I just finished setting up a custom router with dns ad blocking. Next comes a media player so I can purge this smart TV filth from my household.
Huge shout out to Louis Rossmann and the FUTO communuty contributors, check out the wiki on self-hosted software if you haven’t already.
People who don’t have the tech chops for self-hosting can also check the market for shop displays (like you’d see above the counter in a fast food joint). Those are “dumb” displays, no ads bs built-in because they aren’t expected to be used outside of a commercial environment.
They cost more than smart tvs because the ads subsidize consumer models. Rather, they cost as much as tvs this size really cost (after markup). $1700 is not realistic for a huge screen if it didn’t have ads. Also, fuck ads.
I bought a new TV last year after my Hisense kicked the bucket and had a similar experience.
Not sure if it applies to your situation, but I just factory reset my TV, never enabled wifi, and hooked up a smart device I had lying around (Nvidia Shield). Now it all works great and if the smart functions upset me I can throw just the smart TV part in the trash and go back to my VCR.
You have to reject smart TVs at the time of purchase, or manufacturers think this shit is okay and will keep escalating until even an Nvidia Shield won’t save you.
For now I have an androidTV but I guess that whent I have time, it will be HDMI only (androidTV is quite buggy on it) and after that, I will look for a dumbTV
We have not owned a TV since the 00s and have no intention of buying one any time soon, but I had a look at the FUTO website you linked and it’s interesting read (even for the non-expert I’m).
Thx for sharing :)
Sorry, I’m confused. You should easily be able to block these home screen ads ads with pihole or router dns blocking. I know because I do it with my smart tvs. Are you saying that that isn’t working?
I figure the ads are just cached from earlier. I took this picture a few hours after I finished setting up my pfBlockerNG feeds and changing my DNS to AdGuard’s public one.
If nothing else, this ad certainly reaffirmed my decision to update our network.
I would recommend hard power cycling the TV and re-evaluating. For example, on both my TCL Roku and LG WebOS TVs, home screen ads are completely eliminated with pihole dns blocking. Additionally, I got rid of home screen ads on my Nvidia shield and other devices.
Make sure that you’re blocking the right domains.
Edit: before anyone says “but why even connect the TV to the Internet at all?” - the reason is because you’re likely to get the best HDR quality (especially Dolby Vision) from the TV’s native streaming apps. Dolby vision is an absolute fucking disaster on external devices and barely works at all on Windows (if at all.)
Oh, and if anyone knows why pfBlockerNG might fail to update some DNSBL AND IPv4 feeds during cron events, I’d be forever grateful. I’m getting tired of my router crashing every hour.
A cheap computer/laptop. HDMI cable. Ublock origin (sprinkle some sponserblock and privacy badger in there). A TV that is never connected to the internet. Voila. No ads. None. Zilch. Zero. Ad free.
Streaming platforms that have gone to ad supported formats make me laugh because it’s just a 3-5 second black screen, not the ad, and it’s back to the content. Been doing it for decades. Don’t sit there and get reamed by their bullshit.
AFAIK this will only get you 720p to 1080p depending on the streaming service. No 4K, no HDR.
Buy a smart TV box like Apple TV or Nvidia Shield. You can get full quality streaming with some ads but not nearly as bad as the software that’s built into some of these TVs.
I know, I was just letting people know that this guys solution comes with downsides.
Plenty of 4k with HDR on Real Debrid. Or even better quality and bitrate ripped from BRs, in the open waters.
HDMI 2.1 can support 4k. Find a ship that doesn’t sink. Voila. No ads. Zilch. Zero. Nada. No HDR? Better than a single second of an ad.
What do we do when they come with 5G modems built in?
Don’t buy a TV anymore. Seriously though with the direction things have been going in the “tech world” for the last couple years (maybe even decade) it is probably better to start adjusting to some level of digital minimalism. For some of us it will become a necessity for financial reasons anyway…
Razor blade to specific pcb traces?
