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Ah, 2021, when cryptobros were all in on NFTs, which was totally the best thing ever and totally not a greater fool scam, you guys!
Used to work with a guy who kept trying to get everyone else to buy crypto and NFTs, and said he had 2 million in Bitcoin on a drive in his house.
Given he lived in a one bed flat and wore the same cigarette smelling jumper every day for three years, I doubted that very much.
I had a co-worker who bought into the NFT scam hard. He even had a virtual room on his phone to display his multi-thousand dollar “investments”. He collected all his favorite Avengers or some shite.
Guess how much they’re worth now.
I’d say
about tree fiddy
but that feels optimistic.
about tree fiddy
^FU
Took me three hours to realize FU meant Felix Unger!
^MF
I dread the coming day I’ll need to buy a new tv, amd wonder if by then there will be guides (get this brand, download this xda tool exfiltrated from the oem, jailbreak that, cut this circuit-trace, etc.).
I haven’t had a tv in years, and every time I get tempted by the screen size I have to remind myself about this shit. It’s just me, 30 inches is enough, and I haven’t seen an ad within my own home since 2012 (not entirely true, I’ve changed browsers a few times and had to re-setup adblockers).
deleted by creator
You can look for display boards, they’re specifically meant for like retail space so don’t come with all the fancy bullshit. Typically cheaper, and you can go pretty large as well.
I was always under the impression the ad-riddled bullshit was cheaper because it’s subsidized by the sponsoring companies.
In this day and age, they will charge you as much as they think they can get away, and then double dip with showing you ads, and triple dip with selling your data.
The “ads subsidize the product” line was real years ago. But as always, it’s never enough.
Just look at streaming services. They started to show ads or make you pay even more to get rid of ads.
The line must go up, fuck everyone.
Fun fact: TVs are pretty much the only product that consistently goes down in price each year.
“The line must go up, fuck everyone” is a perfectly succinct description of capitalism, thank you for that.
I’ve got a little 22 inch gaming monitor with a high refresh rate. Cost me like $80 I think.
But I game alone, with headphones. No audience anyway, so that little screen does perfect for me.
Just use it as display device for your library and *arr services. A high-end 55" OLED goes for 1000$ nowadays.
i got a giant ass tv that has no ads. just got to not get smart tv
I did a network analysis of outgoing traffic/connections from my Samsung TV. I don’t have the results anymore, but with the TV sitting idle, the amount of connections was… Staggering. Just, a lot of different connections, and I have no idea why.
Unfortunately, we use our TVs smart features so we don’t have a lot of options for keeping it from doing these things.
I’m still pretty salty that it’s basically special order to get a non-smart TV. You basically need to buy a commercial model to get one that doesn’t have or need an internet connection to do what you need it to. I don’t have that kind of money, and I don’t have enough money to just throw away a TV because of this shit.
Why is nobody filling that market niche for dumb TVs?
As far as I can see, the only ones doing it are the dollar store quality manufacturers. They usually pair it with a sub standard panel, so they’re not popular. If you want the fancy display tech, like HDR, or OLED or something, then you’re stuck to “premium” brands who try to harvest your information through the “smart” features.
Stuff like, watched time, content identification, etc, is all very lucrative in the advertising sector. Knowing what people are watching is important to knowing their customers for higher market penetration.
You basically need to buy a commercial model to get one that doesn’t have or need an internet connection to do what you need it to.
You can just not hook your TV up to the internet
How many times do I have to leave this comment
There are infinite number of suckers on this planet. Just call them names next time, save yourself the stress.
I have mine connected through my laptop as a second/larger monitor, but I also just don’t gaf
That’s really not what I would want. If I’m not going to use the smart features, I wouldn’t want them baked into the display, it’s just more shit that can go wrong that I don’t need. The OSD menus are all built into whatever “smart” bullshit is included. So you have to plug it in once and a while to check for updates and whatnot so it doesn’t get all fucky for no reason.
If I want a basic bitch display, I want it to be a basic bitch display. I don’t want the risk or complexity of having that extra bullshit.
Disabling ads is easy, don’t connect it to the internet ever
Don’t buy a Samsung tv is even better. There software gets worse every year. Recent tvs now can’t change inputs when first powered on. They also need to detect a device to change the input.
I’ve heard some will seek out open wifi in the area. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start having cellular data capability soon just for the ads and reporting back to corporate.
“fun” fact: most modern cars have over a dozen sim cards because various components relay statistics, etc. to their respective manufacturers.
yeah, “fun” indeed
Eventually they are going to require Internet on all TVs, it’s only a matter of time
Then I make my own mainboard.
