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Comment by hadlock | Hacker News Reader

I deeply regret buying my LG. Originally the plan was to never connect it to wifi, and use an external device (chromecast, apple tv, or whatever) but my wife was too excited to try out whatever features. Unfortunately we can't sell the TV for anywhere what we paid for it new (to replace it with a different brand) so we're stuck with it for another ~7-10 years, or whatever the standard TV replacement interval is these days. New "apps" keep showing up on the main screen, which I have to "delete" from the main screen once a month or so (they're not deleted, they're just undeletable apps in some massive library of preinstalled spyware we can fortunately mostly hide). Apparently Sony OLED screens are LG "glass" but without the spyware.

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>Apparently Sony OLED screens are LG "glass" but without the spyware.

Without independent verification from someone like GN, I wouldn't trust "we installed rootkits" Sony not to be spying too.

Since Sony TVs run Android at least you can probably use ADB to remove a lot of junk.

... if they're rootable ...

You can actually do a lot without root sometimes. You can revoke permissions and disable apps.

Not if they are system apps installed by the OEM

You can disable system apps as long as they are not marked as critical or persistent apps that must be enabled for the system to work. adb pm disable --user 0 <whatever> is stronger the ui app info disable button.

Yeah but as you said if they are marked as persistent (which for oem spyware would make sense) you cant.

Not all OEM apps are marked persistent. Especially on non-pixel devices, you can disable a lot of apps.

... if they're rootable without the ability for Sony to revoke that rootability ...

Sony TVs are handled by TCL now, so time will tell how Sony-branded models act (up) in the future.

https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/sony-just-handed-its-tv-busine...

It feels like there must be multiple completely different implementations of LG OLED TVs. I would not say that my LG has a "main screen" of any kind. When I turn mine on it shows the last input that had been used or, if that thing is off, it shows the bouncy egg and "No Signal". If I press the button on the remote that says RECENTS and has a picture of a house on it, which I guess is the "main screen", it maintains the bouncy egg but shows a ribbon of apps on the bottom. Those are my installed apps: Hulu, Prime, Peacock, YouTube, Netflix, Apple TV, and Disney+ happen to be today's recents. Where is this "main screen" where unbidden appvertisements arise?

That ribbon got slammed full of advertisements at some point, last I knew.

Mine has been strictly MRU forever. When I look at this video, it does not resemble the software on my LG OLED TV at all. There must be several platforms or generations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8atmvE0ArA

But how do you know which LG model does what?

I don't. That's the point of my thread. But it's clear to me that not every LG owner is seeing the same things.

That is WebOS 6.0 or older. Mine is the same. At some point they stopped updating older models. I think all those released before 2021 or so.

Hulu, Prime, Peacock, YouTube, Netflix, Apple TV, and Disney+ happen to be today's recents.

Where do you find the time to post on HN?

Those are just all of the apps I used in 9 years in the order that I last opened them.

Recents as of today

As others have said, cut off access and/or factory reset it. My LG has never been granted net access, firmware upgrades through USB drives, and streaming through Onn 4K box(w/ a 3rd party launcher) and Apple TV. No surprise ads, apps, or anything.

What do you get from upgrading the firmware? I have a 10 yo smart tv that I simply treated as a dumb tv. Works fine.

Mostly bug fixes relevant to higher end home theatre setups. Typically bleeding edge stuff where a TV is released before a new HDMI spec is fully baked or whatnot. One of my older OLED panels needed a number of updates to get proper Dolby Vision profile support a few years back.

Typically not all that relevant most of the time to the average consumer, but if you’re having a persistent annoyance it’s worth looking through release notes from time to time.

This ignores that the vast majority of consumers actually use the smart tv features like the Netflix app. Then updates start to become far more relevant and eventually mandatory.

I updated my LG C5 firmware via USB and my Nintendo Switch 2 now says “Switch 2” on the home page instead of “Unknown Device”. So that’s nice I guess. Also it seemed to fix something with the 120hz HDR 10:10:10 signal when connected to my PC if I recall correctly that before resulted in poor image quality.

I have a TCL TV where a recent firmware update actually fixed up some Arc power settings and a few other things. I only connect the TV to update it once every 6 months, and as soon as the update is done, it gets unplugged from the network again.

What’s stopping you from disconnecting it from wifi mow?

This is also my question, but I suppose the answer could be that we don't trust LG to actually forget the wifi password (and not use it surreptitiously later). You could also change the wifi info, but that might mean changing a whole lot of devices (including wife's and kids).

If someone is supposedly concerned about being recorded, having their privacy invaded etc. but they're too lazy to change the wifi password and deal with the trivial inconvenience of changing it on other household devices then in this case the revealed preference really is that they don't really care.

The gamers nexus thing touched on this.. Apparently some ignore that choice and connect to open wifi or something like Comcasts modem hijacking wifi.

they stated it technical could. not that they have evidence of that happening.

Technically, they could do a whole bunch of things, including doing multihop routing via other connected televisions or insecure WiFi networks. There's no evidence that they do this, as far as I know, but also no reason why they couldn't do this in the future if they wanted to.

You're right. I think I conflated allegations in the comments with the actual claims made in the Youtube video.

GM did show that the devices scan for open wifi networks, and users in the comments have claimed that it connects without their permission.

Gamers nexus did not make that claim about them actually connecting though.

What about letting it connect to your Wi-Fi and blocking it via firewall? Does it try to find another network?

