I connect my TCL 4K HDR TV to the internet because that's how I use the remote. It has a Roku TV interface and when I turn it on it automatically goes to the in

I connect my TCL 4K HDR TV to the internet because that's how I use the remote. It has a Roku TV interface and when I turn it on it automatically goes to the input that has my m1 Mac mini (8gb RAM 256gb storage) connected to it. I hate using Plex and all I do is open up finder and go to my network attached storage (3950x with 32gb RAM and 9tb of solid state so far of mixed sata and nvme running rockstor) and load movies and TV shows and anime off of that. If I need to play PC games I use parsec to stream my windows desktop (5900x with 128gb RAM and 2080 Ti win11 pro for workstations) which is in my bedroom to the m1 Mac connected to the 4K TV and that all happens over lan and has zero latency essentially and I could play games at 4K for the most part sometimes I have to go down to 1620p. You most definitely can win these days. Having a full-fledged computer hooked up to my big TV lets me do everything from my living room with no compromises at all and my Smart TV doesn't do anything untoward. Most likely I'm not seeing anything going wrong concerning ads or excessive traffic because my router is my old retired computer, 9900k and 32gb RAM, running PF sense and I have PF blocker running on that.