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The home page of my $1700 smart TV has a full page ad about watching ads (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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I just finished setting up a custom router with dns ad blocking. Next comes a media player so I can purge this smart TV filth from my household.

Huge shout out to Louis Rossmann and the FUTO communuty contributors, check out the wiki on self-hosted software if you haven't already.

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[-] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago

Where can I pirate the ads instead of paying for your TV service?

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

To be fair, the super bowl ads are seen as part of the entertainment by many people and the companies generally do go out of their way to make the funniest or cutest ads of the year. Any other time I would fully agree with you.

[-] galanthus@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

This is insane.

USA really is a cyberpunk dystopia.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah. Yeah it is. I was in Times Square recently and had the thought that this was the glitzy permanent neon lighting to go with all the other stuff.

[-] Lootboblin@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I tried to search modern basic TVs without the ”smart” stuff. I only found few from Philips and Procaster. Also all of them were small 24”-32” and only 720p.

Fuck ”Smart” TVs!

[-] aprehendedmerlin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 70 points 1 week ago

Most smart TV OS are Cancer doesn't matter how much you paid for it

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[-] bananymous@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 week ago

Is American football not merely a vehicle through which advertising can be pumped? You’d think the entire sport had been designed from the ground up for such a purpose.

Four seconds of action, six minutes of commercials….3.6 seconds of action, 47 replays, five minutes of commercials.

P.S. Smart TVs can eat shit and die.

[-] Godnroc@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

I went to a game for the first time a few years ago. I recall the moment where everyone was sitting around and not doing anything because they were waiting for the commercials to finish. It felt like watching actors drop their characters the moment they step out of the spotlight.

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[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 41 points 1 week ago

I made my Smart TV into a dumb TV by never activating the smart TV functions. And then I plugged a relatively cheap computer into it. So I don't have this kind of problem.

[-] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago

Your grandma does.

I installed her TV and internet last week. She barely understands the concept of switching TV inputs, and her Roku smart TV doesn't let you rename inputs from HDMI1 to [ISP NAME] unless the thing is connected to the internet. It also defaults out of the box to show the smart TV bullshit every single time you turn it on, instead of just showing the last used input before the TV turned off. So she's completely baffled how to watch simple television channels unless I spend 10 minutes reconfiguring this garbage so it's usable.

Go visit your grandma, everyone. And reconfigure her smart TV. I'm joking but I'm not. I can only visit so many grandmas per day.

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I haven't had a living grandmother in... I don't even know how many years at this point.

But the fact of the matter is, the older generations don't really use Smart TVs, they're still using Comcast boxes and accessing regular TV. Some of the more tech savvy will engage Netflix or Disney+ but beyond that, it's doubtful they even know anything beyond those exist.

[-] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

I'll reiterate that I'm in a half dozen living rooms every day, and most of them are senior citizens. I've been doing this for years. They all have smart TVs, whether they use the features or not.

I'll also reiterate that they flat out will not even use a TV sometimes because they're defeated by the smart TV features that prevent them from getting over to their Comcast box. Did you even read my comment?

They get suckered by the cheap TV in middle of the aisle at Walmart or Costco and buy three. You can't even go out and buy a TV that isn't a smart TV without specifically looking for it. They don't even know to begin to look for these things.

Do you think they're still on an old CRT with a VCR hooked up via RCA? They had to go down some weird upgrade rabbit hole that they still don't fully understand because they ended up with a DVD of some classic movie, went and got a DVD player only to find out they didn't have HDMI ports so now they had to go buy some garbage TV thats subsidized by advertising companies. Again, I've seen this exact scenario play out a hundred times.

The fact of the matter is that your fix reeks of 'I got mine' energy, and it doesn't fix anything. Large swaths of people will still get these ads in their faces and these companies won't stop. Quite the opposite, they'll keep looking for more ways to fuck their customers.

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[-] _stranger_@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I have a very old 4K Toshiba TV with a built in "smart browser" that, due to me never plugging into the Internet, has a home page with news about how well Obama's doing in the polls for being a relatively unknown junior senator.

