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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

#361

Post by gruez »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #259
dessant wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NVIDIA Shield TV, which runs Android TV, can no longer be initialized without signing in with a Google account, the setup screen will refuse to get past that step, even if you don't have an internet connection. The forced login is likely illegal, because there is no mention of a requirement for a Google account in their marketing materials or on their sales pages. The device stays perfectly functional if the the…

iOS 14 now requires an account to enable the phone. It literally just bricked my test iPhone SE.

Are you sure it's not the icloud lock?

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#362

Post by save_ferris »

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.

It's impossible to find a new TV these days that doesn't have an internet connection out of the box.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#363

Post by reaperducer »

taneq wrote: post #248
Nextgrid wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that a large part of this ad- and marketing-driven economy is based on this. The reason they predict their revenue will go up (which it will, at least in the short term until the market adjusts) is because they have a lot of customers already lined up to pay them to show ads on their TVs. Those customers' marketing departments decided to pay money to include their ads on TVs because a similar process was fo…

> The problem is that this "engagement" will mostly be just annoyed customers mis-clicking or trying whatever it takes to dismiss the ad and not actually intending to purchase the advertised product "Amazing! The smaller we make the 'X' button, the more people love them!"

Or make the X button almost the same color as the background.

TuneIn does this.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#364

Post by Anther »

marcosdumay wrote: post #321
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is noone buys anything from any ads... however brand awareness is a real thing. If you see a fancy ad from a company, they must be a profitable company that has a great product so you might be inclined to buy it or suggest it next time you're looking for this category of products.

Oh, yes, brand awareness is a real thing. For example, a lot of people will avoid Samsung TVs right now.

I just bought an LG. I’m so glad I dodged this bullet. I would be furious.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#365

Post by wil421 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #336
remote_phone wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use voice dictation. It works remarkably well for entering text

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

Does the first one work when a French person pronounces it?

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#366

Post by city41 »

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 have a 1080p Vizio from about 2013 or so. It's "smart", but doesn't phone home or anything. I use a Roku to get more modern apps for it (I block Roku's phoning home in my pihole).

I've considered upgrading to 4K many times. But I take comfort in knowing the TV I have now is not screwing me over. The thought of having to thoroughly research the TVs of today is enough for me to stick with it. Heck, my eyes probably can't see the 4K improvements from across the room anyway.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#368

Post by defnotashton2 »

p_l wrote: post #272
random_visitor wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much what a pi-hole is. According to my friends who use a pi-hole to filter their connection, it makes almost everything ad-free

The pi-hole will be bypassed by hard-to-kill DNS-over-HTTPS, however.

Yea force it to go through a proxy with your own ca and filter from there.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#369

Post by vin047 »

torgian wrote: post #267

What happened to just buying a "normal" TV? No internet needed or anything? Seems dumb. Seeing this link has already made me to decide I actually won't buy a Samsung tv. I'll just get something else. If we truly go the road of the dodo, I'll just make a side business rewiring "smart" tvs.

Two issues, one is cost – TV's are expensive as is, so consumers don't want to spend extra to purchase a standalone set-top box right after spending a large amount.

Second issue is that the average consumer wants smart TV's – they like that everything is integrated in the TV. Less remotes, less cabling etc.

As someone who doesn't really use the "smarts" on my smart TV, I'd quite like a well engineered (hardware + software), privacy preserving, smart TV. I see the appeal of an all-integrated solution. But none exists; most of the time the software is either garbage, or runs as if it was meant to run on hardware a few generations in the future. And as for privacy... sadly, few on both sides of the market prioritise it :(

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#370

Post by shellfishgene »

noisy_boy wrote: post #269

Whats next? LineageOS for TVs? PineTV? There is a pattern emerging if its not clear by now - open software on open hardware is the only long term solution.

Well there is SamyGO which let's you root and patch your Samsung TV, for SSH and other access, at least in older models. Not a firmware replacement but a step in the right direction ;)
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