Smart TVs are honestly one of the dumbest inventions.
All they did was take power away from people so corporations could sell it back to them.
this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
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Streaming boxes and dongles are no better either. These days I use a laptop hooked up to the tv so I can block ads and limit tracking.
Same 👊
I bought a cheap TCL TV last year. If you can, turn off the wifi (I literally just wanted the TV, not the "smart" part). I play everything either through a hard drive, laptop or my PS and that works for me. You can also change the settings to open up to the last channel instead of the landing page. I can still connect my TV to Bluetooth. When I turn it on, I see the TCL logo, but after that, nothing.
Does anyone know if there's something similar to universal android debloater for android tvs?
TCL - That Cheap Life
Can I just get a goddamned monitor? Like, please can my TV just be a damn 70" monitor with hookups for whatever actual tech I want to use to watch stuff?
Is that too much to ask? My TV has to have its own shitty, unintuitive, slow, buggy OS stuffed with ungodly amounts of bloatware and bullshit?
For some eyebleach:
A film written by AI, 11 years ago (it was Cleverbot).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkNA7sy5M5s
I wish i could wipe the OS on my TCL tv
I have a tcl tv but it uses a roku os. Not sure how this will play into that
OTOH people who aren't in the entertainment industry will use generative AI to make original films they otherwise never would have been able to. It seems like a great tool for individual creators who aren't able to produce images by themselves. Yes, they won't hire artists to do this, but they wouldn't have anyway, and we'll get to enjoy their work, which wouldn't have existed otherwise. I don't think we should demonize a very promising technology because we don't like how some people are using it.
I don't think their films will be able to reflect their personal creativity other than the story
I would be a fool to debate your psychic powers.
For those (like me) who bought a TCL tv at a stupidly cheap price on Black Friday, you have options.
- buy an AppleTV (even second hand) and don’t connect the tv to the internet. You won’t see any adverts on your Home Screen and be done with all this bullshit. What’s that? What’s the point in buying a £200 TV if you need to buy a £150 accessory? I hear you, read on…
- if you’re broke like me, you can disable the stock launcher with adb and install projectivy launcher. I needed to use some software called launcher manager from xdaforums to replace the stock launcher. I also used adb to uninstall the pre-installed apps I had no intention of using.
Hopefully there are enough key words in there for you to google / research what you need to get going. Good luck!
Gentle reminder Apple does actually take steps to protect you from tracking, the premium you pay comes with some protection from their need to sell you out.
It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the alternates by far.
1/1 mobile / OS security experts agree
I recommend to replace the default launcher on every Android TV, replaced the default Google Launcher on my Sony TV and it feels faster and has no ads
I remember when the Google launcher just worked fine. Suddenly, one update later, there's now ads for shows on services I don't even use taking up the entire top 2/3rds of the home screen. WTF google.
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Note about the second bullet: Not all TCL TVs are Google TV, which can be switched to Protectivity - Roku TVs at this point, as far as I know, cannot disable ads if connected to the Internet.
I’m struggling heavily to find that OS to learn more about it (literally just got a google tcl tv delivered today, as my old one died last week), can you provide a link of some variety?
I was very heartened to find out that it’s just big android, so there’s likely a lot that can be done with it (but I got it to be dumb).
Sorry, do you mean a link to a Roku TV? Assuming you mean a link to Projectivity, here's a link:
https://xdaforums.com/t/app-android-tv-projectivy-launcher.4436549/
You can scroll to the bottom - basically you should just be able to enable installation from third party sources in your Google TV android options, and install the APK. I don't have Google TV, but worked fine on Android TV. I forget if you have to fiddle with any other settings to get it to boot into Projectivity, or if you just change the launcher app in settings.
Nope, this is the info I was looking for, thanks :)
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This is really the of stuff dystopian scifi.
A somewhat cliched saying comes to my mind when reading this article.
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” [1]
Hopefully, there will eventually be pushback against this techno-feudalism and oligarchy. For what it's worth this seems to always happen in history. Ruling elites (in our case oligarchs and their promoters; the media, economists, politicians) consolidate their power and start to become disconnected from reality.
As a side note, it's funny that AI-generated videos have themes of dystopia and rebellion against the system.
Just when we think it can’t get worse, some rich asshole has to laugh and say “Hold my beer and watch me enshittify even harder.”
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I will not use TCL then.
Yep. This is the new answer. Either buy a model assured to have jailbreak and replace the stock privacy nightmare; or spend more $$$ on a dumb tv.
God this shit is sad, I can't believe anyone involved (besides the few making all the money) are remotely proud to have worked on this. I get that its a trope to not accept new technology/trends but ai always makes me put on a face of disgust without trying.
are remotely proud to have worked on this.
Usually the people working on this are too afraid of their financial standing to care about what they're actually working on.
I don't want to say they "need" the money, because odds are they can do with less. They are likely on the consumer bandwagon without even realizing it and want to make as much money as possible so they can spend as much money as possible.
The means are irrelevant.
I have a TCL running Google TV that I use Flauncher on - a nice little FOSS lightweight launcher that I like a lot. However, I am only able to switch inputs (for gaming etc.) when using the default launcher. Anyone found a way around this? Pretty sure its a Google/TCL hardware thing and not due to any alt launcher just not wanting to include that
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