to a NUC or other HTPC with some flavor of Linux on it, as eventually the Shield may succumb to this shit as well.