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Comment by smileybarry | Hacker News Reader

That still doesn't escape ACR, AFAIK. These "smart" TVs still capture screenshots from HDMI inputs.

That's one of the reasons I only buy Sony for years now. ACR & the like are opt-out at the first terms/privacy screen, and you can even go into Android/Google TV settings and just disable the APK responsible. (Samba something-something)

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I googled how to disable ACR on my new Samsung TV. Followed the instructions only to find out that it was disabled already. That, combined with a built-in physical microphone switch (which I noticed in the quick start guide before I'd even attached the wall mount) made me quite impressed with Samsung off the bat.

It does have some weird behaviors, though, like occasionally letting me know it has some kind of AI features or something, or bringing up a pop-up on the screen letting my kid know how to use the volume control on the remote every time he uses the volume control on the remote for the first time since power-on.

Still, a pretty decent TV nonetheless.

It's better not to connect the TV to the Internet at all. This will solve most of your problems. Use a Linux HTPC to stream content (not an Apple box, they collect telemetry and profile users like others).

What's your HTPC setup? I used Kodi for a while, but gave up on it as unsuitable as a frontend for netflix et. al.

I just use a plain linux/windows PC + Pi-Hole depending on the family member using it.

KODI is terrible for streaming and operating systems built around it are far too limited. For now the best option seems to be a plain Linux desktop, upscaled, and used with an airmouse remote. Keep an eye on this however:

https://github.com/KDE/plasma-bigscreen

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