This is already extremely common. For example, my TV uses some sort of Roku-branded OS. They literally have ads on the home screen when you first turn on the TV. It's something I've struggled to work around, and eventually gave up. I just kind of avert my eyes until my Apple TV kicks in.
I feel like this should be illegal. It's kind of like billboards on the side of the road, it's something I never want to say but it's forced upon me. I bought your product, why is it allowed that you can just throw ads on it? I understand they sometimes sell these TVs at a slight loss to make up for that, but I feel like they should be required to sell the same TV without Ads for the same 3% margin added on. I bet most people would pay for the latter if it was provided.
The solution for now. I fully expect future TVs to ship with cellular modems that connect to any carrier willing to jump into bed with the manufacturer.
Pretty sure all new TVs have HDMI CEC, so you can just buy any TV, connect it to a $100 to $150 Apple TV/Nvidia shield/google thing or whatever and have no ads (from tv manufacturer).
Nonsense. Buy an LG TV of any kind. Never connect it to the internet. Plug in an Apple TV (or Linux HTPC box of your choice). Ad-free TV at consumer prices.
I will never use a TV's OS for more than the first 5 minutes it takes to turn on HDMI CEC as default. That lets the device on the other end turn it on and off, change the volume, etc. I recently had Best Buy deliver a 75 inch, only cost me $350, probably because the little garbage computer inside is loaded with ads. I'll never know.
I had an old LG TV, I played around with MITMing it by telling my DNServer to return my NAS's IP for *.lg.com, etc servers, and I was recording the HTTP requests it was making (this was last decade and I guess lack of HTTPS wasn't shameful yet). I got rid of this TV, but never fixed the DNS settings, and it seems my new LG TV has never been able to phone home to show me the EULA to accept.. in return I do get a more limited experience, but I can switch inputs just fine.
So TL;DR: it's probably possible to configure Pi-Hole (or dnsmasq) to block the ads/phone-home behavior of the TV.
I think their eventual hack to circumvent this kind of stuff is leveraging stuff like "Amazon Sidewalk" where everyone is unwittingly providing free internet for the IoT-enabled things they buy >_>
Maybe it's time people started hacking the TVs and getting custom OSes running on them.
Though I suspect that the processors inside TVs don't have publicly available datasheets, and the actual boards get changed pretty often, so it will be a lot of work for little payoff.
One thing to look at though is to see if your TV has a signage or commercial mode, and switch to using that instead.
I recently bought a TV (HiSense) after a very quick bit of research about the dimensions and the fact that it had GoogleTV as the OS.
Unfortunately for me, the operating system for many TVs is region specific! Once the product appeared on Hisense's Australian page it did mention having VIDAA instead of GoogleTV, but this was after I had purchased it. I can confirm that VIDAA is quite bad, demanding agreement to several fairly ad-driven user agreements before you can use any smart features. "Enhanced Viewership Program" or something, which in the text says that VIDAA will monitor what you are watching on the screen, then use that information to display relevant ads. Yuck.
Fortunately it does switch to HDMI when you turn it on, but I've got to decide what system I get to drive that HDMI port. I wanted not to have to bother with an additional device, but that's how it is I guess.
As a bonus comment, VIDAA's kid-mode- content includes a very large number of purported TV programs - but they are actually Youtube playthroughs of video games, cut into "episodes" and presented as a "season".
I haven't seen any ads on my HiSense TV (low end/budget brand), though I have been concerned about updates eventually bringing me this feature.
The TV is pretty much exclusively used as a 85" monitor for a media PC so I think the risk is low, but this was the final prompt to finally block internet access for the TV at the router.
I didn't want to completely block it from the network as it's useful being able to hook into it from Home Assistant
I have a smart TV running Roku. I still use cable (for news), so the other 2 sources I see are the 2 computers I have connected. The only time I ever see Roku is when I'm selecting a source. The TV is smart, but I'm smarter: no Ethernet cable.
I bought an NVIDIA Shield, but promptly returned it to the store because it will not function without signing into a Google account -- a requirement which was not mentioned on the packaging nor in the printed documents in the box. TBH kinda ultra sick of corporations having unilateral encumbrances on your rights and freedoms to use literally anything technological.
Should also be applicable if you have to have an online account with a 3rd party service to use a product, as I experienced with the NVIDIA Shield[0]
At the same time, "not agreeing with the EULA" is a valid reason to return a product to the store, as I did. Consumer protection laws would be on your side here, in the jurisdictions I'm aware of (Canada/US)
EULAs like this should be illegal. Comparable to "Warranty void if this sticker is damaged" type scenarios.
The enormous "gotcha" games being played under the guise of "if it's not illegal, we're going to exploit it" are grotesque. TVs are just one of hundreds of examples of products and services being used to invade and exploit privacy with no commensurate return on value for what's being exploited.
We need a law constraining this shit to 100% opt-in voluntary features with no dark patterns, with penalties for anything that even vaguely looks like a dark pattern. Fines and jail time time for c-suite for any violations, enough that they'll stop playing the stupid games.
