we live in hell
I don’t even understand the pitch? you have the disc playing, in your hands, your ownership, no buffering, no subscription required. and they’re saying…hey do you want a worse experience?
I have two TVs. One is 15 years old, the other is so old that, even though it is still HD (only 720p but it’s fine for me) it still has component video.
I will use those TVs until they die and not buy a new one unless I have no choice. I haven’t seen a single feature on a “smart” TV that I want and a lot that I don’t.
Now that is some serious privacy invading.
Drink verification can, peasant.
Disable ACR on your TV. There was a news report that came out last week about this very thing.
Also never connect it to the Internet
Is this a samsung tv? If it is one of the cheap tv’s like Vizio and such they have this live advertising which is awful. I always buy non-smart TV’s but now they actually cost more then the smart ones if you are going for a big 65-85" TV.
What are some good non-smart TVs?
Laugh.
None, I have a Vizio that shipped with non shitty firmware, only to be upgraded over time to shitty firmware.
My Vizio has never done this.
See the problem is that you let a display device connect to the internet
All new Roku devices do that, even if it’s not a Roku tv. Roku went from one of the best video devices to the worst in one fell swoop. Literally the only good off the shelf device is the Apple TV.
You can get mini PCs for solo cheap now and just load Linux up on it. Check out Beelink brand. I have a couple and they’ve been great.
Edit: so, not solo
My Roku TV will be in a landfill before I allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord
How does it stream things/what’s the point of a Roku if it’s not connected to the Internet?
It will still be connected to the Internet via the HDMI cord.
I’m unaware of any widely adopted use of HEC. Certainly none of the modern consoles use HEC, and I don’t think my smart TV is compatible with it either
roku tv
roku manufacturers 🤓 📺 in addition to streaming devices
I feel like I’m explaining how you use a screen without touching it. Is this what it’s like to be old?
You use HDMI. There are ports on the side of the device that allow video input from devices like computers and Xboxes. I use my computer and Xbox to watch Youtube and TV shows.
If you’re asking why I have a smart TV instead of a dumb TV, that’s because we live in 2023 and finding a TV without a wifi adapter is like finding a phone without a blighted notch
More like everything will be in a landfill before you allow it to send 1s and 0s through anything but the HDMI cord.
I let my Xbox send 1s and 0s through the ethernet cable
Yep - this. I absolutely abhor “smart” TVs for just this reason.
But, even lack of internet sometimes isn’t enough. I recently, and inadvertently, left the wireless adapter on my TV enabled, after having to temporarily join it to my wireless for a firmware update (digital TV tuning needed updating for my region). After I was done, I cleared the wireless config, but I didn’t think to go into the other menu where you can entirely disable the wireless adapter.
Little did I realise that meant the TV started broadcasting its own SSID, for friggin’ Apple Airplay or some other shit. I found this out when my 9yo daughter was suddenly exposed to some adult content for about 10 seconds. Best guess is a nearby neighbour mistook my TV for theirs.
I’ve obviously disabled the wireless adapter again, but this has been a terribly difficult lesson I’ve had to learn.
For anyone concerned, my daughter is OK. My wife had a good chat with her about it. She had considerably more talking down to do with me - I was ready to start knocking on doors, to have my own chat.
honestly, whoever connected to your TV is probably used to their device being the first one to show up. i would blame the streaming protocol for not requiring one of those one-time pin thingys.
Yeah, that’s absolutely a good point.
I work in IT at a fitness center and we have TVs in front of the treadmills. They are not enterprise TVs, just standard Samsung TVs. Above the treadmills, we have a conference room. After setting up a conference room with wireless screen sharing, I found that all of the TV’s below show up when trying to cast. Obviously I tried to disable them, but there is no way to do so outside of physically ripping out the antenna. I called support and everything. Why the fuck was that decision made
Sounds like the next conference you are going to have in that room is with the Supervisor or the CEO about either downgrading that shit and have everything wired instead, or physically ripping out the antenna is going to happen.
Lol it’s a nonprofit, shit ain’t gonna happen
Yeah - I had to dig around in my Samsung to find it. Under Settings | Network | Expert there’s a radio button labelled Wireless. Disabling that turns wireless off completely. Mine’s a 65" Q60A QLED 4K bought in 2021. Same on my Samsung 43" in the bedroom, so seems fairly common across the models, at least in the Q range.
Connected a Samsung smart TV to my network when we first got it. The thing damn-near crashed my pi-hole asking for so many ad/tracking domains. Factory reset it later that same day. I think my % of requests blocked went from 15% to 68% in just the 3 hours or so the Smart TV was connected.