Good thing I saw that pcbwaydotcom ad.
I’m afraid reverse engineering proprietary internal connection is not an easy feat.
it’s standard here in sweden to deliver TV over internet these days, TV can fuck itself sideways and die
You can possibly use a cheap chinese TV Media Box (about €35 for a decent one from Aliexpress) to stream Live TV over the Internet and then just connect it to the TV via HDMI.
In my experience those things aren’t loaded with crap and have no Ads (for some, there are even things like libreElec if you want to get full control of it) plus it makes engineering sense to keep the smarts separate from the dumb TV (the actual dumb part of a TVs lasts a lot longer than the typical period between video streams moving to newer and better encoding methods - and decoding of those is done in hardware, not software - so if the smarts are in a separate cheap box, it’s a lot cheaper to get support for newer kinds of video streams a few years down the line and keep the TV than to replace the whole TV just to get the newer video stream decoders)
Personally I use a Mini-PC with Linux and Kodi, but Mini-PCs are more expensive, require more expertise to set up and I do a lot more than just streaming live TV with it.
Word of warning, loads of those are full of hidden malware that will attempt to infect the other devices on your network. Probably best to make your own every time.
Apparently not loads, but some are. People can get the more expensive branded stuff if they’re worried or just overwrite the firmware with something like LibreELEC.
Also for that reason I prefer my current solution with a Mini-PC, though at about €150 rather than €35 it’s a lot more expensive, which for me is fine as I use it for a lot more stuff than only as a media player, but since I’m a little wary of pitching something which requires quite a bit more technical expertise to use to people which might or not have that expertise, I only mentioned that option last and in passing.
Serious question: what’s the mechanism of this? I can think of a few it might be but I honestly don’t know:
- Is it that 99.9% of the market wants smart TVs and there’s not enough demand for dumb TVs to support a production run?
- Is it that existing companies can somehow block smaller upstarts from entering the market, and then they decided as a cartel to end dumb TVs?
- Is the NSA infiltrating TV companies to force this product line choice?
- Is there a new law requiring that all TVs get smart?
- Some mechanism I haven’t thought of?
At this point, just get a cheaper non-smart TV
They don’t sell good TVs that aren’t Smart anymore. You could get a monitor but that comes with size, featureset and price limitations.
Even monitors are getting “smart TV” features these days… ostensibly so they can push non-consensual ads there, too.
I was looking at monitors recently, they do have Samsung “smart” monitors. That’s gonna be a fuck no from me. I hope we don’t see everything trend that way.
just don’t connect it to the Internet
I’m leaning toward a projector hooked up to a mini pc for my next living room ‘tv’.
I only ever use mine for movie nights or special occasions anyways so it’s always dark when I use it.
Any other regular viewing I usually do on my pc.
I went with a projector in my living room for years. I had it hooked up to my main PC but it was always an awkward setup until i stuck a mirror behind my monitors. Basically have the PC on the wall opposite where you want the projection, and put the projector on your computer desk way off to the side, angled so it shoots to the wall behind you. Set up the mirror so when youre sitting at your PC, the wall behind you with the projection is reflected in the mirror as a sort of extra monitor on top of the others.
I know it sounds terrible, but its super useful for quickly controlling the projector while still at the monitors.
Or get a little air mouse remote for $20 on Amazon. This is what i use for controlling my pc when its hooked up to the TV and it’s so unbelievably good, even has a full keyboard on the back if I want to search something, full range of media controls on the front, and just point it and click to control the mouse cursor. Gamechanger.
That’s what I was thinking about doing. I’ve already been doing a little research. I’m either gonna do standard wireless mouse and keyboard just on my couch or coffee table or one of those wireless keyboards with a TouchPad built in as a mouse replacement. I’ve also seen tiny Bluetooth wireless keyboards meant for phones but they also work with pcs.
I’m not planning on any crazy streamio RSuite setups as I don’t torrent often and definitely not for shows I watch. Standard mini pc running Linux is all I’ll probably do. Firefox with unblock serves me well on my main pc and it’ll do here as well.
Seriously try one of the air remotes. It’s like a gyroscopic remote and it works way better than I ever thought it would for controlling a mouse cursor. They’re very cheap too, the one I have cost 30bucks, it can sense if you have it on the keyboard side or the media side facing up and disables the other sides buttons, deactivatable backlight on the buttons, and rechargeable battery, although it lasts for weeks without charging.
I’m doing the exact same thing with a Mini-PC running Linux with Kodi.
