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My Samsung TV keeps blocking around 20% of the display at random times to tell me their terms and conditions have changed. Of course I have the option of checki
by ksajadi 11mo ago
My Samsung TV keeps blocking around 20% of the display at random times to tell me their terms and conditions have changed. Of course I have the option of checking it by reading the whole thing on my TV and then running a diff to see what’s changed but I don’t have an option to opt out of the terms.
It’s way too frequent and runs at random times in the middle of a movie so I always choose Accept.
Give me a dumb TV any time of the day now
- malfist 11mo agoDisconnect it from the internet and use an appletv. It can't update then. This works until apple enshitifies
- cyanydeez 11mo ago"Give some other monopoly rulr over your attention"
- celeritascelery 11mo agoApple TV is much better about this. I have never had it pop up or interrupt me. When it is idle it just goes to a pleasant screen saver and then powers off after a while. It doesn’t try and promote content or display ads for shows. Granted, that could change at any time, but right now I think it is better than all the alternatives.
- Shadowmist 11mo agoAds are coming to Apple Maps so it’s probably only a matter of time before the rest of the ecosystem is infected.
- M4v3R 11mo agoIt is better, but I hated how some time ago they started showing trailers at the start of a show, with no option to turn this off. It’s a small thing but it’s super annoying, if I want to check out what’s new I will do it myself, thank you very much.
- coke12 11mo agoUltimately the choice of platform is about trust rather than capability. Apple has been a much better citizen historically than any of the smart TV companies.
- benoau 11mo agoThose other smart TV companies write shit software that performs terribly on bad hardware and may have ads - YMMV but that's not really "worse" than Apple's anti-steering clauses concealing massive fees on ATV apps like Plex or ESPN and causing half the western world to revise their competition laws to outlaw many of their practices. It's just bad for different reasons.
- cyanydeez 11mo agosuper ultimately, the choice of platform of trust is about farming long enough to get monopoly lock in and then slot in a MBA to convert that trust to cash. Anyone who see anything other than enshittification is living on the same month-to-month timeline that capitalism wants in their consumers.
- lynndotpy 11mo agoI'm not an Apple fan, but if someone wants a 'smart TV' (access to streaming services, etc) and doesn't want to go the Linux-box-connected-to-Jellyfin route, then Apple really is just the best option. In my experience, they've been fine for a few years so far.
- aidenn0 11mo agoThat's where I ended up; I was running a linux box with Kodi for a while, but that was a subpar experience for connecting to commercial streaming services (I never was able to figure out how to get Kodi to launch firefox on the site's URL, which would have been Just Fine for us).
- esalman 11mo agoI use Chromecast. But I changed the home page to show app screen by defult instead of recommendations.
- mystraline 11mo agoDamn good point. Unless you have root and can do anything the hardware is capable of, it's not your device. And you shouldn't let any sort of non-owned devices on your network. Why? Cause devices controlled by other orgs are a foothold situation. And we've had countless attacks of footholds being used as internal points of attack, DDoS, and other attacks. That also means that all your "cloud devices" should be able to work 100% offline. If not, return them as defective.
- noir_lord 11mo agoI have a Samsung smart TV it's never seen the internet, I just didn't let it connect - it's a display for a box running Fedora, that is its entire job to be dumb and display whatever is sent down the wire. Devices that do need to be on the internet but I can foresee no reason they ever need to talk to anything else on the network go on their own VLAN (down to the level of my VR headset since it had a Meta logo on the box...). My boys gaming PC can't even see my desktop (since there isn't a scenario where it needs to). Other than the "smart" TV I own nothing "Smart" because I don't want anything smart.
- mystraline 11mo agoI'm not adverse to smart hardware. I am adverse to being trapped with rental hardware masquerading as as 'sale'. Almost all corporate cloudshit is that. As a counter example, I have 2 of these opengarage for my garage doors. They work superbly and integrate seamlessly with HomeAssistant. https://opengarage.io/ https://opengarage.io/ And yes, I control them completely. FLOSS and all. And they just work.
