My question is: Can you block the IPs it’s phoning home to without breaking other TV functions, like OS/app updates, etc? Is there a list of IPs available for smart TVs specifically that keep the fingerprint from being received by the mfg?
My question is: Can you block the IPs it’s phoning home to without breaking other TV functions, like OS/app updates, etc? Is there a list of IPs available for smart TVs specifically that keep the fingerprint from being received by the mfg?
Some TVs do not give you that option though. Shield or not, I have one that will straight up block 90% of the screen every 10 minutes if it doesn’t have a connection.
I would toss it, but it was 250$ and 65" with a decent display. So I used ssh to get into it and install a firewall to block 90% of the TV from access, including the update service. Also have filtering through my network firewall for ad servers, update servers etc.
So now the scan for a connection works, but they aren’t getting much of anything in terms of metrics or telemetry or other information from the TV. I also disabled the default launcher and installed a different one on it as well as jellyfin.
I will never buy another TV like that though, it was an absolute pain to get it working. It should be illegal to hinder usage of a TV just because they are being blocked from invading your privacy.
I would have immediatly returned it to the shop, also I wonder what brand. You are the product…certainly for 250 bucks for a 65 inch TV. They really should have given you 250 dollar + TV. Maybe a year of Netflix premium maximus 8K.
Haha yeah, I agree.
It’s a Toshiba 65C350 Fire TV.
I considered returning it but I’m used to tinkering with stuff so I just dealt with it. I won’t do that again though lol. Was not one of the more fun things to mess with.
It’d be nice if I could flash it completely to remove all their junk. I mean, the device is running Android of some sort so it’s possible but I’m not that invested in trying to figure that out.
Heh, I understand taking up a tinkering challange. Seems there are custom roms that you might be able to flash on a fire tv but there is a chance of bricking it. You need boot menu installed and root access very likely.
Yeah, I did look a little bit and saw that.
If I recall correctly the TV is kind of in this in between update where I was able to get into it and lock it down the way that I want but I can’t get it to give me root access. From what I remember I shouldn’t have even been able to get into it at all but was still able to.
Fun stuff.
I’ll look into it again though since it’s been about a year. Maybe there is something new.
I did not want to enable you, I only did some low effort searches.