I only witness it whenever any of my work colleagues anyone with a phone wants to show me a video. Always have to sit through ads before & during the video. Absolutely horrific. Mind you they also have to close multiple pop up ads in every app they ever use on their phone. I couldn’t live with it & not learn how to deal with it
For YouTube I hate the algorithm so i disabled YouTube app & only watch through browser. Of course mobile & desktop browsers are running uBlock Origin, Sponsorblock & DeArrow.
I never sign in. Instead of subscribing to channels or “watch later” I’m an avid user of Joplin notes so i have a specific note for YouTube for subscriptions & for any interesting looking videos I stumble across. The note is broken into video time length so i can watch something depending on available time, which helps if mindlessly watching stuff. Joplin syncs to all devices.
Its an extra few seconds for me to add a url & title to the note but its second nature now. The beauty is I only see stuff I’m interested in not crap they think I want to see. Plus this way its easy to save links for any video site.
Another thing I do is for audio style videos I’ve enabled background play so i can listen at night with a timer when going to sleep rather than having to sit & watch a video.
Simplest option is probably speak to sales staff & specifically ask about the set up process. It might be worth phoning a couple of reputable TV vendors as they may have more understanding than the spotty herberts in the sheds at the local retail park.
I last bought a TV outside of your preferred time frame but back then Panasonic made, what for my needs, was the best panel for the price & didnt insist on having internet in order to set it up (no idea whether this has changed with current generation models)
It doesnt help with your hdmi concerns, but what about blocking the TV at router level or restrict it by putting it on VLAN/guest network then disconnecting it from the internet forever once set up.is complete?
For images, on Android you could use Imagepipe.
Once you’ve set it up, simply “share” the image to Imagepipe, it does its thing then automatically passes it on to whatever app you want - for example a messaging app for you to send on to others (it stores a copy of the image minus its metadata in an Imagepipe folder in your gallery for ease of access should you need it again).
For video, from memory I think mp3tag for Windows/Mac can remove metadata from some video formats
Everyone knows the popular ones so here’s a shout out to a few that are perhaps not so commonly known:
My most used can no longer live without app:
Ha I once fell for this same issue with the exact same bars. To be fair they’re so darn tasty I’ve fallen for it again several times since!
I really like it. Tech comminities & some others are very bouyant & interesting but niche communities really struggle. Even direct replacements of big subreddits struggle. Hopefully this improves.
One tip from my own experience. I use Voyager & blocked a load of US politics keywords.
And another, I subscribed to as many interesting Lemmy communities as i could then browse Home feed in the main & occasionally All to see if any other interesting communities crop up that could be worth joining.
Welcome & enjoy.
Came here since the Reddit 3rd party app fiasco. Initially I blocked a load of non English language communities which at the time seemed to fill the All feed. Kept adding to my subscribed communities list then in my app (Voyager after Liftoff stopped being developed) blocked a load of keywords, essentially Trump/US politics related.
Now my Home (subscriptions) feed has some great content. I check out All from time to time to see if I can subscribe to more communities.
Niche communities are still lacking but hopefully that improves over time.
If you’re an Android, Kiwi Browser has an option to remove AMP (use direct website over AMP version)