Sure, for the linuxy stuff (management and other funcionality that has nothing to do with using it as a media player in my living room) it’s way better to use a real keyboard and mouse (so I mostly do that stuff remotelly from my PC), but for the whole side of using it as a media player device that remote is perfect and since I bought an air-mouse remote which also has the buttons of a normal media player remote - which works perfectly with Kodi, be it on Linux or with the Android Media Player I had before - I seldom need to actually use the air-mouse functionality to move a mouse cursor around.
Absolutelly as you said a gamechanger.
An more expensive dumb TV, actually. They want you to buy the thing that makes passive income so its cheaper.
Where are you buying a non-smart TV in 2024? Genuinely asking for some links to something bigger than 32" and that is not a $3,000 “commercial display panel”.
buy any tv and don’t connect it to the Internet
For me it was craigslist. I spent $20 on a 32" Vizio that came with a useless Comcast remote so then I spent $6 online on a replacement Vizio remote. I did see some larger dumb tvs listed for more money as well.
Yeah, but some new tech won’t work at all if you don’t.
Plenty of people aren’t aware of that, and when you’re buying shit, it often obfuscates that fact.
Most people will buy shit having no idea the thing will require you to connect it to your wifi.
e: television is only one of the things. It’s getting harder to name things that don’t require this.
It’s simple: return the item
Any way to connect it to an internal network so I can still cast from local devices? Otherwise it’s just going to exist plugged into a laptop.
That’s how I handled my “smart” TV - I had a spare minipc from my old homelab, threw Linux on it and plugged it into the HDMI port.
It has never connected to my network, despite the BestBuy employee insisting it would need firmware updates for better picture.
Omg, that reminds me of a time when a retail employee insisted that installing Linux on a particular machine would rock crashing the hard drive. This was, oh, maybe 2006 or so.
I did not buy a new computer that day.
firmware updates for better picture.
Good fucking lord.
You may use it as a display and connect it to a Raspberry Pi (or other mini-PC) with Kodi on it.
Smart TVs can also scan the input from their hdmi ports and relay that to advertisers.
Except if you don’t connect the TV to the internet, but use it as a huge display only.
True. That said, another comment has claimed that some smart TVs seek out open wifi and use that. Not a big problem in my area though.
Sure, break it’s routing. You can give it a fake DNS server (like a pihole that blocks everything), you could set up routing rules that block everything not addressed in the network ip range, there’s a ton of ways I can think to do it off the top of my head. It might require some tinkering though
Maybe if you give it its own vlan? Idk tho
if it gives you the option you could try setting the DNS settings to something that doesn’t exist.
Depends on your router. Some have the ability to disable internet access to single devices while leaving their internal network access intact.
You probably can give it a static ip through your router and block any access to the internet for it. Could even set up pihole to block the ads from coming in to any device. That said, it’s possible the TV has built in ads or error messages to show in place of the ads when offline/blocked, or may just not even work if offline for longer than x minutes/hours/days
I think a PiHole wouldn’t work cause the ads come from the same place as the videos
Samsung, AFAIK, doesn’t have a streaming service so that doesn’t matter.
We weren’t talking about ADs on some streaming service, we’re talking about ADs displayed on the TV from Samsung themselves
Also, AD proxying with content isn’t always guaranteed, I’ve seen YT do it ofc
I was reading “Active Directory” and it made it all the more glorious.
Not sure about Samsung devices but I’ve got a few Rokus and my pihole does a great job of blocking ads.
They still push “promotions” into the menus and every month I have to go through and turn them off, but I don’t see ads in the UI.
I have an old Intel nuc that I could slap a hard drive in. It wouldn’t have to handle all traffic, right?
That will definitely work for a Pi-Hole or AdGuard Home. If it has 2 network controllers, you could even set it up as a router and firewall with OPNsense. That would allow you to do even cooler stuff like DNS packet redirection for devices/applications that have a hardcoded DNS server.
Only DNS lookups. And it’s lightweight enough you could have an original NUC, set up a pi hole LXC on proxmox, and have plenty of power left over for other tasks.
That should be fine, most people use raspberry pi’s as a pihole server so a much shouldn’t have any problems handling it
Something like a chromecast would be the easiest solution.
Me personally, I just like having a media pc hooked up to my tv. I bought an amazon fire tv cause it was fairly cheap for 4k and its never been hooked up to the internet.
Just watch them litter those with ads too
If they do there’ll be a media center raspberry pi within a week.
It is a problem, my shield tv started having ads on the home page, but I was able to install a new launcher on it to fix that.
Overall having a media player plugged in to a disconnected tv is the way to go. It is easier to replace a chromecast than the whole tv.
