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The home page of my $1700 smart TV has a full page ad about watching ads (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) by GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I just finished setting up a custom router with dns ad blocking. Next comes a media player so I can purge this smart TV filth from my household.

Huge shout out to Louis Rossmann and the FUTO communuty contributors, check out the wiki on self-hosted software if you haven't already.

Wiki link

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[-] tyler@programming.dev 28 points 1 day ago

Apple TV was the best media thing I’ve bought in over a decade. No ads ever, incredibly responsive (league of its own compared to stuff like Roku), and is able to stream from my Jellyfin server. Beautiful interface, fast, clean, simple controller with a battery life that is easily over a year. Just a really good product. Roku can suck by nuts. Literal full page ads in a product that advertises that it has zero of them. Even the most expensive version. Fuck Roku.

[-] AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago

I agree. I switched from Roku to apple tv recently (and I don't really have apple devices), and it was worth it.

[-] otacon239@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Same here. One is the best made TV boxes period.

[-] Alk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago

I've found the shield pro is better, especially for customizability.

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[-] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago

how does it go for codec support out of Jellyfin? I'm starting to collect and also rip AV1 content, which is fine for computers and phones (and my newer TV does it natively), but trying to find a streambox that wouldn't need to transcode it is proving harder than expected

[-] TroublesomeTalker@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

Have a previous gen 4K, and have not encountered any issues with Jellyfin on streaming. There's a spectacularly annoying bug that you lose your config if the atv is full to capacity - and with kids in the house it means frequent logins are required. The iOS client also seems to lag on features and updates compared to the other clients, but other than that niggle it's been great.

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[-] Alk@sh.itjust.works 0 points 21 hours ago

Shield pro is the best, end of story

[-] maccentric@sh.itjust.works 3 points 21 hours ago

Are they still making those or are they all 5+ years old (2019 was latest I could find on eBay)?

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[-] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 5 points 21 hours ago

I have a Philips GoogleTV. I installed a different app launcher on it, now I don't get any ads anywhere anymore.

[-] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 4 points 20 hours ago

Which one?

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[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 19 points 1 day ago

I'd honestly return it as faulty. Preloaded adware shouldn't be acceptable.

[-] mat@jlai.lu 3 points 19 hours ago

For now I have an androidTV but I guess that whent I have time, it will be HDMI only (androidTV is quite buggy on it) and after that, I will look for a dumbTV

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

People who don't have the tech chops for self-hosting can also check the market for shop displays (like you'd see above the counter in a fast food joint). Those are "dumb" displays, no ads bs built-in because they aren't expected to be used outside of a commercial environment.

They cost more than smart tvs because the ads subsidize consumer models. Rather, they cost as much as tvs this size really cost (after markup). $1700 is not realistic for a huge screen if it didn't have ads. Also, fuck ads.

[-] SlapnutsGT@lemmy.world 6 points 23 hours ago

I recently took my brand new stupid fucking tv off the grid. I use Apple TV so not a big deal with the ads and shit but the damn thing forced an update mid movie, reset, and black screened. Couldn’t get it back on and went to bed, figured I’d deal with it in the morning. Luckily it worked the next day after that no more internet for you.

[-] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 4 points 23 hours ago

If you think that's bad, my Denon receiver had to update itself which for some reason fails 100% of the time when using wifi so I had to find the longest ethernet cable I have to connect into the back (or disconnect 20+ wires from the back to move it closer to the network switch) so that it could finish downloading the firmware and complete the update before it would start working again.

[-] helios@social.ggbox.fr 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That is absolute cancer.

[-] Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

Yo dawg! I heard you like ads. So we put ads in your ads

[-] richardisaguy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Get a cheap computer and connect the tv to it; get a mouse and bluetooth keyboard or an air mouse if your want to; install kodi perhaps, or just have your bare desktop. Problem solved

Disconnect the tv to wifi too.

[-] TheOSINTguy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

There are some cheap Bluetooth TV remotes so if you want to take some time out of your day, there's a few Linux distros that ship with similar GUI to some TV's.

[-] BroBot9000@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

Don’t ever connect a “smart” tv to the internet. Period.

[-] GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works 3 points 22 hours ago

Oh, and if anyone knows why pfBlockerNG might fail to update some DNSBL AND IPv4 feeds during cron events, I'd be forever grateful. I'm getting tired of my router crashing every hour.

[-] datendefekt@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago

Congratulations! So, how does the TV work with the adblocker set up?

[-] GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago

It's absolutely no different! The TV is doing something weird to get around it, or these ads are just cached from earlier. I'm not sure yet. Good news is that the ad blockers definitely works, we're getting 96/100 on https://adblock-tester.com/

[-] kusivittula@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 day ago

what brand is it? just to know what to avoid

[-] GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Hisense. Name and shame baby

*with Google's TV OS

[-] hobovision@lemm.ee 2 points 19 hours ago

Google TV is the easiest to get rid of ads on. I have a Sony and a Hisense both no ads.

Look up and use the Projectivy Launcher.

You'll also want to sideload an app that forces the default launcher to Projectivy (can't recall the name) because they don't allow changing it through the stock OS. Projectivy tries to use accessibility settings to take over on its own, but it breaks some other features so I don't use them.

[-] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 day ago

Check for HTTPS traffic as well as the regular let 53. They could be doing DNS over HTTPS to get around the block, or a static IP for a nameserver.

[-] datendefekt@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

DNS calls are definitely cached. You'll have to wait a few days until your TV refreshes DNS entries.

[-] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

meta-ad-ception

Ads within an ad, about about ads.

[-] zeppo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

is this about the stupid football thing?

[-] GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

Yeah I guess the superbowl is soon, there's another row of football ads one or two rows up. I'll remind myself that I paid for the TV, the electricity to run it, and the bandwidth to connect it, yet I'm still shown full screen ads first thing when I turn my TV on. And I don't even watch football. And I can't disable it.

Corporate America and gargle my balls

[-] ramenshaman@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I mean... Historically I find the superbowl ads (and the halftime show) more entertaining than the actual game, but damn that is shitty.

[-] wazoobi@lemm.ee 1 points 20 hours ago

I'm trying to understand why this is marked as NSFW... I must be missing something?

The intrusion of ads is annoying AF, I agree. I'll have to look into that link for DNS ad-blocking, thanks!

[-] Libb@jlai.lu 1 points 1 day ago

We have not owned a TV since the 00s and have no intention of buying one any time soon, but I had a look at the FUTO website you linked and it's interesting read (even for the non-expert I'm).

Thx for sharing :)

[-] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sorry, I'm confused. You should easily be able to block these home screen ads ads with pihole or router dns blocking. I know because I do it with my smart tvs. Are you saying that that isn't working?

[-] GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works 2 points 22 hours ago

I figure the ads are just cached from earlier. I took this picture a few hours after I finished setting up my pfBlockerNG feeds and changing my DNS to AdGuard's public one.

If nothing else, this ad certainly reaffirmed my decision to update our network.

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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025

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