- OhMeadhbh 11mo agoHunh. This reminds me... I have a copy of ghidra and a bunch of JTAG adaptors. I bet I could suck the firmware out of my old model Visio TV. I already unsoldered the microphone from the motherboard.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- TheNewsIsHere 11mo agoThis is ultimately what we did in my house for every Samsung TV. Their smart TV stuff used to be marginally interesting. When Samsung TV Plus launched it was fantastic. They weren’t yet sure of how to handle ads so even the ad space was still nice, and marginally useful. As they figured out the ad strategy, apps started disappearing and new ones appeared that couldn’t be uninstalled. Then the OS updates started cratering performance. I have a Samsung smart TV from after 2020 that takes about 4 seconds to register a single remote control command in the smart TV GUI.
- NoiseBert69 11mo agoI'd never give a Samsung device unfiltered internet access.
- procaryote 11mo agoI'd never buy another samsung device
- edoceo 11mo agoI just avoid all Samsung CE.
- zero_shift 11mo agoAt the risk of a smart-ass reply, I think you could say the same for almost any consumer electronics Even if you don't suspect malfeasance / advertising / surveillance, a lot of these devices and their software are sloppily developed and highly insecure
- OhMeadhbh 11mo agoA couple years ago I thought my fridge was appropriately blocked from the intarwebs. But a router update flipped the bit on activating the default guest network (which I normally keep turned off.) So for about 6 months my fridge was getting out to the net via the guest network. I found out about it when I got a call from my ISP asking what the heck was going on. Apparently a bot net had found my fridge and was doing all manner of bad things. Moral of the story is... always double check your router settings to make sure enshittified iot devices aren't making you look like a newb.
- prmoustache 11mo agoSounds weird, why would you give your fridge your wifi password in the first place? Well the real question is why would you buy a connected fridge in the first place. Not that I visit fridges alleys in stores on a regular basis but I have never actually seen one.
- GreenVulpine 11mo ago
- reeredfdfdf 11mo agoI'm still using my Samsung dumb TV from circa 2008. paired with ancient Chromecast. No way I'm going to buy a smart TV as long as this combination keeps working. No ads, and things mostly just work, and it cost me next to nothing.
- randallsquared 11mo agoEven a smart TV is dumb enough if you use it as HDMI out for your actual streaming device (Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, whatever) and never connect it to the internet. There were rumors about smart TVs connecting to unsecured wifi networks a few years ago, but I don't remember any verified cases or TVs.
- ethbr1 11mo agoThis is the way. Allowing appliances to connect to the internet, when it's not necessary, is insecure. At least with a single-purpose device, you know you're not at the mercy of some minimally-funded, likely-outsourced software team inside a hardware manufacturer.
- ls612 11mo agoI bought the 2025 Samsung smart TV that RTINGS recommended as the best OLED and connected it once at first setup to download updates. Then I blocked it in the router and disconnected it in the TV menu and it’s been smooth sailing. Everything goes through my Apple TV and there’s no ads and it just works.
- rubyfan 11mo agoI never agreed to the original terms and won’t let my Samsung TV on wifi for this reason.
- scosman 11mo agoI let my TV on wifi, but block internet access at the router. Things like Airplay and Chromecast still work great, but no ads/tracking/etc.
- dexterdog 11mo agoIs that tied to the port or the MAC because the device can just change addresses and you won't know.
- margalabargala 11mo agoYou would know if your device starts updating. And if it changes mac to get around the block then it goes in the trash.
- ta988 11mo agoOpenWrt, make a wifi network only for those nasty spying devices, printers, tvs etc
- buildbot 11mo agoSame!!! I do every so often connect it to update it if a newer firmware is actually worth it… The extra upside to not accepting the terms is that none of the samsung bloatware apps even start - the TV runs much faster than just with the wifi disconnected.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- everyone 11mo agoIt doesnt matter if you do or dont, those things are worthless in court in any reasonable country. They frequently want their users to agree to illegal things.
