[ksajadi]

My Samsung TV keeps blocking around 20% of the display at random times to tell me their terms and conditions have changed. Of course I have the option of checking it by reading the whole thing on my TV and then running a diff to see what’s changed but I don’t have an option to opt out of the terms.

It’s way too frequent and runs at random times in the middle of a movie so I always choose Accept.

Give me a dumb TV any time of the day now

[NoiseBert69]

I'd never give a Samsung device unfiltered internet access.

[rjzzleep]

Samsung is truly the worst of all big tech companies. All their first party apps contain ads. They kill hard fuses if you want to change things, and meanwhile bundle the devices of a large segment of the costumer base with first party Israeli spyware with full system and background install access.

I bought a Samsung watch once, had to reverse it to enable functionality that was advertised a year before but never delivered. It died because the watch decided to suck in water during a reboot while swimming, they quoted me almost the full price to repair it, even though it was clearly a software bug that caused another advertised feature (namely it's ipx rating) to fail.

And while I also wouldn't give Xiaomi iot devices on the network full internet access, at least I can use those things normally.

[jbreckmckye]

At the risk of a smart-ass reply, I think you could say the same for almost any consumer electronics

Even if you don't suspect malfeasance / advertising / surveillance, a lot of these devices and their software are sloppily developed and highly insecure

[qwertox]

"unfiltered internet access"? How would you even know what to filter?

Block it entirely, and hope it that doesn't connect to your Samsung phone via Bluetooth or WiFi and use it as a proxy.

[prmoustache]

How long until they ship with embedded 5G modem? Would you wrap your Samsung devices with alu foil?

[OhMeadhbh]

A couple years ago I thought my fridge was appropriately blocked from the intarwebs. But a router update flipped the bit on activating the default guest network (which I normally keep turned off.) So for about 6 months my fridge was getting out to the net via the guest network. I found out about it when I got a call from my ISP asking what the heck was going on. Apparently a bot net had found my fridge and was doing all manner of bad things.

Moral of the story is... always double check your router settings to make sure enshittified iot devices aren't making you look like a newb.

[edoceo]

I just avoid all Samsung CE.

[ainiriand]

Muy samsung odyssey g9 monitor connected for the first time through my phone, also Samsung.

[procaryote]

I'd never buy another samsung device

[beAbU]

I'd never give a Samsung device ~~unfiltered~~ internet access.

FTFY

[reeredfdfdf]

I'm still using my Samsung dumb TV from circa 2008. paired with ancient Chromecast. No way I'm going to buy a smart TV as long as this combination keeps working. No ads, and things mostly just work, and it cost me next to nothing.

[randallsquared]

Even a smart TV is dumb enough if you use it as HDMI out for your actual streaming device (Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, whatever) and never connect it to the internet. There were rumors about smart TVs connecting to unsecured wifi networks a few years ago, but I don't remember any verified cases or TVs.

[nerdponx]

> It’s way too frequent and runs at random times in the middle of a movie so I always choose Accept.

This is deliberate

[rubyfan]

I never agreed to the original terms and won’t let my Samsung TV on wifi for this reason.

[scosman]

I let my TV on wifi, but block internet access at the router. Things like Airplay and Chromecast still work great, but no ads/tracking/etc.

[buildbot]

Same!!! I do every so often connect it to update it if a newer firmware is actually worth it… The extra upside to not accepting the terms is that none of the samsung bloatware apps even start - the TV runs much faster than just with the wifi disconnected.

[everyone]

It doesnt matter if you do or dont, those things are worthless in court in any reasonable country. They frequently want their users to agree to illegal things.

[barrotes]

The best Smart TV is the one that is just 24/24 HDMI connected to your old Linux laptop with a GUI tweaked to act as a Smart TV with an air mouse as remote.

[CivBase]

When I upgraded my desktop, I only needed to pickup a case and a few extra parts to have enough for a functional home theater PC. Running standard Fedora Workstation, controlled with Logitech K400+.

I stubbornly refuse to ever connect my TV to the internet.

[qmr]

Why did you connect it to the internet in the first place?

[esalman]

This. If you want online content use a stream box.

[sspiff]

How about just not connecting your TV to the Internet? Then it's just a dumb display?

[DenisM]

You may be looking for a “commercial LCD display”.

[malfist]

Disconnect it from the internet and use an appletv. It can't update then.

This works until apple enshitifies

[mystraline]

Damn good point.

Unless you have root and can do anything the hardware is capable of, it's not your device. And you shouldn't let any sort of non-owned devices on your network.

Why? Cause devices controlled by other orgs are a foothold situation. And we've had countless attacks of footholds being used as internal points of attack, DDoS, and other attacks.

That also means that all your "cloud devices" should be able to work 100% offline. If not, return them as defective.

[TheNewsIsHere]

This is ultimately what we did in my house for every Samsung TV.

Their smart TV stuff used to be marginally interesting. When Samsung TV Plus launched it was fantastic. They weren’t yet sure of how to handle ads so even the ad space was still nice, and marginally useful.

As they figured out the ad strategy, apps started disappearing and new ones appeared that couldn’t be uninstalled.

Then the OS updates started cratering performance. I have a Samsung smart TV from after 2020 that takes about 4 seconds to register a single remote control command in the smart TV GUI.

[cyanydeez]

"Give some other monopoly rulr over your attention"

[apexalpha]

>Give me a dumb TV any time of the day now

Just disconnect your current one from the internet.

[koksik202]

I just use my smart tv as tv and use PS5 as media box avoids all this hassle. There is nothing on cable/satellite tv other than ads anyway

[AceJohnny2]

When I was shopping for a TV years ago, Samsung had all the features I wanted (for gaming).

But Samsung's ad behavior led me to buy a Vizio TV instead.

[c420]

I've got some bad news for you, Walmart acquired Vizio two years ago:

"This acquisition is not merely about expanding Walmart's product lineup but rather part of a sophisticated commercial strategy to integrate its retail operations, owned media channels and TV hardware into a cohesive ecosystem. This ecosystem is designed to generate and share data, influence shopping behavior and, ultimately, drive sales through an innovative approach to advertising..." "...By owning a television manufacturer, Walmart can now directly serve and, crucially, measure the impact of ads on consumer behavior. This capability significantly enhances Walmart's potential to convert advertisements into retail purchases."

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcou...

[godelski]

I use my TV as a monitor and this still happens. When you don't accept it just gets more aggressive. I'm pretty sure there's a "bug"[0] that ends up slowing the TV down because it keeps that process going.

I'm pretty confident you can't agree to a contract if you can't opt out. I don't want new features and I'm fine if everything stays the same. And no, please do not adjust the image settings again... I didn't want the AI frame interpolation then and I don't want it now

[0] with Samsung engineers I don't believe they've tested anything and just assumed the user would accept it instead of deny it 20 times. It'll also get less buggy when I do a reboot, so I'm pretty sure it's a memory leak

We are talking about a company where if I press the exit button there's a 50% chance I get the menu or not. It's literally a random result. If I'm in, say, Netflix, press exit, I'll turn to my computer screen and half the time the Samsung menu will open and half the time it won't.

Also starting the TV will flash my desktop and then go "ops, no signal" and I have to just keep restarting the TV and switching inputs (not touching the hdmi cable btw) until it works. And no, my desktop doesn't sleep and yes this issue is the reason why.

So I am 100% sure it's not conspiratorial, I'm 100% sure they just suck at their job. I'm sure the fridge will be great...