Would be easy to capture wifi traffic if it did though.

Sorry but I don't understand this line of reasoning. You worry about a smart TV going online without your permission and yet you trust it enough to keep it around your home and keep it online???

I don't mean to be rude but it sounds like you just don't want to confront the rest of your household about taking the TV offline and are coming up with excuses to tell yourself this is actually fine.

So change the wifi password.

I did bring that up in the second sentence of my two-sentence comment.

The fact you don't do it means you actually don't care at all about your privacy. It takes 5 minutes to bring every member in an household in the living room or kitchen and assist them to change the wifi password on their device.

You can even prepare for it by printing the details + qrcode beforehand.

Connecting to a wifi network is one of those things every terminally connected non tech savy people are able to do these days.

I think the GP more meant the practice that some ISPs have of shipping default routers that may or may not be able to be replaced with a separate SSID that is publicly available for use by other customers of that ISP.

Not "my network has a default or empty password, I can't make people sign in again."

Is that really a thing? My ISP gives me a router that takes an SSID/password by default (that it gets back to if I reset to defaults) but I can change it any time as well as other parameters (like channels, wether WPS is activated, etc).

Buy a crap router (or find one in the trash), dont connect it to anything, set open wifi, tv connects to the black hole, sorta poor mans pi-hole

Would it detect the lack of Internet and try another one?

Okay, you may want to reread the thread, I'm not OP. I'm not the "you" you think I am.

Also, some people have a lot of wifi connected devices, including stuff like light bulbs. (Again, not me.)

You're making a huge assumption that it does not remember wifi passwords and that it would actually honor your request. You're assuming it does not communicate with/via other LG devices owned by neighbors. You're assuming it does not communicate via partner apps on mobile and other partner devices over other protocols. You're assuming they won't eventually simply add cellular modems to circumvent all of this.

You're making a lot of assumptions that would be easy to find out if true.

Block the TV via its MAC address then?

If it does MAC spoofing, then just take it out back and shoot it. That's properly malicious.

> You're making a huge assumption that it does not remember wifi passwords and that it would actually honor your request.

I would expect an hn member to be able to change their own wifi password and assist members of their household in changing it on their device.

> You're making a huge assumption that it does not remember wifi passwords and that it would actually honor your request.

Has it been observed?

> You're making a huge assumption that it does not remember wifi passwords and that it would actually honor your request.

Like what? I don't think mobile apps can roll and implement their own protocol on an android or apple phone without specific authorization.

> You're making a huge assumption that it does not remember wifi passwords and that it would actually honor your request.

We are talking here about a specific, already owned device.

I have a Sony A95K and have kept it in basic mode because I have a shield I like to game and stream from. The sony is very minimal and out the way, and after many software updates hasn't offered me any ads, or programs to run even while connected to WiFi.

However if you run Android, you have to accept some level of snooping.

It's worse than that. I have an LG TV which I never connected to Wifi at all. Instead we use the Amazon FireStick which just contains all the same spyware that the LG TV would've had but sends it to Amazon instead.

In fact, due to DRM licensing, it's not possible to have a legit TV streaming device that isn't full of spyware and still allows you to watch streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ etc in full resolution.

I haven't had any issues with my Apple TV?

Disconnect it from the internet, buy a streaming device, and use the streaming device. It’s really not that complicated.

If you want a bit complicated, you can probably unscrew the back panel and remove the wifi card.

> It’s really not that complicated.

You can do that no the average joe.

The "average joe" can absolutely do that...

It's as simple as buying a TV, never hooking it up, and then buying something like an Apple TV that you do hook up to the internet.

Can we really trust it to honor your request to stop using the internet? After hearing them speak on this subject, I have my doubts it will honor your request so quickly and easily.

You can't change the laws of physics.

If it isn't connected to the network, it can't communicate.

What do you mean "the network"? Do you mean the wi-fi you told it to not connect to or something else? Because something else sounds like a secondary path. It's enumerating devices for a reason. How many of those devices are LG or an LG partner?

Wifi exists now lol, and if there are open wifi networks in the vicinity, it can use it.

Unless it is factory reset (and even then?) it presumably still has saved wifi credentials?

>but my wife was too excited to try out whatever features.

God knows how many millions of people could drive a car from 2004 forever, use small dumb screens and other appliances, etc, etc, if not for other members of their household.

I won't say I like modern vehicles, but I like side impact airbags.

Sony uses Google TV. Doesn't inspire trust as far as spying and data collection goes.

My Sony with Google TV is pretty good in "Basic Mode" without an internet connection though.

Google TV Basic Mode is the easiest way to get a "dumb" TV, it's the first thing you're asked when you setup for the first time and works like you'd expect.

Same. I absolutely love my WOLED panel, but the software has gotten a lot worse then when I first bought it in 2022. Back then I could easily install third party apps (like youtube sponsorblock) or do custom scripts like "send mqtt topic when media playback is started/stopped", but they removed those possibilities via updates...

Would love to use a free software alternative.

Excuse me, YOUR LG?

You can root it and put it behind a PiHole or the like, that should allow you to get rid of the worst offenders. https://www.webosbrew.org/rooting/

Buy a cast/apple tv anyway and then reset the LG screen to factory. Is that an option?

I just set up a second network that can't reach the internet and connect the TVs to that

Jailbreak it and neuter its network stack

Why not reset it

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