- qmr 11mo agoWhy did you connect it to the internet in the first place?
- esalman 11mo agoThis. If you want online content use a stream box.
- nerdponx 11mo ago> It’s way too frequent and runs at random times in the middle of a movie so I always choose Accept. This is deliberate
- DenisM 11mo agoYou may be looking for a “commercial LCD display”.
- sspiff 11mo agoHow about just not connecting your TV to the Internet? Then it's just a dumb display?
- AceJohnny2 11mo agoWhen I was shopping for a TV years ago, Samsung had all the features I wanted (for gaming). But Samsung's ad behavior led me to buy a Vizio TV instead.
- c420 11mo agoI've got some bad news for you, Walmart acquired Vizio two years ago: "This acquisition is not merely about expanding Walmart's product lineup but rather part of a sophisticated commercial strategy to integrate its retail operations, owned media channels and TV hardware into a cohesive ecosystem. This ecosystem is designed to generate and share data, influence shopping behavior and, ultimately, drive sales through an innovative approach to advertising..." "...By owning a television manufacturer, Walmart can now directly serve and, crucially, measure the impact of ads on consumer behavior. This capability significantly enhances Walmart's potential to convert advertisements into retail purchases." https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2024/09/06/what-walmarts-vizio-acquisition-means-for-the-future-of-advertising/ https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcou...
- AceJohnny2 11mo agobleh. Only saving grace I have is that I bought my P659-G1 in 2019. While it doesn't prevent bad updates, it's a little less likely they pushed deep changes to old models. And I can't believe it's been over 6 years since I had already eliminated Samsung for their ad behavior, and not only have they not changed, they've doubled-down.
- barrotes 11mo agoThe best Smart TV is the one that is just 24/24 HDMI connected to your old Linux laptop with a GUI tweaked to act as a Smart TV with an air mouse as remote.
- CivBase 11mo agoWhen I upgraded my desktop, I only needed to pickup a case and a few extra parts to have enough for a functional home theater PC. Running standard Fedora Workstation, controlled with Logitech K400+. I stubbornly refuse to ever connect my TV to the internet.
- aunty_helen 11mo agoK400 and a raspberry pi is keeping my Samsung tv offline. Little bit under powered but gets the job done. Movies are fine, YouTube 90%
- godelski 11mo agoI use my TV as a monitor and this still happens. When you don't accept it just gets more aggressive. I'm pretty sure there's a "bug"[0] that ends up slowing the TV down because it keeps that process going. I'm pretty confident you can't agree to a contract if you can't opt out. I don't want new features and I'm fine if everything stays the same. And no, please do not adjust the image settings again... I didn't want the AI frame interpolation then and I don't want it now [0] with Samsung engineers I don't believe they've tested anything and just assumed the user would accept it instead of deny it 20 times. It'll also get less buggy when I do a reboot, so I'm pretty sure it's a memory leak We are talking about a company where if I press the exit button there's a 50% chance I get the menu or not. It's literally a random result. If I'm in, say, Netflix, press exit, I'll turn to my computer screen and half the time the Samsung menu will open and half the time it won't. Also starting the TV will flash my desktop and then go "ops, no signal" and I have to just keep restarting the TV and switching inputs (not touching the hdmi cable btw) until it works. And no, my desktop doesn't sleep and yes this issue is the reason why. So I am 100% sure it's not conspiratorial, I'm 100% sure they just suck at their job. I'm sure the fridge will be great...
- koksik202 11mo agoI just use my smart tv as tv and use PS5 as media box avoids all this hassle. There is nothing on cable/satellite tv other than ads anyway
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- apexalpha 11mo ago>Give me a dumb TV any time of the day now Just disconnect your current one from the internet.