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Disabling ads is easy, don’t connect it to the internet ever
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.
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
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.
If they do there’ll be a media center raspberry pi within a week.
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 should be fine, most people use raspberry pi’s as a pihole server so a much shouldn’t have any problems handling it
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’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.
firmware updates for better picture.
Good fucking lord.
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.
if it gives you the option you could try setting the DNS settings to something that doesn’t exist.
Maybe if you give it its own vlan? Idk tho
You can probably get a DNS based ad blocker and configure your router DHCP to assign it to devices.
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.
…that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve accepted my fate
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
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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?
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
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.
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.
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.
just don’t connect it to the Internet
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”.
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.
buy any tv and don’t connect it to the Internet
An more expensive dumb TV, actually. They want you to buy the thing that makes passive income so its cheaper.
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
^FU
^MF
Took me three hours to realize FU meant Felix Unger!
Surgeons generally initial their incision site pre op; one of the general docs I worked with had the initials “HA”, and would do laparoscopic surgeries with 3 port sites… so our patients would roll in with “HA HA HA” written across their abdomen. Always got a kick out of it! ^_^
This is so very special, I love that only a few people will ever see it
I am one of the poo, err, uh, few.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/13/doctor-branded-liver/
Yeah that was pretty fucked up. Psychopath got caught literally branding a patient’s liver.
Pre-op, surgeons use a skin marker (washes off after a few days) to confirm the correct site, and will sometimes even write “NO” or put an “X” over the same site on the other side. If you go in for surgery on your left leg, then wake up with you left leg still fucked up and a bunch of stitches on your right leg… yeah not a good situation. And it’s happened. There are a TON of redundant checks now to prevent wrong-site surgeries, but people get tunnel visioned and still manage to fuck up every now and then. I was even in a case where we had a close call - cataract surgery. We did all checks, heard and read “left eye” probably 20 times just in the OR. Shit’s all good and we’re ready to start: “Uh… Doc? You just draped the right. This one’s left.”
It was the only left eye that day, all the others were right. So even despite all the checks, our monkey brains still find a way sabotage us.
But that’s also why we do shit as teams, so when one of us fucks up, there are like 4 others there to call us out - hopefully in time to prevent any harm.
Wow crazy, glad you guys caught the error, goodness gracious.
The Checklist Manifesto is about this, right?
Yeah they do it with a marker when the patient is awake. Like “this is the surgery I’m doing on you, you cool with that? Ok I’m initialing that we are doing the right thing here”
Like for an amputation they’ll mark the leg while the patient is awake “yes I want this one removed”
Here’s another doctor that branded women’s uteruses with the initials of his school.
https://www.wave3.com/story/1141325/nine-women-want-to-join-lawsuit-against-surgeon-over-branding/
Yea branding can be legit for navigational orientation purposes during arthroscopy procedures, but they really need some cool universal orientation design, not dude or school initials.
Something like Prince’s symbol, that the patient chooses. Way cool private organ art.
And patient consent.
Get your shit together, docs.
Calling it now, warding runes on internals organs will be the next wellness fad
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Same.
-BS
Username checks out.
I equate Samsung TVs with HP printers. I would rather go without than have to put up with their nonsense.
We should form a club. Would be great to avoid some of this insidious bullshit. Ads on a TV I paid for and subscription to my own printer. I hope both companies fail.
The French would have guillotined them during their revolution.
Actually, like HP printers, the older models are great. I have a 10-15 yo or something Samsung 1080p 50" flat screen that I found at the garbage. Been using it for a bedroom tv for 2 years already and it’s awesome.
I wouldn’t buy a new Samsung TV now to save my life.
I was dumb enough to buy a Samsung 4k curved monitor, 6 months in the front fell off, literally. The screen literally fell out of the frame. Sanding it back was only allowed in the original box which I threw out because I lived in a tiny apartment. Took 3 months of daily calls until they decided to send me a box. Sent the monitor in, and recieved a repaired on one month later where they replaced the motherboard, buttons and other stuff but failed to glue the screen back in. sent it back again, now in the kept box, and got a new one that at least works.
the front fell off
That’s not supposed to happen…
You’ve not bought an HP since 2010 or before. HP is worse than Samsung so much worse
Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I bought an HP M476DN in 2015, and no problems using non-oem toner, toner top up, etc. No subscription nonsense, no firmware upgrades nobbling things. Maybe I’ll regret posting this when HP find out but it doesn’t owe me anything nearly 10 years later…
My Odyssey G7’s panel also fell off 2 weeks before the end of the warranty.
In addition to that, the Odyssey series also has a weird issue where if certain conditions are met, the entire screen will dip in brightness and display horizontal lines. It’s very distracting. They’re aware of the issue (as many people have reported it) but they aren’t doing anything to fix it. I won’t be buying another.
I don’t want any smart TV. If I want a smart TV I’ll hook my own computer up to it.
I’m happy with my cheap Sceptre tv. It isn’t for everyone, but I have no need for smart TVs. I’ve never had one, and I don’t want one.
My cheap ass Sceptre has a beautiful 4K picture which I rarely use anyway. My kids watch YouTube on my switch most of the time. I think I seen a 4K video once when I hooked my Steam deck up to it. It was pretty, but I don’t have time for TV with these babies anyway.
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!
You can block them with a Pi-hole. ^DNS
HA!
^BS
I block this shit with pfsense but I’ll never buy another Samsung product again.
Uuggh pfsense. I hate pfsense. Its great. But i hate it.
Are you referring to this, or something else?
Those are the options I found when I was building my router/firewall.
I went with pfsense because it had a plug in (‘pfblocker-NG’) I wanted, but then I learned that the company is kind of shit. So I’d go OPNsense next time even if it’s a little more work on the front end.
Tbh I agree now but I thought I wanted all the plug-ins when I was setting up my router. I’d go opensense if I did it again.
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).
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.
“The line must go up, fuck everyone” is a perfectly succinct description of capitalism, thank you for that.
Fun fact: TVs are pretty much the only product that consistently goes down in price each year.
Just use it as display device for your library and *arr services. A high-end 55" OLED goes for 1000$ nowadays.
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.
i got a giant ass tv that has no ads. just got to not get smart tv
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I use an adblocking DNS on my router (pihole can also work), and I haven’t seen any ads on my 2023 Samsung TV (the TV interface itself).
Edit: Also wanted to add that a quick search can get you a list of samsung domains to block on your router/pihole to stop ads and tracking. I have around 10 samsung domains on my block list. Note that it might break the samsung tv function.
This. But also my apps stopped working and I have let the tv update every once in a while.
I feel like it would be easier to block all traffic to/from the TV and just connect a device to HDMI (not that that will stop them, haven’t some smart TVs already been caught just connecting to any unsecured wireless network?)
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
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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This isn’t cropped nearly enough. I can still barely see the punchline.
I think it was “^RS”, cropped to look like “^BS”.
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.
That could be. I was just joking anyway.
2 easy solutions:
- Don’t connect your TV to the internet
- If you need an internet connection for some reason, run a network-wide DNS filtering solution like Pi-Hole or AdGuard Home, and make sure to set it as the default DNS server in your router
LG TV’s serve ads in notifications via the same domain that distributes new firmware. I got so sick of it that I blocked my TV from being able to reach the internet but it’s still on the network so I can still use wake on LAN to turn it on/off.
Too bad that last reply wasn’t signed by Fritz Ubermensch
^OK
