<story><title>Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads</title><url>https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&amp;id=1583755244</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>huhtenberg</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;If I paid 1000s of dollars for an &amp;quot;idiot box&amp;quot; that&amp;#x27;s supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just don&amp;#x27;t connect it to the Internet.&lt;p&gt;The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any &amp;quot;idiot box&amp;quot; models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren&amp;#x27;t seeing the Internet. &lt;i&gt;Then&lt;/i&gt; we&amp;#x27;ll be truly fucked.</text></item><item><author>neya</author><text>Fuck the guy who wanted to suck up to the management in some stupid meeting projecting estimated revenue out of this to ask for a raise later because he &amp;quot;contributed to a revenue increase&amp;quot; to the company.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s absolutely no after thought to this decision - If I paid 1000s of dollars for an &amp;quot;idiot box&amp;quot; that&amp;#x27;s supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it, showing ads is unacceptable, no matter what the context or reasoning is.&lt;p&gt;This is one of the reasons I paid the premium and went for a Sony instead. They haven&amp;#x27;t done anything stupid like this yet, and I don&amp;#x27;t use smart features on the TV anyway, so I don&amp;#x27;t plan on updating the software either. Hopefully they face backlash over this stupidity and this doesn&amp;#x27;t go on to become a norm.&lt;p&gt;That would be really, really terrible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cced</author><text>This is not the solution. Adding a PiHole to your network is not the solution. Disabling features in other places of your network is not the solution.&lt;p&gt;What if Samsung decides that it will try to connect to open networks for updates or what not? What then? Ask your neighbour to install PiHole on his network? No. This is an example of a game of cat and mouse that shouldn&amp;#x27;t exist - you pay money for a TV and that&amp;#x27;s not enough? You giving them your money is not enough and so they decide to shove ads down your throat because profits.&lt;p&gt;Simple solution would be just not to buy Samsung.</text></comment>
<story><title>Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads</title><url>https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&amp;id=1583755244</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>huhtenberg</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;If I paid 1000s of dollars for an &amp;quot;idiot box&amp;quot; that&amp;#x27;s supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just don&amp;#x27;t connect it to the Internet.&lt;p&gt;The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any &amp;quot;idiot box&amp;quot; models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren&amp;#x27;t seeing the Internet. &lt;i&gt;Then&lt;/i&gt; we&amp;#x27;ll be truly fucked.</text></item><item><author>neya</author><text>Fuck the guy who wanted to suck up to the management in some stupid meeting projecting estimated revenue out of this to ask for a raise later because he &amp;quot;contributed to a revenue increase&amp;quot; to the company.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s absolutely no after thought to this decision - If I paid 1000s of dollars for an &amp;quot;idiot box&amp;quot; that&amp;#x27;s supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it, showing ads is unacceptable, no matter what the context or reasoning is.&lt;p&gt;This is one of the reasons I paid the premium and went for a Sony instead. They haven&amp;#x27;t done anything stupid like this yet, and I don&amp;#x27;t use smart features on the TV anyway, so I don&amp;#x27;t plan on updating the software either. Hopefully they face backlash over this stupidity and this doesn&amp;#x27;t go on to become a norm.&lt;p&gt;That would be really, really terrible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dessant</author><text>The NVIDIA Shield TV, which runs Android TV, can no longer be initialized without signing in with a Google account, the setup screen will refuse to get past that step, even if you don&amp;#x27;t have an internet connection.&lt;p&gt;The forced login is likely illegal, because there is no mention of a requirement for a Google account in their marketing materials or on their sales pages.&lt;p&gt;The device stays perfectly functional if the the network connection is cut off within seconds after signing in, and the account can be removed after the setup is complete. The only drawback is that you can&amp;#x27;t update apps from Google Play, unless you add a Google account again.</text></comment>