10 ms·

My recommendations for how to deal with this shit, in decreasing order of effectiveness: 1. Don't buy a Samsung or LG TV. Unfortunately, if you're in the marke

My recommendations for how to deal with this shit, in decreasing order of effectiveness: 1. Don't buy a Samsung or LG TV. Unfortunately, if you're in the market for a real high-end TV, you often don't have another option 2. Never connect it to the internet and use a dedicated streaming box/stick instead. If you don't have one, or don't want to give up a HDMI port... 3. Block the following domains on your router or via a free OpenDNS account: - ads.samsung.com - config.samsungads.com - doubleclick.net - gpm.samsungqbe.com - log-config.samsungacr.com - samsungacr.com - samsungads.com - samsungosp.com - samsungotn.net - samsungrm.net - tvx.adgrx.com No more ads. This shit makes my blood boil. I have a laundry list of issues with this TV, which is a shame because when it's not actively trying to make me hate the company it's actually a very nice display. LG pull this shit too, but I think they're slightly less awful than Samsung. I didn't particularly want an OLED panel which is why I went for a Samsung LCD, and I regret that decision regularly.

deadmutex 5y ago
For #1, maybe these can be good substitutes: https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.html?sort=tbt.parent_pdtype&order=DESC https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.htm...
- zeusk 5y ago
  Absolutely not, their panels suck. The only budget manufacturers that give two shit about quality seem to be Hisense, TCL and Vizio.
  - deadmutex 5y ago
    haha, thanks for correction
- TonyBagODonuts 5y ago
  I bought the 65" dumb panel TV from them because I refuse all this be, it's fine, and I feel like it's mine, I'm not renting it by constantly paying with ad watching.
mikeryan 5y ago
The problem with trying to avoid the current smart TVs is that the industry has started to subsidize the pricing by selling viewing data. It’s going to be harder moving forward to compete on price without having “smart” features that are really a shim for getting the analytics and tracking packages in there. I’ve been running a pihole on my home network which also actually removes a lot of client side inserted ads during video playback which is another huge upside.
- azemetre 5y ago
  There is away around this, consistently pressure and lobby our governments to make this illegal or mandate that they provide dumb TVs as well. Change doesn't happen instantly but a dedicated lobbying campaign and activism will yield results.
- deergomoo 5y ago
  What frustrates me is the lack of options and lack of transparency. Amazon do it right with the Kindle imo—you can get it with ads or pay slightly more and get it without. My other issue is that I find ads on something that costs > £1000 to be incredibly distasteful. If it was some bargain basement thing fine, but this is meant to be top tier.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Conversely, the advertisers are becoming increasingly less hesitant about doing what they want: exploiting high-end products instead of low-end products. The fact that you just spent north of £1k on a TV is an unambiguous proof you're much more lucrative target for advertising than someone who only buys the cheapest things available. This is why "pay XOR ads" is a pipe dream: vendors will always turn it into "pay AND ads", because selecting for people with disposable income makes ROI on advertising much better.
    - Silhouette 5y ago
      But that only works as long as everyone is at it. As soon as you have one brand that makes a point of not doing anything like that and just providing good quality gear, the market of people with enough money to feature in this part of the discussion has another option they may well prefer. And if people buy Apple gear, no-one is convincing me that such a brand couldn't sell a TV with $1000 hardware specs and no junk at $1200 or even $1500 to that market.
kloch 5y ago
Is HDMI-CEC (Anynet+ on Samsung) a security/privacy risk also? I remember reading something about it being able to leverage connected devices Internet access a long time ago but I can NOT find anything to substantiate that now. I do disable HDMI-CEC anyway just to stop user-hostile features like Hulu on Roku disabling the input select button on the TV remote.
- deergomoo 5y ago
  Ethernet over HDMI is totally a thing but I have no idea if the ports in their TVs are wired for it.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    I recently searched for this and couldn't find any device that actually implements this. In any case, Ethernet over HDMI still requires one of the HDMI devices to be connected to the network via some other way and bridge the HDMI connection with that network as to give the other HDMI device a way out. So something like an Apple TV which has no incentive to help spyware should be safe.
antihero 5y ago
Is there a UK available streaming device that supports: - AirPlay (audio/video) - Spotify Connect - YouTube 4K - USB MP4 (& MKV) - Netflix 4K - Amazon Prime 4K And is super polished & responsive? If so I'd be interested, but my LG TV, crummy as its ads are, does all this out the box. I'd happily pay some money to have more control.
