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Comment by nerdawson | Hacker News Reader

LG enabled tracking without my consent.

I have an LG C8 OLED. I wanted the convenience of a smart TV without being tracked so I carefully went through every setting and turned it all off. I followed an article detailing what all the tracking settings were, how to disable them, etc.

I deliberately disabled all tracking options years ago.

Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks back when I looked in the settings. All of it was magically enabled again. Personalised ads, screen recognition, you name it, all switched on. How long for is anyones guess.

My trust for smart TVs is at an all time low.

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Thats why I use a cheap external box. Doestnt matter whether its firetv, appletv, chromecasr or anything. Unplug the power when u r done watching. Its so easy this way.

I have mine on an RPT that turns it off if the TV is powered off.

They have "smart" power strips that have this functionality, they watch a "TV outlet" and when that stops drawing significant power (Tv turned off) they shut off the other outlets (I think it was designed for dvd players and surround sound amps/ cable boxes).

though doing this with a raspberry pi is more fun.

https://www.energycircle.com/smart-power-strips

HDMI CEC can do this automatically, no special power strip required—if you're lucky and none of your devices implement it poorly.

[EDIT] Oh nevermind, this is about making sure nothing can wake up and phone home when not explicitly powered on.

i've had the belkin version of this for some years, the Conserve Smart AV (unfortunately discontinued): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085Q722A . i have my tv as the master switch and my apple tv on an always on outlet so that it's the only other device that can wake my tv via CEC (it's my home hub as well, so need to keep it powered continuously). (edit:) oops, just remembered my A/V receiver is also plugged into an always-on outlet and can turn on the tv via CEC as well.

i also have a few of the Conserve Switch models, which have a wireless radio switch but is otherwise not "smart": https://www.belkin.com/conserve-switch/P-F7C01008.html

both have been handy and going strong. i'm still puzzled why belkin basically discontinued the conserve line of products. seemed like the logical launch off point for their smart home stuff (now under the wemo brand name).

I actually spend more time on the tasks othan than tv (work, pc related, gaming). Each category is handled by a separate external box.

What's the current recommendation for a minimum viable HTPC? RPI?

If you're okay w/ Android, the Chromecast w/ Google TV is great. You can put it in "App Only" mode and sideload any apk.

I have one of the GoogleTV dongles. It was great for the first 6 months in 2021. Nowadays it's laggy and user-hostile, constantly pushing paid streaming options. The input lag and app startup lag began after forced system updates. I cannot recommend such a piece of trash device.

Thinking of getting an AppleTV instead, haven't gotten around to it yet.

I've swapped my RPi 4 with a "liberated" (0) used Chromebox with Kodi (1) installed and I couldn't be happier; the performance gain compared to the RPi is huge while power consumption isn't much higher.

(0) https://mrchromebox.tech/

(1) https://kodi.tv/

If you give the TV internet access it will still identify the content and share it with advertisers, even if you are using an external box. If you don’t give it access, some have been observed connecting to open networks nearby.

I unplugged the box after the usage. Why would I ever connect the tv to the internet? It's implied.

Beware of any nearby open WiFi network, as the TV will try to use it, and don't forget HDMI cables with Ethernet compatibility; if the TV doesn't connect to the Internet, the external box almost certainly will, and the TV would immediately use it to get online as well.

I unplug the power when things are not used. So they will not be connected. That's why I use different physical boxes.

What good does unplugging it when it’s not in use provide? Surely it wants to share information about how you use it not how you weren’t using it. I guess if it has a built in vouce assistant or something but that’s not something hard to avoid.

Was “HDMI with Ethernet” actually implemented by any devices? I can’t find any reference of devices supporting it.

(The idea was that fancy HDMI cables could also carry Ethernet, so an AV receiver or TV could also be an Ethernet switch for connected devices.)

>If you don’t give it access, some have been observed connecting to open networks nearby.

"observed" in this case means "random reddit user claimed so, but no reputable organization was able to replicate such a easily to replicate claim".

You just have to be aware of what your external boxes are collecting. Roku for example takes multiple 4k screenshots every second and uploads them to their servers to analyze so that they can see and track what you're watching and when.

I'd assume firetv, appletv, even the PS5 I use to watch streaming services on my TV is doing basically the same thing.

That's unavoidable. Unfortunately to watch 4k hdr videos you have to use some tv boxes. You can't do it on pc. By physically limiting the tv box usage, they only have the data just about the video that I am watching with. I guess that's fine

>Unfortunately to watch 4k hdr videos you have to use some tv boxes. You can't do it on pc.

Really? I thought there was some weird hardware requirements (eg. compatible cpu and gpu)[1][2], but otherwise worked fine?

[1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23931 [2] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764

Not for Amazon videos at least

Not Apple TV...

https://www.screentimes.net/article/apple-tv-doesnt-share-yo...

Apple collects much of the same data (and more) and they use it to push ads at you and for whatever else they want. They also sell that data to third parties including "information about your transactions and viewing activity, as well as aggregated user demographics such as age group, gender (which may be inferred from information such as your name and salutation in your Apple ID account), and region"

See: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-tv-app/

Remember, what companies consider to be "non-personal information" is often extremely personal. It's often trivial to identify an individual based on "anonymized" or "non-identifying" data, and even aggregated data my not be enough to prevent individuals from being identified.

It's not clear what "disabling ACR when Apple services were in use" actually means in practice. I'd guess it means that Apple TV+ content isn't being snooped on directly by anyone except apple, but it's hard to say.

Personally, I believe Apple is the "least worst" in this regard, and I'm willing to accept that they provide "some non-personal information" to "Apple TV strategic partners, such as content owners, so that they can measure the performance of their creative work, meet royalty and accounting requirements, and improve their associated products and services."

