I’m mostly sailing the high seas, using the tv as a giant monitor for the always-on laptop connected to it. I’m afraid of the 1984-esque “You must connect to the internet to continue using this TV” that might come after some time.
I’m mostly sailing the high seas, using the tv as a giant monitor for the always-on laptop connected to it. I’m afraid of the 1984-esque “You must connect to the internet to continue using this TV” that might come after some time.
Why do you assume you’re being less monitored on your laptop?
I mean, don’t get me wrong, you probably should. I am logged out of all services on my TVs. If you don’t use the built-in apps then why would you be online at all.
It’s just… people that get in the (correct) mindset that smart TVs mostly run spyware can be too kind on the alternatives.
Maybe because I can run Debian, Arch, or even custom Yocto or buildroot distros on general purpose computation hardware, instead of being locked into a walled garden purposely built to increase shareholder value?
Sure, you can. But the point is it’s only more private IF you do that AND you’re not also using services on your laptop that report the same info like, say, Youtube or Netflix.
If you’re only using a laptop with Arch to play back offline videos then by all means, carry on, you’re good. But there’s a bunch of people out there worrying about Smart TV spyware and plugging in a Chromecast dongle instead or streaming from their subscription apps from a laptop, which doesn’t really achieve anything. I guess it may cut Samsung or LG out of the loop, if you have a particular grudge with them specifically, but that’s about it.
That’s what people are trying to avoid, the unnecessary data collection by the TVs themselves. I don’t think anyone is saying watching netflix on a laptop is more private than on a tv, and even then, using a browser with uBO can still block some tracking on streaming sites vs using their apps on a tv.
Maaaaaybe? Like, it probably helps mitigate some ingest of data from trackers (because on a web app running on your browser they are probably mining MORE stuff than on your TV by default, depending on your setup), but they still know everything you watched and what you did in the app plus anything adblocking isn’t successfully targeting.
I just don’t know that I have a sliding scale on this. Once your data is out there it’s out there. People will be buying and selling it. There is such a thing as partial mitigation, but ultimately I do stand by the point that a lot of people fixate on some vectors that are less subtle and still have massive holes, sometimes in setups built specifically to replace the more conspicuous snoopers.
I’m all for keeping your TV offline or logged out, but that’s in the context of either not using streaming apps or having them tightly controlled wherever else you use them. Otherwise I may prefer to have them leak my viewing habits from a TV that only ever uses streaming apps than having access to my PC where I do a bunch of other stuff and log in to a bunch of services that may be subject to tracking.
I’m not being contrarian, either. I genuinely think this is a nontrivial issue and you’d need some heavy duty monitoring to get a good sense of what is going on between different configs.
I’ll also say I’m not surprised smart TVs have an increasingly terrible reputation on this, though. Most of what my Pihole ends up blocking is smart TVs calling home. It’s kinda nuts how frequent and persistent they are about it.
And hey, tell the guys up the thread about the data collection thing, apparently some didn’t get the memo.
That’s the sliding scale you’re talking about. Threat modeling isn’t black and white, it depends on what the person’s risk profile is. Yours is not wanting to expose your laptop. Others don’t want their tv monitoring their activity, and would prefer to transfer the risk to their laptop and browser where they have more control of the medium their streaming site goes through and they can cut off the tv manufacturer.
If you didn’t have a sliding scale, you’d be a hermit with no internet access at all.
Yeah, for sure. No argument from me there. As long as you’re aware of what’s going on and your scale is set that way on purpose I have no issue with that at all.
Again, I’m making a point about ignorance. People who hear about TVs being a massive cesspool of spyware (accurate) and just move the cesspool around to other similarly compromised devices because they’re reacting to the meme and don’t understand what the risk is supposed to be.
If you know what you’re leaking I have no issue with you choosing which leaks to live with, man. I just want to clarify to people who may not know that making a plug out of the bottom of their boat is not gonna keep them from leaking.
OP’s topic isn’t about being monitored. They just don’t want an update pushed onto their tv that disables it from operating the way they want it to operate
The way they want it to operate is not monitoring them, presumably. You just added one extra step for the same thing.
I mean, if it’s not for that reason then connect it to the Internet and have fun, who cares. Just give them all your data and hope for the best.
Or pushing ads on the device idle screen, or inserted into other things you are trying to watch. (pre-rolls on HDMI sources…)
What the hell kind of TVs you have, guys? I mean, home screen ads sure. You don’t need to see them much if you’re always on the one external source, but sure.
But what kind of TVs do you have inserting pre-roll ads on external sources? The one example of that I can think of off the top of my head was this one weird concept of a TV you’d get pretty much for no money and was primarily funded by acting as an ad service in your house, which was a crappy business model and that’s probably nobody else is doing it.
Man, I wish people would get better at dealing with these types of issues well instead of making up new ones to get mad about. Getting your TV usage milked for data is a very real issue. And yeah, the enshittification of smart TV UX with targeted ads is as well. And it’s hard to sidestep because a lot of it is also baked into the media sources you’re paying for on the side, so even if you watch them elsewhere you get a lot of the same crap.
Is that genuinely not bad enough of a problem to solve to go into weird edge cases like HDMI pre-roll ads, self-destruct firmware updates or mandatory connection prompts? It is in my book.
You may think it’s crazy talk, but the concept has already been patented.
I don’t think it’s “crazy”, I just gave you an example of something similar that actually exists.
I think it’s a bad business model, which is why I only gave you an example.
As opposed to the real stuff you should care about, which not only exists, but is widespread and nearly unavoidable. You don’t need to dig through patents in ragebait articles to be concerned about this for real reasons.
Everyone else on this page is interpreting it differently than you are
OK, so… how? How is everyone else interpreting the desire of keeping your TV offline if not for privacy? What other reason could there be?
So that it won’t push updates that make the tv worse, like slower startup times for example
OK, but that’s not what the OP said. OP is concerned that keeping the TV offline may trigger a mandatory connection check down the line (not a thing that I know of, at least outside of very specific ad-based cheap models, to answer their question).
The only other thing being brought up in their post are that they play back pirated content primarily. That and the reference to 1984 make me think privacy more than “mostly made up minor technical inconvenience related to firmware updates”.
Either way, if the TV works fine and they are exclusively using an external device for playback there should be no downside to keeping the thing offline indefinitely.
OP just posted a clarification comment. You were right, i was wrong
Hey, you didn’t have to say that at all, disagreeing online is what it is, but it’s genuinely rare to see that written down. Genuine tip of the hat to you. Trivial as this conversation is, that’s huge gentlemanly energy right there.