An ad giant already owns and controls my current TV’s OS
My current TV is clawing my firewall like squirrel with rabies. I’m sure the next one will too.
I just give smartTVs no network at all
Please enable internet access to setup your new TV, otherwise no TV for you.
Than I only watch my drm free stuff 🤷🏻
Then you turn around and return it. Don’t encourage that behavior by just letting it happen.
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.
That’s what chargebacks are for. You don’t have to rely on shitty retailers return policy.
You’re not going to win a chargeback determination in this case either.
You will be, as I was, shit out of luck.
If your credit card doesn’t let you do a chargeback for defective equipment then you need to get a better card provider.
TVs not working after purchase would qualify as defective in my opinion.
In my Country, you can Return within 1 month if you are not satisfied.
Oh no I live in the U.S. we don’t really do consumer protections.
Yea but here in the United States we have the Freedom™ to be ripped off with no recourse.
How bout no
Smart TVs are why I’m never getting rid of the old Samsung TV I’m currently using as a monitor for my desktop. It’s not quite flat screen like an actual flat screen, but at least it doesn’t have a camera attached to it (besides the USB camera I keep unplugged unless needed), no microphone, and no ads. Plus, I still have access to all the other types of things I need like AVI and coaxial inputs, besides HDMI. It’s gonna be the saddest day ever when the beauty decides to die on me.
The biggest ad giant in the world already controls my TV’s OS
For fuck’s sake.
I don’t want an OS on my next TV…
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.
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.
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.
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.
You’re not wrong, there are a number of videos from Louis Rossman (right to repair advocate) on YouTube lambasting LG for doing this very thing on their high-end G-series OLED TVs; including defaulting to opt-in to marketing and providing PIR data after an automatic update.
Looks at the top of the line Samsung Odessey 49"/54" ultrawide monitor. Looks at specs. Reread this comment.
Uhuh
Monitors aren’t being pumped full of this stuff
I hope this is just marketing then…
Premium televisions are already pumped full of this stuff
Yup. I don’t know if it’s all of them, but Louis Rossmann had a video where he ranted about this BS in his high end TV.
Googles been a TV OS for a while now.
I want a TV with NO OS.
Look into Sceptre. 4K with no OS, no ads, doesn’t ask for WiFi - just a TV.
I can find only computer monitors there.
The walmart link has some TVs, but apparently not the Amazon one, just monitors.
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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.
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.
I didn’t think any devices even adopted Ethernet over HDMI
Pi hole FTW.
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.
My video projector is dumb, and that’s the way I like it.
Seeing this just makes me want a tv that is just a monitor, no crap you just plug in your own thing whatever you want.
Done! Take any Smart TV, factory reset it. And never let it connect to the Internet again .
Buy a commercial display, thats what I do.
Look into commercial monitors like the Samsung BET-H series. I bought a 43” one years ago, plugged an Apple TV into it, and haven’t really thought about the screen ever since.
According to the specs it runs Tizen, but I haven’t had to look at a menu since I got the settings dialed in, i.e. years, so I completely forgot. Don’t even know where the OEM remote is, it works with the HDMI-CEC commands sent by the Apple TV.
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.
Up until that TV dies.
Yup. My 58" 4k LG TV has a bunch of apps (we only need Netflix and Jellyfin), and the only ads I’ve seen are in their apps, which don’t need to be opened. It’s a little slow and apparently can’t even handle Jellyfin over HTTPS, but it works well.
My SO wants a bigger TV, and I’m dreading looking through the current market to find a decent replacement. I’d really like OLED and for it to be a few inches bigger, but it seems everything has ads and spyware out of the box. Screw that…
Anyone know of a reasonably priced OLED/QLED, >60", 4k TV without smart features?
I really don’t want the spyware and adware that come with newer smart TVs, and I’m willing to pay a bit of a premium for it. I’d also be happy with a unicorn smart TV that doesn’t have any of those anti-features.
What about just not connecting it to the network? Then put a video device on it like Roku or Apple tv or whatever.
Yah, as much as I hear people looking for non-smary TVs for this reason, that’s the correct answer. Mine is connected for convenience, and I’d rather save every mb of space on my xbox, right now there’s occasionally the small ad tucked into the input selection menu, but if it starts showing me full screen ads I’ll deny it internet and install streaming services on Xbox.
I hooked mine up to wifi once to download an update to fix a bug. Then immediately removed the network settings.
The performance on most of these TV apps is terrible anyway. And Samsung has been caught listening to mics before. Baffles me that people would leave these connected.
just not connecting it to the network?
Some TVs require connecting to the network to set it up, and I’m concerned TV manufacturers will get more brazen going forward. If there’s a company that doesn’t do this nonsense, I’d rather reward them for being good instead of working around misfeatures in popular brands.
Roku
Has ads that can be disabled, at least as-of last year. Not sure how long that’ll last…
Apple TV
Apple also seems interested in ads.
Any other option will likely degrade to having ads at some point. I could probably get rid of them w/ a PiHole or something, but that could end up being a game of whack-a-mole.
I’ll probably end up w/ a Raspberry Pi or something running Kodi or similar, which is really annoying because that’s yet another thing I have to self-host just to avoid this stupid obsession with ads.
I know this isn’t purely TV-related, but there used to be a secret menu for Roku where you could disable home screen ads. That stopped working for me several months ago. So I recently bought an Onn box (which is basically Android TV, but had as very cluttered UI) and side-loaded one of the open source launchers onto it. It’s been a much better experience than Roku, not least because there’s are no more home screen ads.
there used to be a secret menu for Roku where you could disable home screen ads
That’s the first link. If it no longer works, I guess Roku isn’t an option anymore. 😟
I should clarify: the secret menu can still be navigated to and the options there set. But ads now appear regardless. I went back into the menu and verified the options hadn’t changed (they hadn’t). It’s like Roku has gotten wind of the exploit and ‘fixed’ their OS to ignore those options.
I hear Sony is a good bet
Awesome, I’ll check them out. :)
