Many smart TVs allow you to disagree to the privacy policy during setup, which allows you to use it as a “dumb TV” which doesn’t connect to WiFi or have other apps installed. I know Sony TVs do this and I’ve heard others do the same.
A simple first step to helping oneself learn better ways to deal with this problem is to setup NextDNS on your router and use their Roku or similar content filters.
Opnsense, pfsense, adguard home, pi-hole. Look into them, start caring about your privacy. Not because you have nothing to hide, but because one day your data might be used against you.
My (very basic) understanding of a pihole is that it calls out to an upstream DNS provider (such as the one you’d be using without a pihole) and caches everything it gets back, meaning that it’s only making new requests when you’re querying a domain it hasn’t queried before. I can’t think of any reason a game would need to constantly be accessing different domains (except maybe for some kind of server browser?)
Most TVs on the market today come with a technology called automatic content recognition (ACR) built in. This is basically Shazam for TV — Shazam itself helped popularize the tech — and gives smart TV platforms the ability to monitor what you’re watching by either taking screenshots or capturing audio snippets while you’re watching.
The author then just gives up and says “maybe targeted adverts aren’t so bad”, concluding that the only way to avoid them is to buy an older TV. Fuck that! Either never connect it to the internet and plug in a more trusted devices, or go for a deep dive down the pihole.
Honest question how do we stream from Netflix, HBO Max, Apple TV, etc without connecting to the internet? Also, most of those stream require a recognized device to stream over 1080p. So basically, if you get a new TV wouldn’t you be operating it as a old TV on those terms? The alternative that I see is keeping all that you want to watch at 4k in Jellyfin or Emby (don’t use Plex it is just pushing ads) but you will need to maintain a library.
That’s what I meant by “never connect it to the internet and plug in a more trusted device”, whether that’s a Chromecast or your PC you can always plug in something else you trust more than the TV. Obviously finding something you can trust that does everything you want is another story.
Yeah, I get it. Disconnecting the TV is a must, and luckily I never even connected mine for many years. The thing is that I’m not sure that we can trust in the licensed devices either. Chromecast, Fire TV, Nvidia, etc… All of them have trackers as well. A PC or a Pi would have the limitation of streaming at maximum 1080p resolution for some streamers providers such as Netflix. It is quite a challenge!
Lol. Well, that’s most people’s take on privacy. OMG they are taking our data and showing us ads that we hate. But I guess we can’t do anything about it. Oh well.
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I run a pi hole and use my laptop (Linux) connected to a projector. No hassle.
Terry warned us
Many smart TVs allow you to disagree to the privacy policy during setup, which allows you to use it as a “dumb TV” which doesn’t connect to WiFi or have other apps installed. I know Sony TVs do this and I’ve heard others do the same.
A simple first step to helping oneself learn better ways to deal with this problem is to setup NextDNS on your router and use their Roku or similar content filters.
I just use my appleTV 4K with my samsung tv disconnected from the internet
So, how’s that in the privacy aspect?
Better than most alternatives I guess, or even stock tv
Opnsense, pfsense, adguard home, pi-hole. Look into them, start caring about your privacy. Not because you have nothing to hide, but because one day your data might be used against you.
Does pi hole slow down games?
No, unless the game you’re playing is trying to download ads then you might have some minor issues but it shouldn’t effect online multiplayer.
What games are you playing that regularly send out lots of DNS requests to different domains?
I mainly play Final Fantasy XIV. I assume they don’t hit up DNS, but they’re not open source, so we can only hope they don’t.
My (very basic) understanding of a pihole is that it calls out to an upstream DNS provider (such as the one you’d be using without a pihole) and caches everything it gets back, meaning that it’s only making new requests when you’re querying a domain it hasn’t queried before. I can’t think of any reason a game would need to constantly be accessing different domains (except maybe for some kind of server browser?)
Used one for about a year. No. I play stuff online alot, so its important to me. No slowdowns. It has nothing to do with your ping.
In fact, a good pihole will speed things up.
We need to have a community wiki with TVs where the WiFi chip can be reliably desoldered
The worrying part:
The author then just gives up and says “maybe targeted adverts aren’t so bad”, concluding that the only way to avoid them is to buy an older TV. Fuck that! Either never connect it to the internet and plug in a more trusted devices, or go for a deep dive down the pihole.
Honest question how do we stream from Netflix, HBO Max, Apple TV, etc without connecting to the internet? Also, most of those stream require a recognized device to stream over 1080p. So basically, if you get a new TV wouldn’t you be operating it as a old TV on those terms? The alternative that I see is keeping all that you want to watch at 4k in Jellyfin or Emby (don’t use Plex it is just pushing ads) but you will need to maintain a library.
That’s what I meant by “never connect it to the internet and plug in a more trusted device”, whether that’s a Chromecast or your PC you can always plug in something else you trust more than the TV. Obviously finding something you can trust that does everything you want is another story.
Yeah, I get it. Disconnecting the TV is a must, and luckily I never even connected mine for many years. The thing is that I’m not sure that we can trust in the licensed devices either. Chromecast, Fire TV, Nvidia, etc… All of them have trackers as well. A PC or a Pi would have the limitation of streaming at maximum 1080p resolution for some streamers providers such as Netflix. It is quite a challenge!
Lol. Well, that’s most people’s take on privacy. OMG they are taking our data and showing us ads that we hate. But I guess we can’t do anything about it. Oh well.
I’m tryna change this and raise awareness about the importance of privacy through this open source project called idcaboutprivacy.