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Who introduces this reviled junk NOW, after years of mockery, and on a media player? Anyone who actually wants this (or doesn't care) already has it on his TV,
by DidYaWipe 2y ago
Who introduces this reviled junk NOW, after years of mockery, and on a media player? Anyone who actually wants this (or doesn't care) already has it on his TV, making its addition to individual sources stupid and redundant.
- syntheticnature 2y agoReading between the lines slightly, it sounds like this affects TVs running Roku software for inbuilt "smarts" rather than the media players themselves. Still not great, of course.
- ethbr1 2y agoAnyone who allows their TV to connect to the internet deserves what they get.
- Dylan16807 2y agoThere's nothing inherently wrong with built-in Netflix etc.
- ethbr1 2y agoThere is, if you desire control of your television. If you have no problem with Roku et al. pushing updates to your TV, then by all means use integrated software.
- Dylan16807 2y agoA separate streaming device, or a computer, has the same issues. Unless a TV screen is special here it sounds like this logic won't let me use any streaming services.
- Larrikin 2y agoA streaming box can be factory reset or thrown in the trash. If your 65 inch TV doesn't let you roll back an update you have to buy a new TV. Streaming boxes are usually faster and more feature filled than the in built TV stuff as well.
- Dylan16807 2y agoAnd now we're getting into much more technical details and why I said "inherently". A proper built-in box will let you bypass it.
- karmakaze 2y agoThat's exactly the problem. There's no guarantee that the built-in will be and remain "proper" with updates. It's like saying we can trust our government with encryption backdoors as long as they behave properly.
- ethbr1 2y agoMy perspective: the incentive for manufacturers is to generate as much revenue as possible. In hardware manufacturing, margins are extremely tight. Consequently, any additional revenue from selling customer data is incredibly attractive. Especially if you can do so better/faster than your competitors, thereby competing at the same retail price points with better net margins. As a result... they have every incentive to fuck their customers over from a privacy perspective. And what they're doing is invisible. And this is an entity people are comfortable trusting with unfettered access to their devices/network?
- Dylan16807 2y agoSorry, I was unclear. By 'bypass', I mean something that does not require the cooperation of the box. I should have said the proper way of adding it will let you bypass the box, not phrase things as if the box is the gatekeeper.
- cassianoleal 2y ago
- fragmede 2y agoI'd rather my tv get updates than have it end up as part of a botnet. The recent RCE in ssh shows nothing is immune.
- shiroiushi 2y agoHaving an internet-connected TV running Android is great. With this, I can download and install SmartTube, and then use it to watch YouTube without ads or sponsor segments. I can also install Jellyfin, so I can watch various media served by my PC.
- DidYaWipe 2y agoYou're better off using an Nvidia Shield for that. You can swap that or the TV out independently as tech changes. You can also plug drives into it and play whatever media you want.
- shiroiushi 2y agoExcept that my TV already has a computer running Android inside, so why would I want to spend a bunch more money on an additional device that just does the same thing? If I could have saved a little money by getting a 65" monitor, this advice would make a lot of sense. But that's just not an option these days. You're getting a built-in computer whether you want it or not. As for plugging in drives, it looks like you can only do that with either microSD or USB. Either way, doing that for every item I want to watch is very inconvenient compared to just using Jellyfin, which lets me browse everything on my PC.
- DidYaWipe 2y agoNot at all. I have an SSD plugged into my Shield, to which I can copy whatever I want over my network. People also like to install torrent-based clients for illicit streaming services, although I don't consider that worthwhile. Your observation about every TV forcing built-in junk on you is legit; but I use a projector, which doesn't have any of that bullshit. Every source I have goes through my receiver, which is another reason to use a media player that's not your TV. The whole thing is a sad commentary on the state of A/V and people's laziness today. They're buying giant TVs but settling for the shitty audio from its built-in speakers... or fooling themselves with a sound bar.
- 2y ago
- lazide 2y agoThere is also nothing inherently wrong with connecting random Windows machines directly to the Internet. It’s still not going to work out in a good way over any significant timeframe.
- Carrok 2y agoI said the same thing, until I wanted to connect to my private Jellyfin server.
- hagbard_c 2y agoMake a specific network for these applications which does not have access to the internet. Add your personal media servers to it and give the TV and other untrustworthy devices access to it. You get to access your media without having the devices spy on you and without having them auto-update. You can have several such networks for different purposes, e.g. 'internet of things' and 'media' and 'systems management' to name a few. All this takes is a reasonably capable router - OpenWRT in my case, running in a container on the server-under-the-stairs - and (if you use separate access points which is a must when using a virtual router...) a managed switch which can handle VLANs. For access points I use repurposed WiFi routers running OpenWRT with their routing functionality disabled. I went this route because I live on a farm with several access points spread out over the premises but the same can be achieved with a single WiFi router running OpenWRT or similar, in that case just add a number of interfaces and wireless networks ('media', 'iot', 'ops' etc.) to which you connect our devices.
- tamimio 2y agoI connected my TV to the internet to test some Wi-Fi streaming before, and I noticed after a few days the number of blocked queries my DNS had blocked. So, I kept it running for a few days. On average, it blocked more than 15k queries a day! And that’s in idle mode and/or turned off, so I wasn’t running any YouTube, Netflix, or similar.
- cassianoleal 2y agoIf you're just looking at number of requests blocked, that can be highly deceiving. A lot of these "smart" TV OSs (and other embedded devices) will very rapidly spam the DNS server with no backoff when they don't get the expected response.
- VTimofeenko 2y agoSome of these tvs also hardcode DNS IPs. If your router supports it -- check the outgoing traffic from the tv to the standard DNS ports.
- DakotaR 2y agoI loathe ads on my Roku TV, but free news channels and Jellyfin make it worthwhile in my case.
- zer00eyz 2y agoThis is the way. If you went into a data center with a random device from amazon and asked to plug it in and see what happens an sysadmin would slap you silly. At home folks are content to plug in whatever. Not only do you have no idea what it's doing but what it MIGHT do in the future. https://www.theverge.com/23573362/anker-eufy-security-camera-answers-encryption https://www.theverge.com/23573362/anker-eufy-security-camera... ... Anker was a pretty respectable brand, their marketing department out right lied, about a device where privacy is critical. Control your network, trust nothing you plug into it... It won't stop, so cut it off is the order of the day.
- unethical_ban 2y agoI agree that using the default OS on a smart TV is riddling oneself with ads and tracking. But it is not common wisdom, and saying everyone deserves it is unproductive and lacks empathy. I deserved it when I started getting ads on Twitch after re-enabling updates for it for no particular reason, because I know better. My dad who wants to use Criterion on his smart TV but can't figure out how to use a smartphone camera? Different story.