What launcher are you using? I haven’t found one I really like yet.
I think I am using the wolf launcher. I have it set up pretty minimally. 95% of the time I just use it to launch Jellyfin.
FLauncher is decent
It’s even open-source: https://gitlab.com/flauncher/flauncher
I’ve been having a seperate media box connected to my TV for decades now, and if I want to get support for newer video encoding protocols (which happens maybe every 8 years or so) I can just change the media box, which is far cheaper than getting a whole new TV just because you need the hardware decoder chip for a newer video encoding.
The dumb part of the TV easilly lasts decades.
…that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve accepted my fate
You can probably get a DNS based ad blocker and configure your router DHCP to assign it to devices.
Yes, I have a firewall profile that I do exactly this for all my IoT devices.
^OK
If they stop selling dumb TVs, I won’t own another TV in my life. Not even being funny right now.
You can always buy a digital signage display and use it as a tv.
Those are usually more expensive and don’t do HDR.
That’s good. My fallback plan was to get one of those school style overhead protectors and just do pantomime shows with coloured paper and wires
Smart TVs are cheaper than dumb TVs because smart TVs can send your watching habit data to be sold. I wish I was joking.
That’s why you buy the cheaper smart one and just leave it air gapped
Until they reach a deal with mobile carriers and start shipping with SIM cards…
With e-sim, this is getting more likely all the time
Nothing a little bit of electronics surgery can’t fix, clip the antenna or put a 50 ohm resistor in it’s place. Better yet pull out the power amplifier or cut any power traces.
My current TV is an old one I got from a friend of my dad when he got a bigger one. It’s a bit glitchy, but it’s not smart, and that’s what matters.
No need, just leave any smart TVs disconnected from your network and they’re harmless
Yep. I never use the smart TV features. I’ve a fire stick and yes I see the irony but the firesick is almost used exclusively for Kodi.
For now …
I wouldn’t put it past them to start trying to mesh network their way out of local network jail. Are your neighbors as diligent as you are about privacy and security?
I’m pretty sure at least a few of them do that already. I’ve seen too many reports of tech savvy people not knowing why they got updates when the TV has never been connected.
Very possible. Or maybe “just” connecting to any open wifi networks that might be available…
OTOH, I take “non-tech-savvy” reports with a healthy grain of salt. “Never been connected” could simply mean “I didn’t plug it in to the Comcast box”. Or “I connected Netflix, I didn’t connect the TV”.
These were tech savvy people who I generally trust, plus a few Internet reports of dubious trustworthiness (like everything else on the internet).
I wish I could remember the brand.
NextDNS has filters for Samsung TV’s.
This has to be something that’s only legal in the US because I’ve never had ads on any TV that I’ve owned. Never even thought about it, I just get a random big TV and it doesn’t have ads.
Admittedly I haven’t actually bought a TV in about 10 years so it is possible that the ones I’m getting from family members and friends are just very well researched, but I doubt it knowing them. They will have just got whatever is biggest.
only legal in the US
Wrong, modern Chinese tvs are filled with ads. Its been on the news several times, and has some minor regulation since then. Before, you get ads upon turning on the tv, more when loaded to the launcher, not to mention ads during shows, and finally ads when you shut off the tv. Currently, theres only ads when loaded to launcher.
People have been trying to get rid of the ads through root, replacing the launcher, editing the host file to block ad ips.
Its a mess.
Or literally never, ever connect your TV directly to the Internet (seriously, don’t do it).
My Apple TV does an infinitely better job than the half-assed built-in native apps; more services are supported and for longer, features are properly integrated, and the additional smart phone functionality (AirPlay, AirPods sync etc.) is a godsend in a busy household.
Plus the added bonus of not risking my network getting compromised, and one less company collecting and selling data about me to unscrupulous marketers and shady middle-men.
How can you stream shows when you’re not connected to the internet? Everythnig is streaming these days.
I have replaced the default launcher, removed bloated apps through adb. The only ads I see are upon entering app, which is something I currently cant do anything about, but a press of button would make it go away.
Chromecast.
Google and China does not get along (Google is completely blocked in China due to it refusing to back down on China’s demand to regulate search results (ie: remove all websites that intentionally paints China in a negative light)),
Chromecast is rather useless in China
Connect it to cheap mini computer or a raspberry Pi. There’s other streaming devices available but they usually cost the same as the other two options I mentioned and the cheaper ones are also filled with ads.
I’d rather have a full-blown computer anyways and there are ways to have it act more like a tv with a remote but still keep all the functionality if you need it.