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[-] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 week ago

Disable all internet functionality, set the time to the 1990s to prevent many timers from going off, attach the tv to another device that doesn’t have ads via your cable of choice. But why was your smart tv 1700? Did it have some special features?

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[-] Dickarus@lemmy.world 36 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

A cheap computer/laptop. HDMI cable. Ublock origin (sprinkle some sponserblock and privacy badger in there). A TV that is never connected to the internet. Voila. No ads. None. Zilch. Zero. Ad free.

Streaming platforms that have gone to ad supported formats make me laugh because it's just a 3-5 second black screen, not the ad, and it's back to the content. Been doing it for decades. Don't sit there and get reamed by their bullshit.

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[-] tyler@programming.dev 30 points 1 week ago

Apple TV was the best media thing I’ve bought in over a decade. No ads ever, incredibly responsive (league of its own compared to stuff like Roku), and is able to stream from my Jellyfin server. Beautiful interface, fast, clean, simple controller with a battery life that is easily over a year. Just a really good product. Roku can suck by nuts. Literal full page ads in a product that advertises that it has zero of them. Even the most expensive version. Fuck Roku.

[-] otacon239@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Same here. One is the best made TV boxes period.

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[-] Waldschrat@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

Return it. If you hold on to it (even if you block the ads and all) it will signal the manufacturer, that this practice is fine.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

And then buy a non-smart TV instead. At least one company, Sceptre, still makes them. (I don't want to make it seem like I'm shilling for a particular brand, but I genuinely don't know of any other options, aside from commercial signage displays.)

[-] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

Commercial displays might be the answer, all the smart bullshit goes against their use case so they need a way to go around it in case they still have it, and every brand have them.

Last time I looked into it they were more expensive and had to be bought through an agent but that was a few years ago, thing might have changed.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Again, the brand I mentioned in the previous comment is a consumer-oriented one, that you can simply buy off Amazon etc., that still sells dumb TVs. I'd only suggest resorting to commercial displays if you're boycotting that brand for some reason.

[-] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

They don't seem to be available in Europe.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Ah, that's unfortunate, and another good reason to consider resorting to a commercial display.

'Course, it's also possible that a commercial display is so much more expensive/a hassle that it might be worth figuring out how to buy a Sceptre TV in a country where it is sold and then importing it yourself.

[-] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

The funny thing is that I can find all sort of accessories for those TVs on Amazon but not the TVs.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

...Oh no. I just checked, and some of the TVs that did have Amazon listings as recently as a month or so ago (which I think was around the last time I mentioned this sort of thing) are no longer available, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-U550CV-U-Ultra-2160p-60Hz/dp/B01CDC49E0

There are still a couple of "Komodo by Sceptre" TVs left, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Komodo-Sceptre-KU515R-Ultra-3840x2160/dp/B07W68VFGL , but that's it. I hope they aren't in the process of exiting the market entirely, but I'm worried! 😟

[-] girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago

Sounds like they might have the capability to just network block the device from their router too. At least that's what I do, just in case someone tries to use it.

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 19 points 1 week ago

I'd honestly return it as faulty. Preloaded adware shouldn't be acceptable.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago

It will be a dark day indeed when I allow my TV to connect to the internet. These things are glorified monitors.

[-] shasta@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago

You're right, we should start putting ads on all monitors

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[-] Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Yo dawg! I heard you like ads. So we put ads in your ads

[-] mac@lemm.ee 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Tangentally related, FUTO put a bad taste in my mouth when they were harassing the graphene os team https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113443396794247106

[-] bluelander@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

I bought a new TV last year after my Hisense kicked the bucket and had a similar experience.

Not sure if it applies to your situation, but I just factory reset my TV, never enabled wifi, and hooked up a smart device I had lying around (Nvidia Shield). Now it all works great and if the smart functions upset me I can throw just the smart TV part in the trash and go back to my VCR.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

You have to reject smart TVs at the time of purchase, or manufacturers think this shit is okay and will keep escalating until even an Nvidia Shield won't save you.

[-] bluelander@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago

Unfortunately options are becoming increasingly limited. My guess is that they're making more money cramming in ads for people that tolerate it than they are losing money from people who refuse it.

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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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