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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

#821

Post by beloch »

I bought one of these TV's without realizing it would serve ads. It was a high end model that cost enough that I had no reasonable expectation that Samsung would try to make an additional 10 bucks off of me by showing me ads, but here we are.

The good news is you can block the ads. Here are some domains I've blocked in my router. They might not all be necessary to block, but they don't seem to break anything else (except perhaps Disney+) and they do stop the ads from appearing.

(Note: The only ad I was seeing was an additional ad box that was inserted as one of the sources on the source selector. It was only an issue if you were going from display to the TV's settings because it had inserted itself in between the two, and you could accidentally click on it. Blocking the following domains got rid of This.)

samsungads.com

ads.samsung.com

www.samsungotn.net

www.samsungrm.net

gpm.samsungqbe.com

samsungacr.com

samsungcloudsolution.com

samsungcloudsolution.net

samsungotn.net

The bad news is that the Disney+ app may not function properly if you block these domains. The obvious workaround is to use Disney+ from a browser, but that produces surprising results with this TV. Certain video sources, such as Disney+ or the trailers on IMDB, cause my Samsung TV to flash the following message:

"We are adjusting the picture quality for you to experience a better uhd screen. You can change the settings in Settings > General > External Device Manager > HDMI UHD color"

The screen then goes black and the only way to restore function is to unplug the HDMI cable and plug it back in. Very annoying.

The message describes settings that exist in the TV's configuration exactly as described, so it's definitely an error message produced by the TV set. Unfortunately, the settings referenced do nothing to eliminate this bug.

I've contacted Samsung's tech support a couple of times and they're utterly clueless about this issue. (Note: Not many people may report this error message because if flashes so fast that you need to photograph the screen in order to read it, and you have to have fast reflexes to do even that!)

All in all, despite the quality of the screen, these unresolved issues mean I will probably not buy another Samsung TV and recommend that others avoid this brand as well.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#822

Post by TeMPOraL »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #769
joombaga wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more option that was at least available on older Kindles - You can buy the device for $X “with special offers” today, then hack it and remove the "special offers". I don't know how prevalent this is, but wonder if it's a consideration in deciding on the "money to disable ads" strategy.

While it may not appear that way in the HN crowd, the number of users who actually jailbreak their devices is effectively zero when you're determining revenue models. Especially nowadays, when most of the features people care about have been implemented.

That depends on how easy it is to do the jailbreak. If you can package a self-contained solution, or provide simple to follow instructions, the word will spread, and a lot of people will be doing it.

When I was buying my Paperwhite, I just ordered the ad-free version from amazon (.com or .co.uk, don't remember which). And then a couple co-workers (agreed, computer people, but very much not the type that's into tinkering or cracking software) looked at me with surprise, because it turns out everyone does the "standard" route - order "special offers" from amazon.de, and save money while getting an ad-free Kindle, because AFAIR initially the special offers didn't even display in Poland, and when they did, apparently everyone knew how to jump some hoops to get rid of them.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#823

Post by Anther »

gamblor956 wrote: post #754
Anther wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

While I love my LG tvs, they have had ads on their smart tvs for nearly a decade. The difference from Samsung is that the ads on the LGs are in the same place they've always been (on the smart tv menu overlay), they've never been obtrusive, and they're always in some way connected to video content (usually VOD movies that you can purchase through one of the streaming apps, or adds for streaming apps you can install o…

I think I can accept that. I honestly don’t use it much. It was more for my better half, as our four year old Samsung killed itself the other day.

I’m more excited about the HDMI 2.1 and variable refresh for the new Nvidia cards.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#824

Post by dawnerd »

This is also why I refuse to use any Samsung product if I can avoid it. I was an early adopter of 4K and their tvs at the time were very expensive. Those tvs ended up getting ads patched in - and even if you "opted out" of the yahoo agreement they still found ways to advertise by using the system notifications to push gamespot. Of course Samsung denied it which was the final straw for me. Plus all of their fridges have a known issue they refuse to fix (there's a class action lawsuit over it).

It's kinda sad that people are just now noticing how bad the ads are. They were bad back 6+ years ago - especially when they tried to sneak ads into videos played back from plex.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#825

Post by Anther »

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #587
Anther wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

LGs have ads as well. I had to add a bunch of domains to a DNS blacklist in order to get my $2000 TV to stop spamming me.

Hmm. I shall keep an eye on it. I run Ubnt network gear at home, so if it needs to be taught a lesson I shall be happy to do so.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#826

Post by Anther »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #502
zadler wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know LG won’t update the software later to include ads?

LG's already also have ads. They're not super obtrusive though, and I'm sure I shut personalization off.

I’ve not seen any as yet. But then I disagreed with all of the tick boxes on setup. That may be why.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#827

Post by TeMPOraL »

alistairSH wrote: post #644
derekp7 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that because most of the people that fly multiple times a year aren't the ones paying for the tickets? Instead their company has policies on getting the cheaper flights. And people that fly for a vacation once every few years, they may not have enough experience flying to realize the benefit (or, if they do want a better experience, they go all the way to first class).

I don't if that's true for most air travel, but it's definitely true for my business travel. Corporate policy is the ticket has to be within a reasonable range of price (average price +/- some amount, not sure exactly). This means I can usually select between 2-3 airlines, 2 airports, and plenty of times, but I am always limited to basic economy without prior approval (which has been granted for international travel…

Also true to my experience.

Back two jobs ago, we had international customers with somewhat high demand to ship our people all across the world on, sometimes on a moment's notice. I had to fly out 4 or 5 times in the span of two years, but some of my colleagues could do more than that in under a year. Somehow, the flights were almost always the cheapest airline available, and the cheapest seats available. The co-workers who flew frequently, including my boss, were all using the accumulating miles to bump themselves a class up.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#828

Post by EulersBridge »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #502
zadler wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know LG won’t update the software later to include ads?

LG's already also have ads. They're not super obtrusive though, and I'm sure I shut personalization off.

I agree, if we have to have ads for whatever reason, do it in an unobtrusive way that the user is asked about during setup. Now the ads in lg's smart home app are a different matter...

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#829

Post by TeMPOraL »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #597
chongli wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supermarkets also need to stay open so they can sell you your beloved products, and you'd not believe how thin the margins of some supermarkets are Oh, no doubt. I'm not saying the spreadsheet guys aren't needed. They clearly are because competition is so stiff. So the reason store A needs spreadsheet guys is because store B has them. All of the spreadsheet guys, collectively, lock the grocery stores into a race to t…

I worked in a store in the early 90s with the registers set up that way. It is so much more efficient to pick directly from a cart so you can plan the best sequence of items for bagging. The IBM scanners of the era were much faster and more reliable than today's garbage. You could blast through, pulling items out with the right hand, tossing into the left, and blind scanning while reaching for the next item.

Seems to be a common thread in the past 20 years. The ergonomics of the product is garbage now. Partly because more compute is put into them, and with it comes bloated software that seems to be written by people who don't understand that their avoidance of "premature optimization" is just stealing people's lives by making the work go slower.
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