Smasnug tvs definitely have built in ads
Not if you don’t let them connect to the Internet
In that case there are no digital ads then are there
not mine ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I have a series 5 Samsung 32" smart tv and except preloaded apps and stuff which can be removed there were absolutely no ads.
i even connected it to the internet and signed in with my Samsung account, still no ads
(maybe it’s a regional thing, mine is set to Ukraine)Series 7 occasionally shows them beside the ‘app store’
Found the DankPods fan
How did you know ;)
SMASNUG
um, the tweet is customer support UK…
But Samsung TVs don’t have ads in the UK. They don’t. Perhaps if you buy a TV in the UK and then take it to another country it has ads and vice versa but I’m sure it’s illegal here.
it is from 2021 so if UK changed the law to not allow ads on tvs in that timeframe it could explain it. otherwise idk why samsung UK would be answering questions on removing ads
It’s not that ads are not allowed on TVs. Obviously ads are allowed on TV. It’s just that under UK law something has to be very obviously advertisement, part of that is you’re not allowed to stick it amongst other things that aren’t advertisements.
So in television programming you’ll have to have a black screen and then a few seconds of silence before you’re allowed to show the first ad. You can’t just slam cut into it from a TV show, that’s not allowed. Equally if there’s a bunch of UI stuff the ads are not allowed to be amongst them because some of them aren’t ads and some of them are. It’s been that way for literally decades.
What I suspect might have happened is that Samsung tried their luck and then got shut down by the advertising board. Quite possibly they don’t have a way to update their firmware. My newest Samsung TV I have access to was purchased in 2019 so there may be a time period after 2019 but before 2024 where they were doing this, but it can’t have lasted very long.
There is an incoming law about not adding unremovable bloatware as well, so if they’re going to go hard on that as well I can hardly see them putting up with advertising on TV interfaces.
The hardware they use on these TVs is complete shit* anyway, so your actually better off not using them for anything other than a TV. Buy an android box or one of those mini PCs instead.
*every time I saw the specs of these “smart” TVs a few years back, I would internally scream. I don’t know if it has improved since, but I highly doubt it.
Any recommendations on shopping for an Android set top box? Every time I start down the rabbit hole I feel like I’m just getting AI-written SEO scam fake review sites.
I can’t really give you recommendations because you’re from Canada and I am from a shitty third world country, so my needs and available choices are likely vastly different from yours. My only source is AliExpress, and I mostly don’t care about the Android box being certified by Google so Netflix & co. work (at least I believe that’s what the Google certification is for) because I sail the high sea.
TL;DR: Better to ask local groups.
That said, here’s my recommendation based on my own limited experience:
-
A Xiaomi box would be a good choice if you want a product from a big international company.
-
A Mecool Android box is also a good choice since they are Google certified and have decent hardware like DDR4 RAM and somewhat decent CPUs. Just avoid the boxes with the AMLOGIC 905Y4 CPU (which uses the weak ARM Cortex-A35 cores) and only go for the ones with the AMLOGIC 905X4 (ARM Cortex-A55 cores). Otherwise, they both have the same GPU (Mali-G31 MP2) which should suffice for an Android box.
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A more specific recommendation would be the Kinkhank G1 which has an AMLOGIC 905X4, 4GB DDR4, and 32GB of ROM and is Google certified.
-
Or just plug in a regular laptop when you want to watch something. That’s my move.
On top of crap hardware, “smart” TVs are a pretty serious security vulnerability, too. Better to not have it on the same network as your primary devices.
Connecting and deconnecting cables can cause damage. It’s best to have a dedicated hardware.
Plus, you can literally turn your mini PC into an emulation box to play retrogames (snes, megadrive, ps1) and the new generation of “retrogames” (ps2, ps3, wii, nds). And if the hardware is good enough (modern amd APUs and 16gb ddr4) you can even play switch games on it.
This isn’t cropped nearly enough. I can still barely see the punchline.
I think it was “^RS”, cropped to look like “^BS”.
That could be. I was just joking anyway.
Pretty sure I can see the backward bend of a B.
You can. There is a capital ‘R’ in ‘Replying’ (or ‘Ross’ in the previous message if you think it’s a different font) for reference.
The BS really makes the follow up statement believable
Oh i thought it said RS. Man someone should learn to crop their memes
That is the joke, yes!
The chicken wasn’t on the other side, that’s why he crossed the road!
The two people in charge of Samsung UK’s social media account are named Hanita Anita and Blorbo Spurlock.
I’m a big fan of Blorbo, he once gave me nasty oral sex
she samsung on my blorbo till i spurlock
Nice one Samsung! FOAD