One would think that this would represent an opportunity in the market to, you know, sell TVs that only do their basic function, and not try to tack on ads and such, right? Or, is it that not enough people care about this stuff...so the masses simply put up with it, and move about their lives...and Tv makers (and other device manufacturerers) go with the flow of taking as much advantage as possible?
The problem is that ads and tracking data represent recurring revenue for the manufacturers, and they know full well that many people are going to Walmart or Best Buy and picking the cheapest one.
That changes the decision considerably: not many people feel strongly enough about this to pay more, and even people who do care about privacy or find ads annoying usually aren’t willing to pay much more for it.
An Apple TV is the clear market leader on streaming devices but even there you see people talking like it’s exorbitant to pay an extra $50 for something which will last twice as long as a FireTV or Google TV, and for TVs it’s even less favorable because the people who care enough to buy our hypothetical safe TV are going to need one of those anyway so they’re probably going to pick the cheaper (advertiser subsidized) one and never connect it to the internet.
That's not why, it's because the most important factor for people is price and tv with ads can sell for cheaper than the one without. I would never dream of touching a streaming service with ads but I'm clearly in the minority since I'm the only one paying the premium for ad free.
Are you saying TV prices dropped sharply once they started including the adware? It sounds more like the adware is selling at the same price point normal TVs were in years past, and the ad-free were relegated to a higher priced tier that didn't previously exist.
This is already extremely common. For example, my TV uses some sort of Roku-branded OS. They literally have ads on the home screen when you first turn on the TV. It's something I've struggled to work around, and eventually gave up. I just kind of avert my eyes until my Apple TV kicks in.
I feel like this should be illegal. It's kind of like billboards on the side of the road, it's something I never want to say but it's forced upon me. I bought your product, why is it allowed that you can just throw ads on it? I understand they sometimes sell these TVs at a slight loss to make up for that, but I feel like they should be required to sell the same TV without Ads for the same 3% margin added on. I bet most people would pay for the latter if it was provided.
The solution is to not connect the TV to the internet.
This not only removes ads but also content capturing and tracking.
The solution for now. I fully expect future TVs to ship with cellular modems that connect to any carrier willing to jump into bed with the manufacturer.
Could be but seems like it would be expensive. IIRC the content scanners send 1 image per second.
Or they will have agreements to jump through passing phone networks or via the ISP's "CoxWiFi" network that they resell as a backhaul
Roku is the worst thing to happen to television since motion smoothing.
You can change the settings to switch directly to the HDMI port connected to your AppleTV.
The AppleTV remote will also turn your TV on and off automatically
Just buy a TV without ads.
Free market at work.
/s
You can for an excessive price. Most commercial outdoor-rated panels are just simple HDMI or network inputs.
Nope, at least last I saw around 2021, Samsung and LG were moving their commercial displays to include Tizen and WebOS as well.
I don't know about the other supliers though.
Pretty sure all new TVs have HDMI CEC, so you can just buy any TV, connect it to a $100 to $150 Apple TV/Nvidia shield/google thing or whatever and have no ads (from tv manufacturer).
Nonsense. Buy an LG TV of any kind. Never connect it to the internet. Plug in an Apple TV (or Linux HTPC box of your choice). Ad-free TV at consumer prices.
edit: not just OLED
Apple TV kind of has ads in the form of their streaming service. Not egregious yet, but it gets worse with every iteration.
If you move the tv+ app down from the top row, you should never see it.
Why even buy a TV? Buy a screen and a projector.
TVs are more compact for smaller rooms, brighter in sunlight.
I bought your product, why is it allowed that you can just throw ads on it?
I think you've answered your own question here.
I will never use a TV's OS for more than the first 5 minutes it takes to turn on HDMI CEC as default. That lets the device on the other end turn it on and off, change the volume, etc. I recently had Best Buy deliver a 75 inch, only cost me $350, probably because the little garbage computer inside is loaded with ads. I'll never know.
I was wondering about current work-arounds. I was also thinking hacker-sponsored OS overrides for various TVs are coming (similar to rootMyTv).
I had an old LG TV, I played around with MITMing it by telling my DNServer to return my NAS's IP for *.lg.com, etc servers, and I was recording the HTTP requests it was making (this was last decade and I guess lack of HTTPS wasn't shameful yet). I got rid of this TV, but never fixed the DNS settings, and it seems my new LG TV has never been able to phone home to show me the EULA to accept.. in return I do get a more limited experience, but I can switch inputs just fine.
So TL;DR: it's probably possible to configure Pi-Hole (or dnsmasq) to block the ads/phone-home behavior of the TV.
I think their eventual hack to circumvent this kind of stuff is leveraging stuff like "Amazon Sidewalk" where everyone is unwittingly providing free internet for the IoT-enabled things they buy >_>
This trick doesn't always work. Roku for example hard codes 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as its DNS resolvers. So you may need some firewall redirection rules.
Can my TV not have a whole OS?
I’m just going to use the hdmi ports.
Maybe it's time people started hacking the TVs and getting custom OSes running on them.