They started to wisen up and hard-coded dns requests to 8.8.8.8 to bypass dns ad blockers now. Heck, some apps like Netflix already do it for years now. If your router can transparently redirect all dns requests to your pi-hole, you should use that feature.
So they recognize that the owner of the product is trying to prevent them from collecting data, and actively try to circumvent the owner’s security measures? This shit should be illegal, and carry a huge fine. You paid for the device, and it’s connected to your network, which you control. I’m sick and tired of corporations thinking it’s totally okay to be straight-up spyware and adware. Some supposedly legitimate companies these days make old-school computer viruses look down right respectful.
Not only that, I have the entire Roku domain blocked on my network, and even though there’s no reason for it, as evidenced by the fact that there’s no problem running it for a month, and it doesn’t happen to all TVs, depending when it was last handled, it breaks my Plex app every 30 days in such a way that it needs to be fully reinstalled, which requires unblocking Roku, allowing phone home of the prior month’s data. Old, but not obsolete, app versions should still work fine - have a kodi Plex app that hasn’t been updated in years and that works without issue. So this is absolutely an intentional choice to force users to at least cough up their viewing data, even if they can’t give you their ads. And they can collect a surprising amount of information through those apps.
Took me a couple months to figure out what was happening (by waiting 2 months and doing the reinstall on the same day for all of them and checking the next time one broke, then staggering them the next time) but I’m no longer using the apps and will probably just factory reset all three of them, leave them off the network entirely.
The amount of work they do as a company to make my private experience complete shit because I don’t want them invasively collecting my info and shoving ads down my throat… is absolutely disgusting.
Remember Bonzi Buddy? I bet lil’ purple monke sent less snoop data than big purple roku.
It’s the MOST blocked thing in Pi-Hole on my entire network!
There’s a misconception here. Unless you can control what code is running on it, you are not the owner.
This is what the FSF warned us about.
goolag dns
I recall having similar issues with Chrome. Instead of checking in with the pihole, it just went ahead and bypassed it by using a different DNS.
or use the blocking feature of your firewall. Here’s Roku being persistent and ignoring my pihole. Firewalla for the win.
That’s my next project now that I have my pihole set up. My basic ass router from my ISP does not support that though.
Side question: do you know of any openWRT supported routers in the $100-150 range with external antennas? Everything I’ve taken a look at is either an internal antenna, or like $400.
What do you mean with internal/external antenna? Does something like asus rt-ax53u ($85) counts as having external antennas? https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ax53u
Yeah. That’s perfect. Thanks!
My TV is connected to the Internet and doesn’t do this. There’s a setting to turn it off.
How? Did you got your dvd player hacked?
Newer TVs take screenshots and send em off to give you recommendations or ads for things you like.
Damn, that’s wonderful.
Most modern TVs have this lovely “feature” called Automatic Content Recognition so papa Google can tell when you’re watching pr0n.
i sadly do not have a dumb tv
my smart tv though has most stuff blocked by pihole and acr is off
What model TV do you have?
I can tell from the interface it’s a Roku Smart TV of some sort. I have a TCL with Roku and it does not do this crap.
Dumb TV forever.
There are almost no dumb TVs on the market. Just get a smart tv and don’t hook it up to the internet. Use a separate streaming box
Just avoid those no-name Mainland Chinese boxes.
There are almost no dumb TVs on the market.
And that’s why you go out of your way to find the few that remain.
😂 😂 😂 😂 You think smart tv lets you NOT hook it up to wifi
I was able to trick mine by connecting it to an AP with all traffic blocked. it assumes their services are down or something? and just slips right back into working fine with no nags or ads.
Genius
Yes, they do.
Newer TCLs, Vizios, and stuff running Roku embedded no longer allow this, completing the setup is mandatory to be able to use them.
I assume you can just disconnect the internet after setup and they’ll be fine??
This is why my TV does not have internet access.
I gave away my tv to a friend in need. That was the best thing I did for the both of us.
I really don’t get why you would allow your tv Internet access anyways. A huge number of them carry tons of spyware that not only is on the TV but creates backdoors into your network.
Source on backdoors?
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From a matter of convenience I could actually appreciate what they are trying to do.
Binge watching TV on disc, especially DVD, is frustrating. If you aren’t using the extra content (such as commentary), streaming is much better, as you can binge more episodes at a time or watch certain episodes without having to switch discs.
If I was unaware this was available on a streaming service I had, I’d appreciate the reminder. But I’d appreciate it more at or before the main menu, not during the content, and certainly not more than once (or reset when the disc is removed).
