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Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

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Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#81

Post by DrPhish »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #2

I had a very nice Sharp Aquos TV for a long time. One of the first reasonably priced 1080p 65" TVs. It had absolutely no "smart" features, which was perfectly fine with me. I have my TV hooked up to a home theatre system and have my devices (PS4/AppleTV/XB1/Nvidia Shield) hooked up to that. I recently upgraded to a LG 4K OLED TV. It's an absolutely gorgeous TV, but, I absolutely lament the "smart" features of this TV…

What you are looking for are called "Commercial Displays" or "Digital Signage" Expect to pay a premium, but they are generally simple panels built to endure a very heavy duty cycle and harsher-than-a-living-room environment

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#82

Post by prawn »

dawnerd wrote: post #4

I stopped connecting my TVs to the internet when Samsung started pushing notification ads for GameFly on a (at the time) 3k dollar first gen 4K tv - and they lied and said no they’d never do that. They’ve all lost my trust.

I disabled autoupdates on everything after a smart TV whose dashboard I'd laid out to suit me, auto-updated and insisted on dashboard apps that I never wanted and couldn't delete or hide. Got an Apple TV and have not touched the smart TV features since.

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#83

Post by smileybarry »

walrus01 wrote: post #33

In my opinion you should not use ANY of the smart features of a "smart" TV. Don't give it your wifi key and don't put it on your LAN. I have about 400% more trust of Microsoft and Sony than I do of random smart tv manufacturers. I also have a fairly high degree of confidence that the xbox one and PS4 software will remain up to date with security patches, and address critical issues quickly. I have no confidence for T…

> I have about 400% more trust of Microsoft and Sony than I do of random smart tv manufacturers.

It should be noted Sony's TVs are different than their game consoles in what they collect and do. They run a relatively clean version of Android TV except for "Samba TV", which is yet another piece of show-recognizing (known as ACR) analytics. However, you can apparently decline its privacy policy on initial setup and even disable the APK entirely in settings[1]. (Some people also succeeded in ripping it and other bundled video apps out via ADB)

Even given all that, Sony TVs are probably still the tamest smart TVs out there.

> Don't give it your wifi key and don't put it on your LAN.

It entirely depends on manufacturer but I've heard of some actually seeking out open networks for internet access if you don't configure their Wi-Fi. Some people reported an unconnected TV suddenly prompted to update because the neighbour's wifi was unsecured. If you can, I'd set up a specific SSID with no LAN or WAN access just in case.

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#84

Post by smileybarry »

codezero wrote: post #64
glitchc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just unplug it from the network. That should get rid of most of it. I have an LG smart TV that has never seen the network. I get no ads, no popups, no features, no EULA, nothing. It behaves like a dumb TV. It was the LG 65UH series from Costco.

I wonder if one day they’ll connect to other TVs that are online to get around the WiFi.

I've read about TVs that already did that. The owner purposefully didn't configure WiFi or Ethernet, and months later the TV suddenly prompted to install an update because it found a neighbour's open WiFi.

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#85

Post by opencl »

xwdv wrote: post #62
tekstar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently bought an LG OLED as well. I never connected it to my network and never will. It was a dark pattern during setup. The options were to connect via LAN or WIFI, and only by scrolling into "nothing" did a skip option appear. This ImO is the only option and even then I bet it's trying to exhilarate data by like trying to connect to a phone or high frequency audio or something.

How do you install firmware updates??

Most of them let you download the firmware updates on a computer and load them on a USB flash drive. That's how I've updated my Samsung that I never connect to the network.

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#86

Post by smileybarry »

Buttons840 wrote: post #38
detaro wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDMI optionally does support that, but almost no devices actually do.

In the future, won't it become increasingly difficult to keep your TV disconnected? Anything you connect to it will provide it with an internet connection.

Maybe we'll have "HDMI condoms" that connect two cables and drop all packets relating to internet sharing.

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#87

Post by Silhouette »

egdod wrote: post #73
Silhouette wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there’s no good way to stop that. As long as they rely on your own network for their external connectivity, you can always firewall them (at the expense of any connected features you do want to use, perhaps, but then I suspect most of us would agree that 99% of those are junk in most smart TVs anyway and be OK with that limitation). The problem comes when they can form their own connections, but in that case they…

But that breaks the streaming functionality.

Only if you stream via your TV and not a separate box. Obviously that's part of what they're banking on, but I don't know anyone technically knowledgeable who does that (not least because TVs are notoriously bad at updates and incompatibility often breaks those functions soon after purchase anyway). John and Jane Viewer used to manage just fine with separate set-top boxes for their satellite or cable or whatever, so I don't personally see any problem with having separate (and therefore separately upgradable or replaceable) boxes for connecting to online services, while it does have clear advantages.

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#88

Post by sojmq »

Buttons840 wrote: post #38
detaro wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDMI optionally does support that, but almost no devices actually do.

In the future, won't it become increasingly difficult to keep your TV disconnected? Anything you connect to it will provide it with an internet connection.

They could create an HDMI condom so you can't have network connectivity over HDMI. Similar to USB condoms.

Also... what if they put a 5G SIM card inside the telly? Now that would suck.

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#89

Post by smileybarry »

fernly wrote: post #72
yegor wrote: post #19

Run a Pi-Hole, use it as the DNS server for your "Smart" TV. Too lazy? Shameless self promotion: https://windscribe.com/features/robert

Wait wait wait. Windscribe, which looks like a heckuva VPN, where does it run? Because we are talking about filtering or blocking the data flow between the TV and the local router, i.e. the connection between the TV and my Comcast router. How does Windscribe get involved in that stream?

I'm guessing it's just a DNS server blackholing/NXDOMAIN-ing certain domains and the connections aren't actually proxied, like the old OpenDNS home.

Re: Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

#90

Post by tzs »

I wish that if they are going to insist on making their TVs smart, they would take the time to think about what people who use some of the apps would want.

For example, my Samsung has apps that can stream radio, and apps for Spotify and other music services.

But it evidently failed to occur to anyone at Samsung that since these are audio apps and do not need to use the screen while playing, I might want to blank the screen once I start the stream.

I'm particularly irked at Samsung because when I searched online to see how to blank the screen (I assumed it was obvious that they would include such a feature, and I was just being dimwitted when it came to finding it), I found that they used to have that feature, and they dropped it starting with the model year of my TV!

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