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Comment by dghughes | Hacker News Reader

I used to use a pi hole since YouTube on a Samsung smart TV is horrible both YoutTube and Samsung put ads in the same video (YouTube at the start and Samsung ...whenever). But Samsung inject ads frequently and aggressively. Even short ten minute videos are interrupted at least twice by ads sometimes a few seconds before a video ends, I mean really?!?

It worked great for a long time but then but changed my setup.

Then I wanted to try Pi-Hole again going through the setup again but the results were very different. For example my Samsung smart TV absolutely refused to connect. It is the same TV, same Pi device, same everything but no network.

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Well that just sold me on never buying another Samsung TV ever. How in the hell does Samsung, a device manufacturer justify inserting ads over content thats not even theirs?

I think basically because (1) they can and (2) no one has stepped in to prevent them from doing it.

But it's absurd.

> . How in the hell does Samsung, a device manufacturer justify inserting ads over content thats not even theirs?

Earnings growth for shareholders. Something-something-"advertising revolution/innovation".

It seems worse for some videos too which made me think it was YouTube but I can't see YouTube inserting ads mid-video or a few seconds before the end of a video. It's local ads too for my small town so it's targeted very precisely to me.

Other crap is resetting the opt-out after a software update. And also putting the agree or disagree checkbox on a separate page than the actual terms you just read. You read it on one page then exit, look at a bunch of terms and scroll to find the matching document that has the agree or disagree checkbox for one of the TOS documents you read. It's a mess.

Never buy a smart TV just buy a monitor without any smarts.

The sound cuts out on it too you'll miss every few words almost as if it were censoring it.

I'm afraid someday it will not work if it can't update its OS.

What model Samsung do you have? I have been using the KS8000 for a couple years and have only ever noticed the small ad that looks like another app in the home screen. I've never had Samsung ads in 3rd party apps.

I tried to find the model in the menu but I can't see it. It's a 50 inch, 4K, UHD only about three years old. I think it has an OS that's different that what is currently available.

It's quite obvious that it's Samsung ads as mentioned it's constant not at the start of a video like how YouTube would do it. And at odd times as if it injects every five minutes no matter what.

I've been using a Samsung TV for the last 3 years and never seen an ad on YouTube. Which model are you using?

I'm not sure it's 50 inch, UHD, 4K so possibly UHDxxxx something.

It's is incredibly annoying to have numerous ads in every video. I even tried to see what was going on using Wireshark but it was beyond my capabilities.

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