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72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

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Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#361

Post by bo1024 »

onion2k wrote: post #292
Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

That would essentially force people to buy two devices - one for receiving content to display and a second to display it. All your solution does is shift the problem on to the receiving device. It wouldn't fix anything, and at the same time it'd increase the cost and complexity for the user (by a very small amount admittedly).

Yes, and there are a lot of good reasons for that! The two functions become obsolete at different rates, and people have different needs for each of them, so it's the right place to put an abstraction layer.

When I buy a computer monitor, I can pair it with any computer I want. I can upgrade the graphics card or processor independently of the monitor. I'm not locked in to a particular computer based on the features of the monitor I want. TVs should be the same. It could be as simple as a USB stick you plug in the back.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#362

Post by 3guk »

erentz wrote: post #191

I’m kind of surprised there isn’t an OpenWRT style project out there to provide a replacement OS for common Smart TVs. At least I couldn’t find one. I’m obviously lacking in understanding the massive difficulties such a project would likely face. But it sure would be very nice to be able to replace my TVs firmware with something open source. I don’t want a dongle or extra box or extra remote. There’s a perfectly good…

As much as it pains me to say it - lack of demand is probably one, as much as it seems like a hot topic on HN, as it stands the vast majority of people don't care.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#363

Post by dehrmann »

Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

There's something nice about having a single device you can chromecast to, play Netflix on, etc. I mostly just wish there were open-source firmwares for TVs.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#364

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #269
Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

You can buy that TV. It still exists. But for now, people are buying smart TVs.

> You can buy that TV. It still exists.

It does, but only just. There are still a few models around, but the category of large-format dumb displays has virtually disappeared over the past decade. Commercial displays have almost entirely turned into smart TVs that run business apps instead of consumer apps.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#365

Post by cortesoft »

willcipriano wrote: post #16

> Smart devices manufacturers often “hard-code” in a public DNS server, like Google’s 8.8.8.8, and their devices ignore whatever DNS server is assigned by your router - such as your PiHole. Going to be a sad day for those advertisers when the DNS project gets killed by Google. Hopefully they are smart enough to set a alternate as well.

Nah, at that point the device makers don’t care... they already sold the device. Now you will have to buy a new one!

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#367

Post by kstrauser »

criddell wrote: post #334
stingraycharles wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own several smart TVs but use none of the smart functionality. They don’t even have internet. TV makers are horrible software developers, for the same reasons that mobile manufacturers were horrible mobile OS developers until Android came along. We have similar solutions for televisions in the form of Apple TV and Chromecast. I honestly feel I’m wasting my money when I’m buying a smart TV these days, but you just n…

Smart TVs often cost less than dumb TVs. If you don't connect your TV to the internet then you are being subsidized by all the people that do.

And frankly that’s all you need to know about the business model. If they’re making money from me using their free service, then I’m the product.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#368

Post by mrtksn »

stingraycharles wrote: post #309
Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

I own several smart TVs but use none of the smart functionality. They don’t even have internet. TV makers are horrible software developers, for the same reasons that mobile manufacturers were horrible mobile OS developers until Android came along. We have similar solutions for televisions in the form of Apple TV and Chromecast. I honestly feel I’m wasting my money when I’m buying a smart TV these days, but you just n…

We have an LG with WebOS. Quite good actually, the remote is also very good, the browser is good, the apps work well.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#369

Post by greedo »

kstrauser wrote: post #306
Bud wrote: post #261

This isn't difficult: TVs should not be "smart". TVs should be incredibly dumb. They should be screens for displaying stuff. That's it. Nothing else. No network connection of any kind, no apps, no software beyond that necessary to do basic setup of how that screen works: brightness, input selection, etc.

You’re exactly right. Furthermore, an external box is easy to replace when it breaks or becomes obsolete. What are you going to do when the embedded OS in your sly TV is no longer supported? No thanks. My TV is a monitor, only. It has never been, nor will ever be, connected to my home network after I first brought it home and updated its firmware to whatever was current at the time.

I bought a Sony bluray player for the bedroom; it had Netflix etc on it, and seemed like it would be a good compromise between it and adding a disc player and AppleTV. About six months ago, the Netflix app stopped working. No updates available, just useless.

Re: 72% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles hardcode DNS settings

#370

Post by [deleted] »

jon-wood wrote: post #10

I’m responsible for a bunch of IoT hardware, and every firmware spec I write includes a note on not using the DNS servers provided via DHCP. While sure there are companies explicitly doing this to avoid filtering, at least in my case it’s because a significant proportion of DHCP servers are configured to send DNS to your ISP, and ISP provided DNS is almost universally terrible. They’ll ignore TTLs, rewrite NXDOMAIN r…

[deleted]
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