Though I suspect that the processors inside TVs don't have publicly available datasheets, and the actual boards get changed pretty often, so it will be a lot of work for little payoff.
One thing to look at though is to see if your TV has a signage or commercial mode, and switch to using that instead.
Would be nice to have a "minimal OS" that just does what u want. Select a hdmi port, change volume, yada ya.
I recently bought a TV (HiSense) after a very quick bit of research about the dimensions and the fact that it had GoogleTV as the OS.
Unfortunately for me, the operating system for many TVs is region specific! Once the product appeared on Hisense's Australian page it did mention having VIDAA instead of GoogleTV, but this was after I had purchased it. I can confirm that VIDAA is quite bad, demanding agreement to several fairly ad-driven user agreements before you can use any smart features. "Enhanced Viewership Program" or something, which in the text says that VIDAA will monitor what you are watching on the screen, then use that information to display relevant ads. Yuck.
Fortunately it does switch to HDMI when you turn it on, but I've got to decide what system I get to drive that HDMI port. I wanted not to have to bother with an additional device, but that's how it is I guess.
As a bonus comment, VIDAA's kid-mode- content includes a very large number of purported TV programs - but they are actually Youtube playthroughs of video games, cut into "episodes" and presented as a "season".
I haven't seen any ads on my HiSense TV (low end/budget brand), though I have been concerned about updates eventually bringing me this feature.
The TV is pretty much exclusively used as a 85" monitor for a media PC so I think the risk is low, but this was the final prompt to finally block internet access for the TV at the router.
I didn't want to completely block it from the network as it's useful being able to hook into it from Home Assistant
I have a smart TV running Roku. I still use cable (for news), so the other 2 sources I see are the 2 computers I have connected. The only time I ever see Roku is when I'm selecting a source. The TV is smart, but I'm smarter: no Ethernet cable.
What a coincidence, an ad giant (Google) controls my current TV's OS and I had to accept a EULA to use it.
I bought an NVIDIA Shield, but promptly returned it to the store because it will not function without signing into a Google account -- a requirement which was not mentioned on the packaging nor in the printed documents in the box. TBH kinda ultra sick of corporations having unilateral encumbrances on your rights and freedoms to use literally anything technological.
If you didn't accept the EULA, does it render the entire TV inoperable? Or just the "smart" features?
Not my TV and this is Roku but I imagine they all have similar language:
"If you do not agree to this EULA, you do not have the right to use the Television or the Software"
https://www.tcl.com/us/en/roku-tv/eula
It should be required to have the EULA on the box before purchase, like the nutrition label for food.
Should also be applicable if you have to have an online account with a 3rd party service to use a product, as I experienced with the NVIDIA Shield[0]
At the same time, "not agreeing with the EULA" is a valid reason to return a product to the store, as I did. Consumer protection laws would be on your side here, in the jurisdictions I'm aware of (Canada/US)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42209547
EULAs like this should be illegal. Comparable to "Warranty void if this sticker is damaged" type scenarios.
The enormous "gotcha" games being played under the guise of "if it's not illegal, we're going to exploit it" are grotesque. TVs are just one of hundreds of examples of products and services being used to invade and exploit privacy with no commensurate return on value for what's being exploited.
We need a law constraining this shit to 100% opt-in voluntary features with no dark patterns, with penalties for anything that even vaguely looks like a dark pattern. Fines and jail time time for c-suite for any violations, enough that they'll stop playing the stupid games.
I would 100% vote for you!
[flagged]
Orange juice down the vent, then back to the retailer.
One would think that this would represent an opportunity in the market to, you know, sell TVs that only do their basic function, and not try to tack on ads and such, right? Or, is it that not enough people care about this stuff...so the masses simply put up with it, and move about their lives...and Tv makers (and other device manufacturerers) go with the flow of taking as much advantage as possible?
The problem is that ads and tracking data represent recurring revenue for the manufacturers, and they know full well that many people are going to Walmart or Best Buy and picking the cheapest one.
That changes the decision considerably: not many people feel strongly enough about this to pay more, and even people who do care about privacy or find ads annoying usually aren’t willing to pay much more for it.
An Apple TV is the clear market leader on streaming devices but even there you see people talking like it’s exorbitant to pay an extra $50 for something which will last twice as long as a FireTV or Google TV, and for TVs it’s even less favorable because the people who care enough to buy our hypothetical safe TV are going to need one of those anyway so they’re probably going to pick the cheaper (advertiser subsidized) one and never connect it to the internet.
Our idiocracy would decry that as some sort of antiquated Luddite device and it wouldn't sell in enough volume to make a profit.
That's not why, it's because the most important factor for people is price and tv with ads can sell for cheaper than the one without. I would never dream of touching a streaming service with ads but I'm clearly in the minority since I'm the only one paying the premium for ad free.
Are you saying TV prices dropped sharply once they started including the adware? It sounds more like the adware is selling at the same price point normal TVs were in years past, and the ad-free were relegated to a higher priced tier that didn't previously exist.
customers do not want this, thus this is a business opportunity
The customers aren't the consumers, thus this is a business opportunity.
That’s unfortunately not how the market works in practice.