It’s called “Post-Purchase Monetization”, and it’s why your 65” OLED tv is so cheap. They capture and sell your viewing data - but only if you hook it up to an internet connection. So don’t hook them up to an internet connection.
Bro they dont have buttons and dont even let you change channels without logging on first with youf full social credit its mad world
The question is how long that will help. Just recently read about the first TVs popping up that try to connect to any available open WiFi to phone home, regardless of your settings. Soon our TVs will need tinfoil hats 😱
mine doesn’t do this fortunately, but once in a while when you turn it on when it isn’t connected to wifi, it will bring you to a wifi selection screen instead of your last input, and the list is sorted so that unsecured APs are at the top, and the OK button highlight (which you’d normally use to activate the feed from your last source when you turn it on) just so happens to activate the top unsecured AP, to which it will immediately connect and launch into the “internet connected” onboarding process.
this almost happened to me once when I first got it… so I set up an AP on my router that has all traffic completely blocked, and connected the TV to that. it periodically tells me to call support about internet problems, but all the nags and promos and “sign in” begs went away otherwise, so I guess it’s just happy to hear from my router.
Jesus, really? That’s dismaying. Any chance you got a link?
I couldn’t find it again, sorry. But it wasn’t any real brand that did this (yet), but cheap noname TV clones (similar to those Trojan horse android boxes). Not something you’d trust anyway, but didn’t expect them trying to bridge the gap to get telemetry.
Yeah, seriously, that’s deeply sketchy if your TV basically starts trying to exploit your neighbor’s WiFi the second you plug it in. Wtf.
Stop spreading unsubstantiated bullshit. Cite a source or GTFO. There’s no way this would be legal since you have to agree to an EULA for them to spy on you. It’s the first thing you see when you start enabling WiFi on a smart TV.
Just because some idiot on the internet said its possible doesn’t count as evidence that companies are doing it. They’re smarter than that and they know they’ll get sued if they do it. They wouldn’t take that risk when 99% of smart TV owners agree to the EULA and enable the smart features themselves.
I have been searching for the source, but can’t find it anymore between all the WiFi troubleshooting sites. It wasn’t really brand stuff they mentioned but cheapo TV clones they checked for security risks, similar to those Trojan horse Android TV boxes.
But wouldn’t be the first time that the industry takes inspiration from something like that and either implements it silently to get the juicy telemetry (yes, using that to enable smart features would be dumb) or sells it as a ‘feature’.
and it’s why your 65” OLED tv is so cheap.
If this were true, the few remaining “dumb TVs” (e.g. from
SpectreSceptre) wouldn’t be cost-competitive, but they are.This abusive shit isn’t subsidizing the cost of the TV; it’s just padding the manufacturer’s profits.
Edit: the company isn’t named after the villainous org from James Bond
Spectre TVs are cheap because they compete at a lower tier and are priced to attract buyers to what is essentially an unknown brand.
Unless they’re also giving up important quality/features (other than the “smart” misfeature, that is), I don’t see how that matters.
Three Words: Digital Signage Display
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Just get a dumbTV
That’s getting increasingly difficult to do.
The enshittification continues.
They exist, but very few people care to buy them. TCL/Sceptre/Insignia sell dumb TVs over in America for reasonable prices, though you’ll need to check out the display models to check the TV’s quality.
High end brands will sell their dumb TVs as digital signage displays, often with a price tag that’s oriented at the business market.
Alternatively, you can get “gaming monitors” like the LG 48GQ900 that do nothing but display HDMI. Their sound quality is often worse (get a soundbar) and they don’t always come with a usable remote, but gaming monitors work fine as TVs as long as you have an external TV decoder box.
People want smart TVs. Not because they’re interested in playing candy crush on their big screen, but because they’re cheaper than dumb TVs. The ads and integrated services subsidise the TV so that they can be sold for the bargain bin prices that people have come to expect.
tiny, but it does work
And Netflix downscales resolution on Linux btw. It’s almost like you have to host your own media and pirate it all to get the best experience
Get any TV. Build HTPC. Never let the TV access the network itself.
I’ve been doing this for 15 years. It gets easier and less expensive each year as hardware improves.
Judging from the trend, soon smart tvs may include a cellular modem (always on, paid by the manufacturer) or support mesh networking (passing your data through your neighbour’s tv) so it can always send out telemetry data and retrieving ads. Amazon already did it via Amazon Sidewalk, which is said to cover over 90% of people in the US.