- neilalexander 5y ago
  Aside from USB playback, an Apple TV 4K can solve most of this. (I don’t know about Spotify Connect but assume it works with AirPlay if not).
  - antihero 5y ago
    Right, I've bought an Apple TV 4K! I have a 28.99GB H.265 5.1 Atmos MKV file of Linux tutorials that I would like to play on it, sitting on my MacBook. What is the most painless way to play it on the Apple TV with no loss of quality (other than the surround, which will be played on 2.0 speakers anyway).
    - bradknowles 5y ago
      Try AirPlay. Should let you wirelessly share the video from your laptop to the AppleTV unit.
  - drcongo 5y ago
    Yeah, I have an Apple TV 4K on my LG dumb TV which does all this (AirPlay also being far superior to Spotify Connect), though it's the dumb TV that will play back anything off a USB stick. Willing to bet this TV outlasts a "smart" Samsung by many years.
    - antihero 5y ago
      I like Spotify Connect as it is easy to transfer from desktop to TV
  - 5y ago
tristor 5y ago
4. All of the above. Ironically, Vizio TVs (one of the budget brands) seem to be one of the least aggressive about trying to display ads in ways which are difficult to bypass. That's what I bought and I don't connect it to the network, and I block these ad domains (among others) network-wide.
snug 5y ago
Where does LG do it? Honestly I've had two LGs for about 4 years now and have not noticed any ads, maybe some in their content store, but that's about it. Overall pretty happy with LG
- fy20 5y ago
  I have a LG C7 and haven't seen any ads. Maybe it's newer versions or certain regions.
  - snug 5y ago
    I have a CX and a G9 (essentially a bezel-less C9) in the US, I have not seen the ads
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
I have an LG TV and never seen an ad. Just don't go into their store or home screen. Launch the app you want directly.
acoard 5y ago
My understanding is this is what Amazon Sidewalk is, at least in part, about. Your TV could easily bypass your network, and connect through your neighbours Echo. If I understand, it's opt-out and enabled by default. So, essentially Samsung will pay Amazon a few bucks a months to show you ads regardless of how you've locked down your network, because your neighbour hasn't locked down his. https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=21328123011 https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=213281...
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  This is my greatest fear, that I'll have to resort to wrap around Faraday cages for each of my should-be-dumb devices.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    There could be wallpapers for this. AFAIK https://www.erfurt-tapeten.com/en/ https://www.erfurt-tapeten.com/en/ produced one which had this as a side effect of thermal insulation. Or still produces. The 'wavies' raved about it a while ago :-) Can't remember the product name anymore, unfortunately.
darkteflon 5y ago
This is excellent advice. Shit makes my blood boil, too. I do this for my LG TV but have had a hard time getting a definitive list of domains to add to my blocklist. Does anyone have a lead on this?
yumraj 5y ago
Some person maintains this Smart TV focused list for pihole. Most of the domains above are there, and more. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/m... And, there's one for FireTV https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/AmazonFireTV.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/m...
- Krisjohn 5y ago
  I have a Samsung smart TV. I was using Pihole before I got it. I also had to implement a rule on my Mikrotik router to force all DNS queries on my network to go through th Pihole. Then the ads on the Samsung disappeared. Unfortunately, it also broke the OS updates and app store, but all I have to do is disable the pihole filter for 10 minutes to do those jobs and I'm good.
worrycue 5y ago
> Unfortunately, if you're in the market for a real high-end TV, you often don't have another option What about Sony?
- deergomoo 5y ago
  I will admit I haven't checked very recently, but when I was looking earlier in the year, Sony's offerings were a good bit more expensive than Samsung or LG for an equivalent panel and lacked some features important to me like VRR. Plus, doesn't Android TV have ads anyway? I haven't used it extensively but a quick search seems to suggest it does.
  - archontes 5y ago
    Yeah, I have a Sony X800H, and I foolishly installed an update early in 2021 that added irremovable ads to the home screen. I haven't figured out how to roll the firmware back, but I have blocked basically all of the domains it accesses with pihole, and after a cache clear, it only displays default messages imploring the user to check out youtube and other google products. It's inoffensive enough that I haven't continued exerting effort to quash them.
- LinAGKar 5y ago
  Or Philips
ryanlol 5y ago
Why would you not want an OLED panel? Are you using the TV for signage or something?