Detailed instructions for things like this will need to documented. It starts with ads… does it evolve into 1984? Who knows, but it seems more likely in light of recent events.
I agree. I could see manufacturers add anti tamper features that could brick the device if opened if people started doing this anyway.
That’s unlikely, the additional R&D cost probably won’t weigh up to the costs incurred by the small minority that removes it.
It’s come full circle.
Back in the early 00s, I invited my buddy over to watch the super bowl commercials. Neither one of us gave a damn whatsoever about football, put the commercials were always lit.
It will be a dark day indeed when I allow my TV to connect to the internet. These things are glorified monitors.
You’re right, we should start putting ads on all monitors
Somewhere, an ad exec just stiff.
I have a Philips GoogleTV. I installed a different app launcher on it, now I don’t get any ads anywhere anymore.
Which one?
I use Projectivy at the moment. Pretty close to stock visually, just without the ads or apps you can’t hide. Enough for me to make it tolerable.
Thanks.
Is American football not merely a vehicle through which advertising can be pumped? You’d think the entire sport had been designed from the ground up for such a purpose.
Four seconds of action, six minutes of commercials….3.6 seconds of action, 47 replays, five minutes of commercials.
P.S. Smart TVs can eat shit and die.
I went to a game for the first time a few years ago. I recall the moment where everyone was sitting around and not doing anything because they were waiting for the commercials to finish. It felt like watching actors drop their characters the moment they step out of the spotlight.
This (and the ridiculous, eye gouging price) is why I’d never go to a UFC event. It’s bad enough when I’m home and I have to go clean the kitchen or fold my laundry for 30 minutes if a fight finishes even slightly early, but having to stand around waiting for ads to finish on a PPV card would turn me into Ted Kaczynski
https://xdaforums.com/t/app-firetv-noroot-launcher-manager-change-launcher-without-root.4176349/
There’s an Android TV version in there as well (ik the article says Fire TV)
I use this and ATVLauncher Pro
cant one simple adb debloat any droid device? i mean adb list those packages, maybe even backup some and then remove the obvious ones?!
Not if they’re baked into the system. Although that may get into GPL violations, I forget. God knows a device can come with locked firmware though.
i dont know what you mean by baked in really. all services are packages i guess and a quick google search says stuff like that at least exist at some point, e.g.https://github.com/tutyamxx/androidtv-debloat-script
i wish op the best of luck to escape telemetry hell.
Adb is just an interface between computer and phone, the packages it lists may not be every system component, you can add anything in at kernel level, or also just not list it in that interface.
no. smart tvs are not phones.
Why the fuck does your television have a home page?
Never give the TV the wifi password.
Why the fuck does your television have a home page?
FLauncher is pretty great :)
Return it. If you hold on to it (even if you block the ads and all) it will signal the manufacturer, that this practice is fine.
And then buy a non-smart TV instead. At least one company, Sceptre, still makes them. (I don’t want to make it seem like I’m shilling for a particular brand, but I genuinely don’t know of any other options, aside from commercial signage displays.)
Commercial displays might be the answer, all the smart bullshit goes against their use case so they need a way to go around it in case they still have it, and every brand have them.
Last time I looked into it they were more expensive and had to be bought through an agent but that was a few years ago, thing might have changed.
Again, the brand I mentioned in the previous comment is a consumer-oriented one, that you can simply buy off Amazon etc., that still sells dumb TVs. I’d only suggest resorting to commercial displays if you’re boycotting that brand for some reason.
They don’t seem to be available in Europe.
Ah, that’s unfortunate, and another good reason to consider resorting to a commercial display.
'Course, it’s also possible that a commercial display is so much more expensive/a hassle that it might be worth figuring out how to buy a Sceptre TV in a country where it is sold and then importing it yourself.
The funny thing is that I can find all sort of accessories for those TVs on Amazon but not the TVs.
