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It's been said many times here over the past few years, and it'll get said a lot right here today, but rule of thumb: never enable WiFi on a TV except maybe te
by mwfunk 6y ago
It's been said many times here over the past few years, and it'll get said a lot right here today, but rule of thumb: never enable WiFi on a TV except maybe temporarily to do an update or something. And even then only if it's absolutely necessary. Get a Roku or an Apple TV or a game console or whatever you want for watching streaming services. Never use what's built in to the TV, not just for privacy reasons but because it always seems to be a terrible experience compared to running Hulu, Netflix, etc. on anything else. But for privacy too- the TV companies were incredibly egregious about privacy years ago and AFAICT it's only gotten worse since then.
- kitsunesoba 6y agoSome TVs allow firmware updates via USB thumb drive, which I think is a feature worth selecting for. This allowed me to get some bug fixes for my Sony Bravia TV that I would’ve had to live without had updates been online-only. Additionally, there are some models that come with nearly-stock Android TV that are easy to remove creepware from (just plug into laptop and remove with ADB) should one feel inclined to use built-in smarts. Personally I’ve been using an Apple TV and it’s served me well.
- jasomill 6y agoI'd be willing to bet that all modern TVs support local offline firmware updates. Whether the actual firmware update binaries are readily available to non-commercial end users is another matter entirely (and of course equally important!). In the case of my recent-ish LG model, they are, and offline USB updates work fine.
- r00fus 6y agoAmazon Sidewalk is an effort to bypass your workaround of preventing network access to TV manufacturers' ad networks. Hopefully it fails like DIVX, but given there are 4G radios in most cars today, it probably will succeed. Soon appliances and other IoT will no longer be reliant on your say-so on what data it collects and when...
- _coveredInBees 6y agoThe "problem" with the LG OLEDs (I own the 77C9) is that webOS is actually quite good, the interface + processor snappy, and the magic remote quite good for effortlessly switching between your favorite streaming services or Plex. Even with a Harmony remote, it takes 1-2 button clicks to get wherever I need to be. By contrast, the cheaper Fire and Chromecast devices have always felt much more sluggish. I really want an nVidia Shield but I'm not dropping $200 on outdated hardware when I already have a fantastic HTPC hooked up to my TV. Fwiw, I've managed to not accept a bunch of license agreements on my C9 and have avoided anything too egregious. It is a glorious panel though and I hope they don't monetize it to the point that you can't use it without an active internet connection.
- zapdrive 6y agoHear hear. As a quite satisfied owner of 2 LG OLEDs, I agree with your assessment. It's a shame that no other company makes OLEDs. Panasonic just started making then using LG frames, but I don't know if they are any better in the privacy department.
- novok 6y agoSome TVs use the network via your HDMI connected devices (ex: the roku or whatever stick) or do searches for open wifi networks that you may have no control over to get their sweet, sweet surveillance fix.
- gboss 6y agoI thought this was the case! A commenter on a previous thread said this was really unlikely [0], but I really believe it happens. Not sure how to prove it though. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20205969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20205969
- bathtub365 6y agoWhy do you believe it happens in the absence of evidence?
- CameronNemo 6y agoSoon they will come with LTE modems, like cars do.
- m463 6y agoActually, it's 5G, which is like wifi for advertisers/data capitalists.
- Silhouette 6y agoI don't think this comment deserves downvotes. The arrival of 5G, and with it devices that can make their own external wireless connections, is a significant risk to consumer privacy. How it is used and regulated over the next few years could establish what is considered an acceptable standard for privacy for a long time afterwards, and it's clear which way a lot of device manufacturers are going to be pushing.
- wyldfire 6y ago
- notyourday 6y agoBuy a Spectre TV. Sane price. Very good picture quality. No stupid "smarts". https://www.sceptre.com/ https://www.sceptre.com/
- jjoonathan 6y agoMy TCL bootloops if you disconnect it from the network for more than a week or two. Support is willing to help! First step: connect it to the internet.
- bitexploder 6y agoOur Sony with built in Android TV is quite nice. It’s a bit of a privacy hit but not too bad. Everything just works, including Android apps like Kodi. It’s hard wired with Ethernet... kinda requires when streaming ultra hi def over the LAN.
- foepys 6y agoI don't know about the newest models but up until the XH series wifi was actually faster than ethernet. The SoC only supported 100MBit/s ethernet which isn't enough for high quality UHD content.
- bitexploder 6y agoYou know, I never checked. It’s a newer model. It has never struggled with 80 GiB movie files.
- Rastonbury 6y agoYou can setup use NextDNS on Android TV to block ads and tracking.
- anothernewdude 6y agoDon't even buy a TV. Monitors are strictly better.
- gumby 6y agoHard to find these days.
- minetest2048 6y agoNo its not. No one is selling 120 Hz OLED monitor, to the point that people are buying 48" LG CX 48 as a monitor which IMO is just too large for a monitor
- selcuka 6y agoI'm pretty sure Dell makes Alienware OLED gaming monitors up to 55" that support 120 Hz. They are more expensive than TVs though.
- FireBeyond 6y agoAn issue that some manufacturers are foreseeing - some TVs, if you don't give them network access, will just start looking for open networks and find their own way out.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoRoku TV is no more invasive than the standalone boxes with the benefit of an integrated OTA guide.
- floatingatoll 6y agoDoesn't Roku send the same data? Don't Apple TV apps track what we watch in each app, just like a Kindle tracks what we read and how fast you read it? Is the goal here to avoid any metrics being transmitted? Is it to avoid aggregate metrics across all of our apps and devices being transmitted? It seems like the original objection in the article is that it's the advertising that's the problem, not the data collection and metrics, and the suggestion of Roku and Apple TV seems a poor solution for two of those three problems.
- shostack 6y agoRoku is not ad free. https://advertising.roku.com/ https://advertising.roku.com/
- propogandist 6y ago>Get a Roku or an Apple TV... Roku is the noisiest device on PiHole, constantly trying to phone home, Amazon Firestick is up there too.
- JetSpiegel 6y ago> never enable WiFi on a TV except maybe temporarily to do an update or something Why does a TV need a software update? If it can't show the output of HDMI out of the box, it's not fit for purpose and should be returned.