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My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

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Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#331

Post by braythwayt »

slig wrote: post #329
braythwayt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago I used Posterous as my blog, in good HN fashion. Aaaaand it went away. Walled gardens are always going to be a massive vulnerability for link rot.

This time with Medium will be different! /s

Although I couldn't see a way to do it when I first looked at Medium, I'm told that there is now a way to use it with your own URLs.

I haven't bothered to examine how it works, but if you can do that and you have a disaster recovery plan that replicates your entire output to a different service (e.g. GitHub Pages) while retaining the link structure, then perhaps Medium is now superior to Posterous's original offering.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#332

Post by solidangle »

madez wrote: post #8

If this happens under EU jurisdiction, then you can deny the update and legally demand that the TV continues working. The manufacturer may not impose new rules after the selling contract. Fuck this wild-west anarchistic behaviour of software companies. When we have legal protection, we can make use of it.

Also have a Sony Smart TV, and I live in the EU. After updating the TV, it asked me whether I wanted to enable Samba, and I simply declined. Seems to be disabled now.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#333

Post by roywiggins »

baq wrote: post #276
Filligree wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the updates needed? Was anything broken?

If you ever read some av forums, you'll find that modern TVs are about as reliable as modern computers, i.e. it's amazing they even turn on when requested. Features are DOA for new lines and need multiple updates to be useful, sometimes they're completely disabled and only get enabled after a year, e.g. Dolby Vision on 2017s Sonys.

My parents' TV has an incredible anti-feature where, if the video gets dark enough, the whole screen dims temporarily. There's no firmware update for it so they've just lived with it for years.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#334

Post by sizzle »

devmunchies wrote: post #93
kartickv wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why this meme is a half-truth. Other examples include old-world companies like magazines and banks selling our data despite us paying for the service. Even in areas other than privacy, my bank mistreats me far worse than Internet companies like Google and Twitter. Not to mention that in a multi-sided ecosystem, Internet companies need to keep both users and advertisers happy, so even if you're not paying, yo…

My bank (US Bank) had a Facebook script behind the login wall and was firing requests to Facebook while I was doing private banking.

Please write this up and share it on HN.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#335

Post by GirlsCanCode »

lukeschlather wrote: post #99
buro9 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN replying to myself with some context outside of the tweets. I actually trust stock Android over Samsung, Sony, etc Android. Hence my "if we're going to have Android TV perhaps Google could supply it without the forced add-ons". I see this similar to installing Windows yourself rather than having "Windows with added vendor crap"... like if you know you want Windows, a stock one is better and same with Android. I'm…

Why Android over Linux or MacOS? It feels like at this point, Android and Windows are surveillance systems. If you don't want a surveillance system, you need to go with Linux or MacOS (or iOS.)

Windows is a surveillance system? No it's not.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#336

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

beached_whale wrote: post #137
buro9 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try it. I did. I couldn't find a non-smart TV. They are everywhere. If you want the 4k, then you have a smart TV. The best alternatives were super large monitors (way over the price of a TV, and with no decent sound built in), or corporate display panels (for advertising, signage, etc) whose prices are also way above a TV and include no sound system at all.

The non-smart 4k tv's exist and can be found for relatively inexpensive prices. I just got one, an off brand Technicolor TC5580-UHD.

That particular model number is apparently exclusive to Shoppers Drug Mart (store-exclusive model numbers are a pretty common problem; in many cases the actual difference from a "standard" model is something trivial like a slightly different remote or bezel). There's an interesting forum thread about the overall product family / platform / whatever [1].

https://forums.redflagdeals.com/rca-haier-avera-fluid-sylvan...

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#337

Post by paulcole »

buro9 wrote: post #55

I'm the author and linking to my tweets is a bad idea because they auto-delete after 14 days. For future HN context, as the author I'm reproducing them here in full: My @Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app from https://samba.tv and boy oh boy... this is worse than recent @facebook stuff. From their own privacy policy: https://samba.tv/legal/privacy-policy/ … they track what you w…

> Samba is not a feature for you, it is a snitch in your living room, snitching on everything you watch on your TV, it's a feature for corporations only.

Serious question: so what? Lots of things don’t benefit me. Lots of things benefit corporations only. Why am I supposed to get outraged by this?

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#338

Post by GirlsCanCode »

buro9 wrote: post #81
lucb1e wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> linking to my tweets is a bad idea because they auto-delete after 14 days. I feel like you should mention that in your bio, it's not standard and breaks conversations. People should know that they should cite you if they want something to be preserved in conversations or when linking.

The bio space is too short. Meh, I can delete if I want to :)

Excatly! Don't let the fascists at YCombinator Headline News tell you what to do.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#339

Post by scarface74 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #311
makecheck wrote: post #30

My parents’ TV has various apps built in and one of them is Skype. They discontinued the Skype service so now every single time the TV turns on it displays a stupid error message about “a problem with an app” that can’t be uninstalled and that they never used. Smart TVs are full of stuff like this. They need to go.

That's why I went with Roku TV. They are the only platform with a consistent track record of supporting old hardware. You also don't suffer from the single vendor lock-in of Tizen or WebOS or the wild west of Android.

if you are going to get a smart TV, definitely get a Roku TV. While the interface for controlling the settings is much better than any other TV, the remote app is nice and the private listening is awesome, the hardware is slower than AppleTV 4K, and it doesn't handle fast forward and rewind as well. The right half of the home screen is used for ads and the remote buttons for quickly going to other channels isn't customizable and you are stuck with whatever provider paid Roku for placement.

We have two Roku TVs and two other TVs with Roku sticks. We also have AppleTvs connected to each of the TVs - one 4K ATV and the rest 3rd Gen ATVs.

Re: My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

#340

Post by awinder »

nip wrote: post #24
gcb0 wrote: post #4

to be honest, sony have a track record of doing this. bought a music CD or games? get a rootkit. if you still buy sony products, I can't be sory for you.

Any good tv recommendation, if not Sony?

TCL might be the best option since they’re running a Roku OS. I just picked up an LG B7A (great time of year to buy 2017 TVs on markdown) and it’s great but the advertising crap was a minefield.
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