deadmutex 5y ago

For #1, maybe these can be good substitutes: https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.html?sort=tbt.parent_pdtype&order=DESC https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.htm...

zeusk 5y ago
Absolutely not, their panels suck. The only budget manufacturers that give two shit about quality seem to be Hisense, TCL and Vizio.
- deadmutex 5y ago
  haha, thanks for correction
TonyBagODonuts 5y ago
I bought the 65" dumb panel TV from them because I refuse all this be, it's fine, and I feel like it's mine, I'm not renting it by constantly paying with ad watching.

mikeryan 5y ago

The problem with trying to avoid the current smart TVs is that the industry has started to subsidize the pricing by selling viewing data. It’s going to be harder moving forward to compete on price without having “smart” features that are really a shim for getting the analytics and tracking packages in there. I’ve been running a pihole on my home network which also actually removes a lot of client side inserted ads during video playback which is another huge upside.

azemetre 5y ago
There is away around this, consistently pressure and lobby our governments to make this illegal or mandate that they provide dumb TVs as well. Change doesn't happen instantly but a dedicated lobbying campaign and activism will yield results.
deergomoo 5y ago
What frustrates me is the lack of options and lack of transparency. Amazon do it right with the Kindle imo—you can get it with ads or pay slightly more and get it without. My other issue is that I find ads on something that costs > £1000 to be incredibly distasteful. If it was some bargain basement thing fine, but this is meant to be top tier.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Conversely, the advertisers are becoming increasingly less hesitant about doing what they want: exploiting high-end products instead of low-end products. The fact that you just spent north of £1k on a TV is an unambiguous proof you're much more lucrative target for advertising than someone who only buys the cheapest things available. This is why "pay XOR ads" is a pipe dream: vendors will always turn it into "pay AND ads", because selecting for people with disposable income makes ROI on advertising much better.
  - Silhouette 5y ago
    But that only works as long as everyone is at it. As soon as you have one brand that makes a point of not doing anything like that and just providing good quality gear, the market of people with enough money to feature in this part of the discussion has another option they may well prefer. And if people buy Apple gear, no-one is convincing me that such a brand couldn't sell a TV with $1000 hardware specs and no junk at $1200 or even $1500 to that market.

kloch 5y ago

Is HDMI-CEC (Anynet+ on Samsung) a security/privacy risk also? I remember reading something about it being able to leverage connected devices Internet access a long time ago but I can NOT find anything to substantiate that now. I do disable HDMI-CEC anyway just to stop user-hostile features like Hulu on Roku disabling the input select button on the TV remote.

deergomoo 5y ago
Ethernet over HDMI is totally a thing but I have no idea if the ports in their TVs are wired for it.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  I recently searched for this and couldn't find any device that actually implements this. In any case, Ethernet over HDMI still requires one of the HDMI devices to be connected to the network via some other way and bridge the HDMI connection with that network as to give the other HDMI device a way out. So something like an Apple TV which has no incentive to help spyware should be safe.

antihero 5y ago

Is there a UK available streaming device that supports: - AirPlay (audio/video) - Spotify Connect - YouTube 4K - USB MP4 (& MKV) - Netflix 4K - Amazon Prime 4K And is super polished & responsive? If so I'd be interested, but my LG TV, crummy as its ads are, does all this out the box. I'd happily pay some money to have more control.

