Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
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.
Is American football not merely a vehicle through which advertising can be pumped? You’d think the entire sport had been designed from the ground up for such a purpose.
Four seconds of action, six minutes of commercials….3.6 seconds of action, 47 replays, five minutes of commercials.
P.S. Smart TVs can eat shit and die.
I went to a game for the first time a few years ago. I recall the moment where everyone was sitting around and not doing anything because they were waiting for the commercials to finish. It felt like watching actors drop their characters the moment they step out of the spotlight.
A cheap computer/laptop. HDMI cable. Ublock origin (sprinkle some sponserblock and privacy badger in there). A TV that is never connected to the internet. Voila. No ads. None. Zilch. Zero. Ad free.
Streaming platforms that have gone to ad supported formats make me laugh because it's just a 3-5 second black screen, not the ad, and it's back to the content. Been doing it for decades. Don't sit there and get reamed by their bullshit.
AFAIK this will only get you 720p to 1080p depending on the streaming service. No 4K, no HDR.
Plenty of 4k with HDR on Real Debrid. Or even better quality and bitrate ripped from BRs, in the open waters.
HDMI 2.1 can support 4k. Find a ship that doesn't sink. Voila. No ads. Zilch. Zero. Nada. No HDR? Better than a single second of an ad.
What do we do when they come with 5G modems built in?
Don't buy a TV anymore. Seriously though with the direction things have been going in the "tech world" for the last couple years (maybe even decade) it is probably better to start adjusting to some level of digital minimalism. For some of us it will become a necessity for financial reasons anyway...
Razor blade to specific pcb traces?
Detailed instructions for things like this will need to documented. It starts with ads… does it evolve into 1984? Who knows, but it seems more likely in light of recent events.
Return it. If you hold on to it (even if you block the ads and all) it will signal the manufacturer, that this practice is fine.
It will be a dark day indeed when I allow my TV to connect to the internet. These things are glorified monitors.
You're right, we should start putting ads on all monitors
Somewhere, an ad exec just stiff.
Why the fuck does your television have a home page?
Never give the TV the wifi password.
It's come full circle.
Back in the early 00s, I invited my buddy over to watch the super bowl commercials. Neither one of us gave a damn whatsoever about football, put the commercials were always lit.
Tangentally related, FUTO put a bad taste in my mouth when they were harassing the graphene os team https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113443396794247106
I bought a new TV last year after my Hisense kicked the bucket and had a similar experience.
Not sure if it applies to your situation, but I just factory reset my TV, never enabled wifi, and hooked up a smart device I had lying around (Nvidia Shield). Now it all works great and if the smart functions upset me I can throw just the smart TV part in the trash and go back to my VCR.
You have to reject smart TVs at the time of purchase, or manufacturers think this shit is okay and will keep escalating until even an Nvidia Shield won't save you.
Unfortunately options are becoming increasingly limited. My guess is that they're making more money cramming in ads for people that tolerate it than they are losing money from people who refuse it.
Where can I pirate the ads instead of paying for your TV service?
cant one simple adb debloat any droid device? i mean adb list those packages, maybe even backup some and then remove the obvious ones?!
Not if they're baked into the system. Although that may get into GPL violations, I forget. God knows a device can come with locked firmware though.
I have a Philips GoogleTV. I installed a different app launcher on it, now I don't get any ads anywhere anymore.
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.