Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

flatpanelshd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 960 posts

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#151

Post by huhtenberg »

fxtentacle wrote: post #88
huhtenberg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it Just don't connect it to the Internet. The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any "idiot box" models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren't seeing the Internet. Then we'll be truly fucked.

Then I'll start selling a little $50 box to emulate internet and route all update / advertisement requests to /dev/null :) Or maybe we (the tech community) just agree on one model and produce an open source firmware. If you look at MagicLantern for Canon, you'll see how amazingly far people will go to control their hardware.

That won't last long either if at all. They will just require an SSL connectivity to their servers with a custom CA root. The end.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#152

Post by antsar »

covercash wrote: post #63
FooHentai wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever has the best panel for the best price, then strap an apple TV (or your choice of NUC) onto it and completely ignore whatever on-board smarts exist.

The biggest drawback to this is the lack of support for 4K in the YouTube app on Apple TV.

And that the YouTube app forces its ads and shitty recommendations down your throat. A NUC running Kodi sounds nicer. (Yeah, yeah, pi-hole. It’s a bandaid, IMHO)

Also, Apple‘s streaming services being ever more annoyingly shoved in your face on menu screens.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#153

Post by reallydontask »

JorgeGT wrote: post #95
reallydontask wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's an interesting point you make, but perhaps companies should make these trade offs transparent. You can get the version that phones home or you can pay extra for the version that doesn't. I suppose the problem is that they'd make this transparent and there would likely be a bit of backlash ... thank goodness that regulatory agencies have our best interests at heart /s

Precisely Amazon is one of the few companies that make this explicit with their Kindle, here the Paperwhite without ads costs 10€ extra. I'm curious, does anyone know other examples?

I should've mentioned the Kindle as I have one of the ad supported one, but I'm not aware of any other examples

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#154

Post by Hamuko »

oarsinsync wrote: post #101
huhtenberg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it Just don't connect it to the Internet. The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any "idiot box" models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren't seeing the Internet. Then we'll be truly fucked.

> The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any "idiot box" models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren't seeing the Internet. Then we'll be truly fucked. We're closer to that than you think. My Philips Ambilight television (purchased this year) throws a popup every few weeks already complaining that I've not completed setup and connected it to the internet. As sold as I am on Ambilight (…

I should see what happens with my Philips TV if I block it from accessing the Internet. It's currently plugged in because it's also connected to my Hue lights but I don't really ever use any Internet features on it.

Also, if you really enjoy Ambilight, there's a (kinda expensive) solution to get it on any TV now: https://www.techradar.com/news/philips-hue-now-lets-you-turn...

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#155

Post by MisterTea »

Sometimes I wish there was a suckless for everything.

Gimme a boring TV with open firmware so I can flash it with Linux or better yet, no need for firmware, just a few video ports and a power switch. I'll feed it with my video signal of choice.

Then a phone with stock android or ability to flash Linux or whatever with hardware kill switches because you cant trust anything electronic these days.

Then I'll take a car with a steering wheel, two pedals and a double din opening on the dash and some HVAC topped off with a downloadable service manual right from the manufactures website please.

I'm tired of feeling this technology anxiety where I'm supposed to just give up my rights and dignity and capitulate to the corporate gods. Go away already.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#156

Post by kmlx »

walrus01 wrote: post #29

You should absolutely never give your 'smart' television the wifi password or plug it into a cable that will give it a DHCP lease. Use the things as dumb displays driven by an xbox or PS4 or a home theater PC. Yes, the xbox and PS4 home screens have 'ads' (promoted games and stuff mostly), but they're not 1/10th as annoying in my opinion. And Microsoft and Sony have a much higher likelihood of keeping the operating s…

> You should absolutely never give your 'smart' television the wifi password or plug it into a cable that will give it a DHCP lease. Use the things as dumb displays driven by an xbox or PS4 or a home theater PC.

1. why?

2. the ps4/xbox pale in comparison to my lg's apps. functionalities, quality of streams, the voice search. they're all much better on the lg apps.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#157

Post by logicallee »

izacus wrote: post #42
bleepblorp wrote: post #3

Just as the 's' in 'IoT' stands for 'security', the 'f' in 'IoT' stands for 'fairness to users.' Never buy a consumer product that expects an Internet connection.

> Never buy a consumer product that expects an Internet connection. This is a nice trite trope, but getting an affordable TV without these features might be nearly impossible for most people these days.

Let's play a hypothetical game. Your TV attempts to literally control your life. And is ultra HD and really cheap. But you have to keep its front facing camera uncovered or it blares an alarm saying that its front camera is covered. The alarm also activates, but more quietly, if it loses its internet connection.

Finally, there is a 30 second "sponsorship punishment" if it sees you have brought a product competing with its sponsor.

So say the sponsor is Coke and it sees a 2 liter bottle of pepsi in your home. It displays something literally equivalent to (not in exactly so many words) "we are punishing you for bringing pepsi into our home, because our sponsor is coke." It then counts down a 30 second punishment timer. As a shopper you dont have THAT strong of a preference between coke and pepsi. So the next time you need to watch a movie on the dictator (name of TV set) you buy coke that night instead of pepsi.

Does that cross a line? How would you legislate against it? Devices shall not act as slave owners over humans who have bought them?

Well, um....

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#158

Post by kmlx »

antsar wrote: post #152
covercash wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest drawback to this is the lack of support for 4K in the YouTube app on Apple TV.

And that the YouTube app forces its ads and shitty recommendations down your throat. A NUC running Kodi sounds nicer. (Yeah, yeah, pi-hole. It’s a bandaid, IMHO) Also, Apple‘s streaming services being ever more annoyingly shoved in your face on menu screens.

it doesn't have any ads if you buy Youtube Premium

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#159

Post by m_eiman »

FooHentai wrote: post #24
jmull3n wrote: post #19

Curious to see what HN users believe is the best smart TV to buy in terms of OS functionality, privacy and user experience?

Whatever has the best panel for the best price, then strap an apple TV (or your choice of NUC) onto it and completely ignore whatever on-board smarts exist.

This is the only reasonable solution. I've got an OLED LG "TV", connected to an Apple TV and a receiver for proper audio (using HDMI ARC).

To turn everything on, I press a button on the Apple TV remote and everything is up and running within five seconds or so (from standby/sleep mode). Powering off the Apple TV also turns off the display and the receiver via HDMI CEC.

Edit: http://www.eiman.tv/misc/power-on.mov

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#160

Post by jhfdbkofdcho »

hnlmorg wrote: post #128
neya wrote: post #31

Fuck the guy who wanted to suck up to the management in some stupid meeting projecting estimated revenue out of this to ask for a raise later because he "contributed to a revenue increase" to the company. There's absolutely no after thought to this decision - If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it, showing ads is unacceptable, no matter what the…

> This is one of the reasons I paid the premium and went for a Sony instead. They haven't done anything stupid like this yet Oh they have. Many times over. Two instances affected me[1][2] and that was enough to swear me off all Sony products for the last 10 years. Only now am I contemplating buying from Sony again (a PS5). I don't think any multinational company is above trading their customers needs for a few extra…

I just bought a Sony and it’s running google android TV and it has suddenly got ads for “staff picks” now. “Free” movies on YouTube.

https://streamingclarity.com/android-tv-staff-pick-highlight...

Post reply on HN