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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

#401

Post by beached_whale »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #336
beached_whale wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Optimum points are really nice for stuff like this. Just hold onto them until something nice shows up. It would be very interesting if some details of the FW came out. Not going to reverse engineer my new TV but the service menu gives me the feels of something that is very customizable.

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

#402

Post by pithon »

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?

About a month ago I got a TCL 55P607 based on a review by the Wirecutter: https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-lcd-led-tv/

I absolutely love that media interfaces are getting snappy again (e.g., no more hitting a button on the remote and waiting 4 seconds to it do finish opening a menu).

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

#403

Post by Qub3d »

beezle wrote: post #382
kstrauser wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a "Smart TV" from any brand ...you should turn that crap off and replace it with a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, or anything else external. The Amazon app on our Vizio was so out of date that it literally couldn't connect to Amazon's API. Later updates fixed Amazon but enabled some flat-out 1984 level spying: https://consumerist.com/2015/11/09/vizio-smart-tvs-are-watch... . That's when I hard reset the TV, b…

I really do not know why you (and other commenters later) place such great faith in the add on devices, Roku in particular. Just from a couple months ago: "And that’s where streaming TV company Roku comes in. Today, the company is introducing a new measurement suite called Roku Ad Insights that lets brands and agencies measure how effective their marketing is on OTT in four ways." You really should assume that any ap…

I run my Roku TV behind a super-duper locked down VLAN because of this. I wish I didn't have to, and I no longer recommend them because of the things you've mentioned.

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

#404

Post by slig »

braythwayt wrote: post #331
slig wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There used to be a way. The user had to fill a form and pay (less than 100usd, IIRC) and they would set up a custom domain for you.

The last time I googled it they had it discontinued this option.

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

#406

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

zamalek wrote: post #196
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…

Weren't Sony caught spying with the TV camera a few years back? I keep well away from Smart TVs.

Don’t know about Sony, but Samsung was definitely vulnerable to an NSA backdoor (ffs, probably front door put in for them).

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

#407

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

Fnoord wrote: post #395
johnchristopher wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering this: > Ideally you run a TV on a different VLAN. Why don't you go with a pi instead of a shield ?

An RPi can handle 720p at best, and no Netflix/Prime. Certainly not at 4k with HDR.

Um... running 1080p on Pi for years over here.

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

#408

Post by jake_the_third »

solidangle wrote: post #332
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.

Unfortunetly, it seems that the TV will still contact Samba.tv's servers regardless: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16728720

The only way to be sure with untrustworthy devices like this is not to connect them to the network at all (i.e. use a separate device you can trust instead), or better yet, buy a dumb monitor instead.

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

#409

Post by daveFNbuck »

beezle wrote: post #382
kstrauser wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a "Smart TV" from any brand ...you should turn that crap off and replace it with a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, or anything else external. The Amazon app on our Vizio was so out of date that it literally couldn't connect to Amazon's API. Later updates fixed Amazon but enabled some flat-out 1984 level spying: https://consumerist.com/2015/11/09/vizio-smart-tvs-are-watch... . That's when I hard reset the TV, b…

I really do not know why you (and other commenters later) place such great faith in the add on devices, Roku in particular. Just from a couple months ago: "And that’s where streaming TV company Roku comes in. Today, the company is introducing a new measurement suite called Roku Ad Insights that lets brands and agencies measure how effective their marketing is on OTT in four ways." You really should assume that any ap…

When you see that Roku announcement, you can unplug the Roku from the TV and replace it with something different.

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

#410

Post by kalleboo »

freedomben wrote: post #268
userbinator wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I wonder how big the market is for "dumb" TVs priced lower than smart ones --- given that the development costs, if any, for one would be much lower since you're basically ju…

What you say makes sense, but I wonder if the amount of money they make re-selling our data would allow them to actually undercut the cost required to produce a "dumb" TV. So it's possible it would cost more for a dumb TV because it isn't subsidized by data reselling (I'm purely speculating here. I would guess dumb TVs would drive down the cost of smart TVs as they eat into their profit margins to maintain market sha…

Not only selling data, but selling pre-installed app slots as advertising. Sure they won't be able to convince Netflix or YouTube to pay to have their apps pre-installed on the home-screen, but other wannabe streaming platforms would probably be happy to cough up
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