3w ago

Smart TV OS owners face “constant conflict” between privacy, advertiser demands

arstechnica.com

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3w ago

Smart TV OS owners face “constant conflict” between privacy, advertiser demands

arstechnica.com /gadgets/2025/06/tv-brands-face-inherent-conflict-over-user-privacy-advertiser-data-demands/

24 comments

Says the website that has a baljillion cookies
- You can obviously block cookies locally in the browser, but what you can also do for those "consent" popups that ask you to decide which of the 1300 data brokers you want your data to be sold to is to use https://consentomatic.au.dk/ which automatically declines all of them. It works on a lot of websites, and I don't see consent popups anymore. Of course there are also adblock lists for your adblocker of choice, but they never get rid of all of it sadly. If you have an android phone then a Firefox fork with unlocked extensions will be able to install it as well (for example Fennec). Presumably also a chromium based browser with unlocked extensions, but I can't verify that. On iOS there's the Orion browser by Kagi which allows you to install extensions for both Firefox and Chrome, but again I can't speak to the actual effectiveness there.
  EDIT: forgot but obviously safari also. duh.
  
  I simply do everything in private windows and accept whatever. Then flush the cookies down the toilet 5 minutes later.
  
  I use Firefox with badger and ublock, and next dns which does a lot to make for a clean browsing experience, I didn't know about that extension. Installed. Thanks!
deleted by creator
- Yep, that was my experience try are all ‘smart’ now, and o gate it. Let’s see, I got a tcl from Costco, and it let me skip anything that needed a connection
- I'm starting down this path. My current TV is beginning to fail and I'm getting frustrated trying to decide on a new one.
  In terms of picture quality and such, I'm leaning towards an LG but their OS and such is a huge red flag.
  I've got my router set to adguard for DNS and I'm learning how to set up a pihole.
  Basically, all I really need is to be able to do is use my consoles and then SmartTube and Emby. That's it
- You can connect, set it up, patch it, and then wipe it, revoke the permissions, make it an offline device again.
  You can go back and forth. To use smart tv functions again, youd need to agree to the spy stuff again.
  (Edit: I own a Visio and a Fire TV, so that's what my response is based on.)
  
  deleted by creator
I have two smart tvs. One is my gamer monitor, it doesnt get internet, and doesnt even have the correct time. The other one pretty much only plays youtube music, it replaced my old stereo.
I don't think they are getting much info from me.
My cell, on the other hand, there's only so much of it you can disable before it becomes unusable. And you have to use it. The spyware is the platform. In both cases.
Its OK. I hope they can read it while its unplugged gathering dust. And we don't plan on getting a new one anytime soon.
is there a good open source thi9gor this?
need: YouTube with ad blocking, and stremio. that's like practically 100% of what I use
This is why the anprims don't seem stupid.
Because capitalism is even fucking dumber.
- anprims
  You made me look up Anarcho-primitivism. My world doesn't seem much wider tho. I already knew there were crazy people out there. But I do like the name "Zerzan". That's kinda cool ...
  
  It's dumb, but it's not capitalism dumb.

24 comments