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I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

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Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#231
I have the same TV and have literally never thought about the ads on it except when reading articles on Hacker News.

It seems like a huge benefit these days to be the sort of person who just isn't bothered by ads, like you can enjoy products and have more options available and don't have to do a ton of work to enjoy them.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#232
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Wi-Fi networks are a thing of the past. I've been to two medical facilities and a large regional hospital in the last week where there were open wifi networks with no portals. My apartment building operates an open wifi network for guests so we don't have to bother giving out passwords to visitors. An airport I visited last month has wide open wifi. A see ads on transit buses all the time stating that the bus ha…

It's a thing of the past in residential areas. There are ~80 wifi networks that I can detect from my apartment, and not a single one of them is open .

It's a thing of the past in residential areas

And by "residential areas," I assume you mean "the very specific residential area where I live in my neighborhood, in my city, in my county, in my state, in my nation" since there is simply no way for you to have made a detailed assessment of the availability of open wifi for the entirety of the rest of the planet, or even for the small subset of its people who are on HN.

But thanks for informing me, and the 300 other people who reside in my building that we don't live in a residential area.

Generalizations generally fail.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned this with my router. I updated the firmware thinking it was the smart thing to do, security fixed and all that, but instead I was greeted with ads for their other products and them wanted to shove their stupid phone app in my face to interact with the router. I then installed OpenWRT and said nuts to using proprietary router firmware.

I am in a search for Wi-Fi 6 router, can you please name the company I should avoid?

Just buy a router that supports OpenWRT.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like input switching should operate below the OS.

What am I missing? What's wrong with input switching being made at the OS level?

The fact that I have to wait for my TV to boot so that the 'input' button works in order to switch to the device I intended to use when I turned it on.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#235
post #12

I run a pihole on my network for exactly this reason. The amount of network traffic the TV attempts, even when on standby or watching over-the-air broadcast is astonishing.

The vast majority of those are probably re-tries.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#236

Just give me my Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, HBO Max,... All of which are available on an AppleTV, and I assume other less-intrusive devices. TFA comes to that conclusion in the last paragraph, but just in case anyone didn't make it that far. And then, as everyone on this page is going to say, never let that TV anywhere near a network connection. Why anyone would go to the effort of dicking with a pi-hole cat-and-…

> IOW, use the AppleTV (or Roku, or whatever) regardless just for the better experience. I've never used AppleTV. Does it come with ads and a bunch of data collection too? Roku collects massive amounts of data and has ads. For example: "Roughly twice per second, a Roku TV captures video “snapshots” in 4K resolution. These snapshots are scanned through a database of content and ads, which allows the exposure to be mat…

>Does it come with ads and a bunch of data collection too?

Even with AppleTV+ it contains ads for other content on other services that you have to pay for. You might be able to buy it through AppleTV and watch it there I guess. I don't know I've never tried.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#237
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of plain TVs around though, just like there are plain operating systems, plain phones, etc but consumers still give their money to Samsung, Microsoft, Google, etc. Most people don't care, you are not the target audience.

Got any Amazon/BestBuy/Costco links for a 65" 4k "plain" TV that lacks advertisements?

Yes check out Sceptre brand you can buy in any of a number of places. As dumb as it gets. 65" 4k goes for pretty cheap.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#238
post #6

never, ever give a TV an internet connection, wifi password or dhcp lease. I realize there are ads on the homescreen of an xbox series x, ps4 pro, ps5, etc but I would much rather deal with those than whatever shoddy operating system TV manufacturers put on their thing. I have a thousand times more confidence that microsoft and sony will keep their OSes patched and up to date (they have a strong financial/self-intere…

> never, ever give a TV an internet connection, wifi password or dhcp lease. The problem is that it’s becoming unavoidable. Right now the only oven with a good Consumer Reports rating requires a Wi-Fi connection, so it’s either get that model or another one with a significantly worse rating.

> Right now the only oven with a good Consumer Reports rating requires a Wi-Fi connection

Is this some weird American only thing? I keep hearing on HN how everything requires wifi now, but in Australia, I couldn't find any major oven that had wifi at all, and only 14 out of 504 fridges on a popular appliances site (Appliances Online) had wifi at all.

I'd be interested to know what the options look like in other countries.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like input switching should operate below the OS.

What am I missing? What's wrong with input switching being made at the OS level?

In many smart TVs, when you press the input button, it doesn't immediately pop up a mini OSD. It loads a program that can take as long as it does to load a streaming service's app. This program shows you ads, sometimes even inserts ads for streaming services in between the input sources you have to click over. This is before the time it actually takes for the input to change. With my TV, if I am on TV/Antenna, it takes me about 10 seconds from the time I first press the input button to when I can press the OK button on HDMI 4 which sends the command to switch inputs. The actual switching of the input takes about 1 second.

Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> never, ever give a TV an internet connection, wifi password or dhcp lease. The problem is that it’s becoming unavoidable. Right now the only oven with a good Consumer Reports rating requires a Wi-Fi connection, so it’s either get that model or another one with a significantly worse rating.

What for? Genuine question, what reason does an oven need an internet connection for? If I bought an oven and it required an internet connection I'd be getting my money back.

In order for the company to extract more money out of you, of course.
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