neilalexander 5y ago
Aside from USB playback, an Apple TV 4K can solve most of this. (I don’t know about Spotify Connect but assume it works with AirPlay if not).
- antihero 5y ago
  Right, I've bought an Apple TV 4K! I have a 28.99GB H.265 5.1 Atmos MKV file of Linux tutorials that I would like to play on it, sitting on my MacBook. What is the most painless way to play it on the Apple TV with no loss of quality (other than the surround, which will be played on 2.0 speakers anyway).
  - bradknowles 5y ago
    Try AirPlay. Should let you wirelessly share the video from your laptop to the AppleTV unit.
- drcongo 5y ago
  Yeah, I have an Apple TV 4K on my LG dumb TV which does all this (AirPlay also being far superior to Spotify Connect), though it's the dumb TV that will play back anything off a USB stick. Willing to bet this TV outlasts a "smart" Samsung by many years.
  - antihero 5y ago
    I like Spotify Connect as it is easy to transfer from desktop to TV
- 5y ago

tristor 5y ago

4. All of the above. Ironically, Vizio TVs (one of the budget brands) seem to be one of the least aggressive about trying to display ads in ways which are difficult to bypass. That's what I bought and I don't connect it to the network, and I block these ad domains (among others) network-wide.

snug 5y ago

Where does LG do it? Honestly I've had two LGs for about 4 years now and have not noticed any ads, maybe some in their content store, but that's about it. Overall pretty happy with LG

fy20 5y ago
I have a LG C7 and haven't seen any ads. Maybe it's newer versions or certain regions.
- snug 5y ago
  I have a CX and a G9 (essentially a bezel-less C9) in the US, I have not seen the ads

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

I have an LG TV and never seen an ad. Just don't go into their store or home screen. Launch the app you want directly.

acoard 5y ago

My understanding is this is what Amazon Sidewalk is, at least in part, about. Your TV could easily bypass your network, and connect through your neighbours Echo. If I understand, it's opt-out and enabled by default. So, essentially Samsung will pay Amazon a few bucks a months to show you ads regardless of how you've locked down your network, because your neighbour hasn't locked down his. https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=21328123011 https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=213281...

paulryanrogers 5y ago
This is my greatest fear, that I'll have to resort to wrap around Faraday cages for each of my should-be-dumb devices.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  There could be wallpapers for this. AFAIK https://www.erfurt-tapeten.com/en/ https://www.erfurt-tapeten.com/en/ produced one which had this as a side effect of thermal insulation. Or still produces. The 'wavies' raved about it a while ago :-) Can't remember the product name anymore, unfortunately.

darkteflon 5y ago

This is excellent advice. Shit makes my blood boil, too. I do this for my LG TV but have had a hard time getting a definitive list of domains to add to my blocklist. Does anyone have a lead on this?

yumraj 5y ago

Some person maintains this Smart TV focused list for pihole. Most of the domains above are there, and more. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/m... And, there's one for FireTV https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/AmazonFireTV.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/m...

Krisjohn 5y ago
I have a Samsung smart TV. I was using Pihole before I got it. I also had to implement a rule on my Mikrotik router to force all DNS queries on my network to go through th Pihole. Then the ads on the Samsung disappeared. Unfortunately, it also broke the OS updates and app store, but all I have to do is disable the pihole filter for 10 minutes to do those jobs and I'm good.

worrycue 5y ago

> Unfortunately, if you're in the market for a real high-end TV, you often don't have another option What about Sony?

deergomoo 5y ago
I will admit I haven't checked very recently, but when I was looking earlier in the year, Sony's offerings were a good bit more expensive than Samsung or LG for an equivalent panel and lacked some features important to me like VRR. Plus, doesn't Android TV have ads anyway? I haven't used it extensively but a quick search seems to suggest it does.
- archontes 5y ago
  Yeah, I have a Sony X800H, and I foolishly installed an update early in 2021 that added irremovable ads to the home screen. I haven't figured out how to roll the firmware back, but I have blocked basically all of the domains it accesses with pihole, and after a cache clear, it only displays default messages imploring the user to check out youtube and other google products. It's inoffensive enough that I haven't continued exerting effort to quash them.
LinAGKar 5y ago
Or Philips

ryanlol 5y ago

Why would you not want an OLED panel? Are you using the TV for signage or something?