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Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

+1, this is great advice.

I've been doing the same; get an AppleTV or GoogleTV dongle and never, ever attach the LG or Samshung TV to the network.

Benefits of this strategy:

* So simple, even non-savvy folks can follow the rule

* Protects your privacy

* Eliminates an unnecessary, highly invasive, and parasitic advertising vector (ads directly from LG or Samsung)

* Protects your TV performance and functionality from surprise degradation due to "updates"

I don't see any significant downsides compared to the upsides :)

It's unfortunate the manufacturers are in a position where such perverse anti-customer incentives exist.

All we really need and want is a great product crafted with love. What we got was a creepy spy box that eventually gets so slow it becomes unusable and worthless e-waste.

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> "...GoogleTV..."

> "* Protects your privacy"

these two things are at complete odds. appletv is only marginally better, but it is better. anything google is going to spy on you for its own benefit and those of its advertisers.

It's about having some control, rather than attaching the entire TV to the network and letting it run completely wild until it eventually "updates" to degraded functionality.

What's your end goal? Do you want to watch Netflix or Hulu or whatever on a TV?

If you don't then you probably don't need any of these dongles! Just connect your TV to OTA and you're fine!

personally, i don't watch enough tv to have cable and use an appletv on a restricted vlan (no internet to the tv) to watch streaming services, but also will occasionally watch broadcast tv OTA. google is completely blocked at the firewall.

it's the least bad option right now (that still allows you to watch just about any content), not a great long-term one. as apple establishes itself more and more in the content business, i'm sure they'll eventually succumb to more invasive tracking and targeting for advertisers as well.

> It's unfortunate the manufacturers are in a position where such perverse anti-customer incentives exist.

Why can't we have a consumer organization that protects us from having to buy stuff that we don't want.

Wouldn't it be great if any product sold in mass quantities would have to pass a consumer/environment protection committee first?

and wouldn't it be great if the people on that committee acted in the consumers best interests?

> Why can't we have a consumer organization that protects us from having to buy stuff that we don't want

Because of too much money from corporations in politics

No, please no committees of incompetent government stuffed shirts that raise the barrier to entry so high that only the established megacorps and their armies of lawyers can hope to compete. Instead, mandate that people must be allowed to opt-out of ads/tracking antifeatures, with private right of action so consumers don't have to rely on government agencies to enforce the standards.

> raise the barrier to entry

that's why I said "in mass quantities".

> instead, mandate that people must be allowed to

> ... don't have to rely on government agencies to enforce ...

Who's enforcing the mandate?

"private right of action" -> means that private individuals can sue the corporations that break the rules, they don't have to rely on a government agency to bring charges. (I'm not against government agencies also bringing charges, but that shouldn't be the only enforcement mechanism)

> Why can't we have a consumer organization that protects us from having to buy stuff that we don't want.

You don't have to buy stuff you don't want.

You just can't buy the stuff you do want without it being bundled with stuff you don't want - the manufacturers have decided there's no market for it.

Evidently it's more profitable to persuade a large fraction of people that they are “consumers”, whose lives are a series of branded commercial experiences, than it is to cater to the unlucrative number of people who object.

As ever, the problem is consumerism.

Being disappointed that stuff is degrading due to anti consumer for the sake of increased profits is not consumerism.

Depriving people of TVs, phones and computers is not the solution. Redirecting them to the FOSS alternatives which are more expensive, have less features and are harder to use is also not a solution.

> and never, ever attach the LG or Samshung TV to the network.

I recall seeing some pictures of models that eventually refuse to display content until they get a network connection to update (well, really, download new ads).

> refuse to display content until they get a network connection to updatw

If they refuse to run built-in apps (like netflix/hulu/etc), I can see that, makes sense. But if you dont use those TV apps anyway and just get all content on TV through Chromecast/AppleTV, that refusal doesn't matter at all.

Source: that's how I've been running my own setup for a while, zero issues. Tried with both a 5+ years old 4k Sony smart TV and a more modern LG C1.

> Protects your TV performance and functionality from surprise degradation due to "updates"

Instead, it will have its own upgrades which will degrade performance and/or UI.

A recent Android TV update on my Xiaomi Android TV brought ads covering a 1/4 of the screen from services I'm not subscribed to. Had to revert the upgrade and stop it from updating.

No ads on AppleTv. Or I don’t see them. Also used PS4 as a TV. But it wasn’t super convenient without a remote. But overall the TV dongle is the way forward IMO

A new dongle is a lot cheaper and less e-waste than a new TV.

And a new single will help me with getting rid of the ads how exactly?

Select something like AppleTV or another product that doesn't show you ads..

I just added an old laptop behind the tv. I ripped everything from the laptop - screen, keyboard, fan - everything. What is left is the MB + SSD and USB port where I've added wi-fi and wireless keyboard usb. Also bought some oversized radiator and put it on the processor so I am fanless now.

The thing gets warm only when you play 4k youtube video.

And now you have to deal with windows privacy :)

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