Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#2Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug.
This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#3Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug. This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.
yes. as far as smart TVs go, a Roku one is usually the best option because all the other platforms absolutely suck.
I agree with only buying "dumb" TVs
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#4> Disclaimer: by ‘’Lock’’ I mean soft-lock. They do technically allow you to continue without doing do on the payment, but the options are hidden and only available if you look for them. Dark-net patterns are absolutely at work here, and unless you factory reset your TV it’s a freaking brick for the majority of people. Your TV is what I will call ‘’BlueBricked’’
"Cryptolocking" is something I generally associate with malware that encrypts your hard drive and won't give you the decryption key unless you pay a ransom.
This is "there are dark patterns that make it difficult to get past the initial setup screen without signing up for an account", which is not the same at all.
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#5Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug. This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.
Yeah, there are TVs with Roku built-in. It's the TV's "OS". I thought it was incredibly dumb too until every TV started having an OS, most of them awful, and all of them spying on you unless you stop them. Now, at least the OS is Roku so the performance is pretty good and it's not too weird or crashy. Faster boot-up (ugh) than a lot of others.
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#6Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug. This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.
yes. as far as smart TVs go, a Roku one is usually the best option because all the other platforms absolutely suck. I agree with only buying "dumb" TVs
The problem is that "Dumb" TVs are quickly going extinct. They already tend to be more expensive than otherwise equivalent "Smart" TVs, which should give you an idea of how much value is actually added to the TV by these "Smart" features.
It's probably about time for someone to figure out the firmware update process and come with a DD-WRT style open source firmware that doesn't have all of this nonsense.
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#7Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug. This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.
I agree that buying "dumb" TVs is preferable, but they're often hard to find if you're looking for high-end features.
To quickly include the comments which often come up in similar threads -
There are some TVs you can find at BestBuy without smart features, but they're usually not 4K.
In many cases you can use a "smart" tv, and avoid putting it on your local wifi. Some TVs reportedly require internet access to work at all.
In other cases people have said that the device jumped on a neighbors open wifi without prompting.
People often say that including these "smart" features makes a TV cheaper for a manufacturer, since they can then sell your viewing data.
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#8> Disclaimer: by ‘’Lock’’ I mean soft-lock. They do technically allow you to continue without doing do on the payment, but the options are hidden and only available if you look for them. Dark-net patterns are absolutely at work here, and unless you factory reset your TV it’s a freaking brick for the majority of people. Your TV is what I will call ‘’BlueBricked’’ "Cryptolocking" is something I generally associate with…
This could have been an informative article. But instead, the writer decided to go all sensationalist clickbait. That's a dark pattern, too.
For the future, I recommend to the writer that he spend less time on sensationalism, and more time on editing.
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#9Is this a TV with some kind of Roku software built in? I thought Roku was a physical device that you could just unplug. This is why I will only buy "dumb" TVs that can only display input from external sources.
Just last week I bought a TCL Roku TV. The price was right!
During setup, I declined to connect to WiFi and then set the TV to automatically switch to HDMI 1 when it turns on, and to honor CEC over HDMI so that my external AppleTV box can power it on and off. Taught the AppleTV remote how to handle the volume on the TV, and that's it. The Roku remote is in a drawer, and the TV behaves as a dumb monitor.
I'm not even sure whether it's possible to buy a large TV without software loaded on it, but you don't have to let that software run!
Re: Roku is cryptolocking TV’s until you give personal data
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes. as far as smart TVs go, a Roku one is usually the best option because all the other platforms absolutely suck. I agree with only buying "dumb" TVs
The problem is that "Dumb" TVs are quickly going extinct. They already tend to be more expensive than otherwise equivalent "Smart" TVs, which should give you an idea of how much value is actually added to the TV by these "Smart" features. It's probably about time for someone to figure out the firmware update process and come with a DD-WRT style open source firmware that doesn't have all of this nonsense.
The closest thing is to never let it connect to the internet, plug in a raspi with Kodi on it, and just use that. It's almost perfect