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Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

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Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#331

Post by digital_mystik »

mizzack wrote: post #296
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TCL Roku is pretty "dumbish". You can install it without an account, plug in an antenna and go to town. You can even connect it to wifi then use Youtube or Netflix. Haven't seen any funky ads. My only peeve is that the controller doesn't have a full number pad which makes it a little derpy for the older generation.

My only annoyance with TCL is that once you connect it to the internet, and then disconnect it, the activity light (a quite bright, white light on mine) will flash constantly. Forever. Solvable by tape, but doing that blocks the IR sensor.

I also went the tape route for that reason; haven't really noticed an issue with the IR sensor. Ended up configuring a firewall rule via OpenWRT that keeps it working on the LAN but not the WAN, so I can still use my phone as a remote with RoMote or the official app, and it's offline (still will blink though, hence the tape).

Nice thing about OpenWRT is being able to block homescreen ads when the TV is online with the adblock package since DNS filtering will do the trick fortunately.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#332

Post by patchtopic »

TooCreative wrote: post #236

Why still buy a "TV"? Why not just a monitor and attach some device to it that receives the TV signal and lets you switch channels etc?

find me a 55 inch monitor for $1000 AUD to use as my TV (with dedicated HTPC) and I'll be all over it..

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#333

Post by silon42 »

mavhc wrote: post #288
ChrisRR wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, we bought my 75ish year old father in law a new TV because he was using a small SD flat panel and his eyesight is going. But he hates it because there's a million buttons and menus to navigate, when all he wants is to type in the channel numbers. It even needed a firmware update out of the box and he didn't have a clue why a TV would need new software and immediately panicked and refused to use the thing unt…

What tv can't you just type a channel number in, or press an input button to switch inputs? If you don't plug it into the internet it's not going to be a smart tv

The new Samsungs (and others) have a remote without numbers... Thankfully the old remotes still work (and even better).

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#334

Post by fxtentacle »

m_eiman wrote: post #164
fyfy18 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you force WebOS to default to HDMI? I replaced my parents TV with a LG LED last year, and it defaults to showing "No signal found" when turned on, then you have to switch to HDMI.

If possible, make the device connected to HDMI turn on the TV via CEC, that should switch it to the correct input automatically.

I believe this is what also happens for me. When I turn on the pc, the TV automatically switches to it.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#335

Post by chadlavi »

yholio wrote: post #129

The life time of TVs is simply on a different time scale than most smart thingies you connect to them. It's an appliance like the air conditioner or dishwasher, not a gadget you throw into the bin and replace. The intelligence of your media center should be elsewhere, in a dedicated gadget that you can easily replace and upgrade, connected via a standard, dumb interface like HDMI. I own a 2012, 60" Sony Bravia and th…

I've got a similarly aged pre-smart Samsung, sounds like it'll be with us for a while.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#336

Post by ClumsyPilot »

remote_phone wrote: post #302
Swenrekcah wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one thing Apple TV has so backwards that I can't even. Text input. All the letters lined alphabetically with only left-right movement allowed. Takes ages to input anything. Also no corrections allowed. I actually exit appleTV and use the built in TV apps for when I need youtube and the like, because their input mechanism is not insane. I know there is a remote app for iPhones, but you do provide an actual re…

Use voice dictation. It works remarkably well for entering text

Try entering something like 'Les Misérables' or "into to Kubernetes"

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#337

Post by throw0101a »

huhtenberg wrote: post #79
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…

> 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.

> Just don't connect it to the Internet.

One also has to be cognizant of HDMI Ethernet in case of "unintended" connectivity:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HDMI_Ethernet_and_Audio_R...

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#338

Post by fxtentacle »

rthomas6 wrote: post #240
fxtentacle wrote: post #84

... and that's exactly why my TV will never have an internet connection. By now, it doesn't really matter which brand you use. I have analyzed Samsung, Sony, LG and Philips and ALL of them send data about your usage to NetEase in China and ALL of them have ToS that say that they might record your voice and store it for improving their AI or whatever. Plus all of them shove suggested apps in your face, so I'd say it i…

I use a pi-hole to block that traffic.

The difference is that you had to accept their EULA. I didn't because even if I technically prevent their data extraction, I still want it to be illegal for them.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#340

Post by chadlavi »

felipelemos wrote: post #121
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…

Or just use a chromecast

Yeah let google serve you ads and sell your info, not Samsung or LG or Sony
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