Compare and contrast the Apple TV privacy policy you linked with Roku's, for example: https://docs.roku.com/published/userprivacypolicy/en/us

Quoting from B.1:

We may receive information about the browsers and devices you use to access the Internet, including our services, such as device types and models, unique identifiers including advertising identifiers (e.g., for Roku Devices, the Advertising Identifier associated with that device), MAC address, IP address, operating system type and version, browser type and language, Wi-Fi network name and connection data, and information about other devices connected to the same network. We may also gather the WiFi MAC addresses and broadcast signal strengths of your router and other Wi-Fi routers in your area. For Roku Devices, we may also collect the name of the retailer to whom your Roku Device was shipped, various quality measures, error logs, software version numbers, and device status (including the status of battery-powered accessories). When you enable Bluetooth while using Roku Services, we may collect your Bluetooth usage, such as connection quality, the name of the device connected to your Roku Device, and the start and stop time of your connection.

Quoting from B.3:

If you use the Roku Media Player to view your video or photo files or listen to your music files, Roku will collect data about the files viewed within the Roku Media Player, such as codecs, and other metadata of the local files you play through the Roku Media Player.

When you use a Roku TV with the Smart TV experience enabled, we use Automatic Content Recognition (“ACR”) technology to receive information about what you watch via the Roku TV’s antenna (including live television content and ads), and via devices connected to your Roku TV (including streaming players, consoles and cable and satellite set top boxes). For example, we collect TV viewing information such as the programs, commercials, and channels you view, the date, time and duration of the viewing, and how you use the on-screen TV guide. We collect TV viewing information both when you access live TV directly through your Smart TV’s interface and when you access live TV from within a Third-Party Channel. If the Smart TV experience is enabled on your Roku TV, we will use this information to personalize your TV viewing experience and ads.

Or quoting III.B:

We may disclose personal information (including Roku account registration information when you sign up with the channel or content provider, and information about your interactions with their content and the Roku Services), with partners whose services are available through the Roku Services such as providers of Third-Party Channels, Roku Direct Publisher Channels and other content providers on the Roku Services.

So much "nope" from me...

No doubt apple is better than Roku. Roku is possibly the worst when it comes to privacy. A while back Mozilla reviewed some products for privacy and even then it wasn't pretty:

> One of the researchers working on this guide said, "It had such a scary privacy policy, I didn't even connect it to my TV." Another researcher referred to Roku as a "privacy nightmare." (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/roku-st...)

I've had an LG C2 OLED for almost a month. Turned off all those settings. So far so good, but will be keeping an eye out.

Before this TV I just used a first gen 4k Apple TV, but I noticed it was a bit stuttery and didn't support as many formats so I've been using the native TV apps. Maybe I rushed too quickly on that.

LG C1 OLED here, and my setup is rather simple and has been going just fine with zero issues for over a year now (with no update requests or anything like that).

I set it up normally at first, but software updates and such were annoying. LG TV has been connected to my router using wifi, so I simply clicked the "block internet connection for this device" in my router settings, and that was the end of my issues.

As for how I deal with outdated apps and such on the smart tv, I have never used them in the first place. AppleTV has been hooked to the LG TV the entire time, and all apps are used from the AppleTV side. Haven't had a single "update your tv software" dialogue even once since then.

I personally just blocked all the lg domains in AdGuard. That way I can keep using the apps.

With full internet access the tv takes significantly longer to load and navigate.

This isn't limited to smart TVs. Every internet enabled device can do the same thing. When you allow someone other than yourself to remotely access and modify the software running on your devices they stop being "your" devices and companies will happily disregard your stated preferences and make whatever changes are beneficial for them.

The only way to have any control at all over your devices is to make sure that nobody else is able to modify them without your consent. Keeping our devices offline isn't always possible. Our computers and phones typically depend on internet access to stay useful, but you can at least make sure your TV is never connected to the internet.

It probably gets reset when it loses wall power. My TV resets some of the settings every time, I have to go back and edit it - it's very annoying. Sony Bravia.

Yeah, that'd be my guess too. Either that or an update.

Regardless it's convenient that it forgets my tracking preferences, defaults to the most permissive options possible, and doesn't forget all my other settings.

That would be very much illegal under the GDPR.

I wonder how widespread the phenomenon is. I'm based in the UK and those are my thoughts exactly.

Of only the humanity could invent something what could store the settings even in absrnse of power. Maybe it could be called like a non-volatile random acess memory, or something like that.

Why do you have it connected to the internet? Will it not work without?

Convenience.

I want to use the built in apps for Netflix, YouTube, etc.

LG gave me the option of being tracked. I declined. That’s the only thing that should matter.

I mean, using services such as those you are being tracked extensively anyways, it's pretty much unavoidable.

I just never accepted the terms on my LG and use a Roku instead, although I'm not sure it is much better. But the interface is a lot cleaner.

> I mean, using services such as those you are being tracked extensively anyways, it's pretty much unavoidable.

Consenting (possibly under duress) to one thing is not the same as consenting to all things.

You might consent to doing various intimate things with a significant other. That doesn’t make you a free for all buffet for everyone else.

NextDNS seems to do a pretty good job of blocking Roku crap as well ( I have yet to see a single ad on my Roku)

Go into your Roku privacy settings and you can disable some of their tracking.

For example, Roku sends back two screenshots per second of what you are watching.

https://advertising.roku.com/resources/blog/insights-analysi...

I used rootmy.tv, put it on a restricted VLAN, run it via squid and allow it to use my own non-tracked streaming services.

It still constantly tries to call home, but it never passed my acceptance onto LG, and with root I can do as I please.

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