Get Ready for Targeted Ads on Your Smart TV

Just another in the long line of reasons to NEVER use a smart TV.

TVs with the best picture quality are going to be a smart TV. If not, then please show me a 65" or larger TV that's dumb, 4K resolution, good picture quality and has a fast enough refresh rate for gaming. I'm interested.

Just because a TV has this features doesn't mean you have to use them.

I keep mine disconnected from the network at all times. Problem solved.

If they try to force pre-loaded ads on me in hardware, I'll just junk the TV. I will not put up with this under any circumstances.
 
Sucks be to them.
They will have to use much higher voltage to jump the gap between my TV and router lol.
(its not plugged in ;))
 
hmmm, just started using Vizio Smartcast and selected Pluto and started watching Awakenings starring Robin Williams and it didn't take long to realize commercials would play about every 10 minutes ...

no more Smartcast for me
 
Man... I may live with a good 4k 42in monitor then. Streaming and such is all from my pc anyway. Hang it on the wall and go.. Eff this crap.
 

I'll take two of the 86 inchers.

Just another in the long line of reasons to NEVER use a smart TV.



Just because a TV has this features doesn't mean you have to use them.

I keep mine disconnected from the network at all times. Problem solved.

If they try to force pre-loaded ads on me in hardware, I'll just junk the TV. I will not put up with this under any circumstances.

I don't.
 
I use a Roku and stream shit, no cable, satellite rarely I will use OTA. So my tv better not inject ads into my stream or ima gonna kick someone in the ahole
 
Wanna know why I keep fixing my old Samsung 1080p LCD? Because the picture quality is still great and because I don't have to deal with shit like this. 8+ years and still going strong. Only had one cap pop and while I was in there I just upgraded them all. Took me about $15 and a couple hours. Chances are it will last another decade.
 
Wanna know why I keep fixing my old Samsung 1080p LCD? Because the picture quality is still great and because I don't have to deal with shit like this. 8+ years and still going strong. Only had one cap pop and while I was in there I just upgraded them all. Took me about $15 and a couple hours. Chances are it will last another decade.
This isnt on the radar for you though.
You can use a TV as a normal display as well
 
Wonder how many smart TVs automagically connected to the neighbor's open WiFi? Could make for some entertaining targeted ads. Neighbor watches a lot of adult pay channels. Smart TV owner comes home to see the kiddos viewing a targeted ad for the next exciting episode of Carmen Creams Cincinnati.

My prediction I made a few months ago was that the TV manufacturers were going to group up with the cable providers. They won't need internet access, because assuming you have that box connected to your TV, they'll have all the access they need.
(And you'll soon have targeted commercials between regular TV shows).

That's just how I see how things are going to go.
 
If they try to force pre-loaded ads on me in hardware, I'll just junk the TV. I will not put up with this under any circumstances.
If you don't connect it to the internet, they can't serve you ads. I would highly doubt that any TV could serve you any ads (except for maybe something generic for the TV brand) without being connected to the internet.
 
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WTF, OW! MY BALLS! Is that supposed be an ad targeting that household?

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Then a light bulb lit up:

 
How do ad's of ANY kind "enhance the viewing experience"?

One way only: they let you buy a TV cheaper.

I said this somewhere else, but targeted ads on my TV are the line in the sand that'll make me go down the road of a pi hole, blocking domains at the router, and so on. Good luck getting ads onto the TV if you can't connect to your ad servers.
 
I believe that's what I said in the second half of my post?
You fully negated it before continuing.
Without the word never an exception could apply, but you stated NEVER 'and in caps'.
"Just another in the long line of reasons to NEVER use a smart TV."
Perhaps you meant to say "a smart TVs features" ?
 
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Small form factor Linux box on home network and not sign "smart TV" into WiFi

Problem solved

Also just because these TV's are smarter than the CEOs of these companies, doesn't mean they should be called smart
 
Here's a thought: Don't connect your TV to the internet.

Voila!

I read through the article, and the article the article was about, and neither one mentioned the VIZIO TVs not working if it wasn't connected to the internet.

Exactly my response, but with how "tech" people are if it can be connected then it must be, there Is no not connect option to them. The only smart in all of this is the few users that don't connect these things to the net.
 
Given I'm talking about my TV and not a monitor, I'm pretty sure this is in my radar.
The cure for any smart TV is to not use the 'smart' bit, leave the network unplugged.
Then you can upgrade without worry.

I use the latest Samsung TV and dont encounter any targeted ads (or any ads) because they cant get to it.
 
Here's a thought: Don't connect your TV to the internet.

Voila!

I read through the article, and the article the article was about, and neither one mentioned the VIZIO TVs not working if it wasn't connected to the internet.

Bingo! I have never connected my television to any network. Never will. It is the first question I ask when looking for a new television, "Does it require an Internet connection to function?"
 
This sounds horrible. I hope that the government will introduce laws that allow consumers to turn these features off.
 
Another thing bad about these TVs if you use the smart features.
On newer ones at least, they come with no/very few apps installed, you select what you want to use and they install.
But if you decide you dont want an app any more you cannot delete it, only remove the icon.

When I first got my TV I wanted to see what a few apps looked like out of curiosity but realised they collect data on everything you do with the TV, sending it to Samsung as well.
Then found I couldnt get rid of the apps once installed, only prevent them from being seen!
I had Samsung do an online reset of the TV in the service menu which did the job.
It hasnt been connected to the network since.
TV is provided from a Satellite receiver and when not used for TV its my PC display.
All the apps I need are provided by my PC.
No apps or Samsung know what I am viewing or when lol. Ha!
 
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You fully negated it before continuing.
Without the word never an exception could apply, but you stated NEVER 'and in caps'.
"Just another in the long line of reasons to NEVER use a smart TV."
Perhaps you meant to say "a smart TVs features" ?


I consider those two statements to be funtionalky equivalent. If you have a TV with smart features yet keep them disabled, I do think consider that "using a smart TV"
 
And there's already a solution: https://pi-hole.net/

I block all ads at the DNS level on my network. No ads on any websites, no embedded ads, no ads in mobile apps, no ads on smart TVs, and you don't have to use browser plug-ins. (I donate to [H] through Patreon, don't ban me Kyle). It's fantastic and there's no performance impact at all. If anything websites load faster.
 
TVs with the best picture quality are going to be a smart TV. If not, then please show me a 65" or larger TV that's dumb, 4K resolution, good picture quality and has a fast enough refresh rate for gaming. I'm interested.

edit
Oh, it's gotta have 4:4:4 chroma sub sampling as well.


Well if you can afford it, Planar apparently makes some of the best quality displays and they have none of this software. I believe they purchased Runco who was famous for having some ridiculously high prices TVs.

Sad that every manufacturer will follow in lock step with Vizio. I swear these companies all collude in a back room somewhere because they all follow the same shitty consumer practices.
 
Hmm. I think I like my old 1080p dumb as a rock TV. It doesn't spy on me. It doesn't try to sell me crap. It doesn't get infected into a malware botnet.

It just... well TVs.
Forget even just TV's. It's hard to find a dumb refrigerator that's nice these days...
 
No thank, bad enough Youtube shows me religious ads about how great finding gaaawwwdd is, so I'll stick with a dumb TV.
 
don't ban me Kyle
just whitelist [H]... but this is really the future.... is there a similar thing for porn or other junk sites? like a community maintained GTFO white/black listing of servers for various types of networks (work, home, PG-13/etc...)
 
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