Just don’t connect it to the internet.
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Privacy
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Yeah, but is that an option realistically, if the parents want Netflix and Iplayer or whatever?
I think just with electric cars all the options are a complete privacy nightmare ...
*all new cars
Ya, because it’s a TV. You connect those things to the inputs and drive the content from other things (game console, firetv, htpc, etc.
I’m baffled by people negatively reacting to my post. It’s how tvs have worked for 50+ years. Just because they recently got the ability to execute programs, doesn’t mean you have to use it. Just air gap it and the issue is 100% solved as far as the tv is concerned.
how do you remote control HTPC?
wireless keyboard and mouse is not a real solution. all other such devices that you mentioned used a handheld remote controller
There are a ton of remote controls with USB out there. Including ones that are remote control sized with a mini keyboard, presenter style air mouse built in, or even using remote controls on your phone (KDE connect is awesome for this).
I do use a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. A very very small one. But I very rarely use that. I push all content through plex which can be driven easily with devices like firetv and have remotes. The htpc does the real work, but I don’t interface with it directly (generally speaking).
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Bad advice.
Why? That’s exactly what I did with my tv. It never saw the internet and works just fine. I literally don’t care what Samsung does or pushes out for updates because it doesn’t matter.
I can still do everything I want from Netflix to streaming from my NAS etc.
/shrug
Because some TVs will scan and connect to an access point, such as one your neighbor temporary enables. Then it uploads years of data that it collected on you in less than a minute.
damn, your neighbor must have stupidly fast wifi if it's uploading that much so fast
You don’t have to get a smart tv at all. TVs do not need to be smart. If you search ‘business monitor’, you will find large quality displays such as used for corporate signage. The one issue is they often have only a few inputs, but that is easily addressed and worth it to avoid the completely unnecessary hassle of a TV too smart for your own good.
My two cents
Plug it into a HTPC, install Firefox and ublock Origin. Now you can watch YT without ads on a big screen in the living room. You’re welcome.
that is exactly what the parents will not accept, as stated by OP
I would avoid anything built into the TV.
- Its starting to be used for spying on you
- The chip they come with are usually not that good unless it's a high end TV.
- They are building ads right into the TV themselves.
I would not connect the TV to the internet and use a external media player. Either a Nvidia shield or an Apple TV is your best bet.
You can also try building a media player yourself using a small computer.
Note - The self made media player will be more limited in terms of apps available, unfortunately, as well as streaming quality from some of the streaming services.
I heard that https://libreelec.tv is pretty good
Its good if everything you need can run from Kodi. It uses its own Linux distribution in the background, so you won't really be able to install anything else unless you build it.
Then run it in a container under a better distribution if you desperately need to put neofetch on your HTPC. Or run the other distro in a container under libreelec since I’m pretty sure it supports them.
Absolutely this. Depending on how you use it though, make sure you have a VPN and private DNS setup on your router
Why do you need private dns for?
If Kodi is used to watch movies and TV shows for free then you'd want to protect your internet traffic from unwanted eyes
Isn't a dns included in most vpns?
Depends on how you set it up. I had Wireguard installed and couldn't figure out why only some sites got unblocked by it... And then it turns out it doesn't use the VPN server's DNS automatically, only if you specify so in the settings.
I am stupid, I know. But that's just an example.
To control what can be accessed.
Having your own DNS enables you to block ads on every device in your network.
PiHole makes my smart TV more responsive, because it can't get crap to load into the home screen.
Home theater PC
Real world, it's a royal pain in the butt trying to get a not-smart TV. There's a couple of companies that sell them at consumer-accessible prices and they aren't as frequently on the kinds of deep discounts bigger brands go for. You might just have to steer your parents towards using an Apple TV (the only ads are for Apple's own services plus nice integration with iPhones if your parents happen to be iPhone users) then set it up to boot straight to the Apple TV so they never see the Smart TV OS, and of course never connect the Smart TV to the Internet so whatever data harvesting it does do is useless
Buy a retail display screen. Totally dumb.
Everything is really bad. But sadly it is nearly impossible to buy a normal TV these days. Just buy any SmartTV, and get yourself a MiniPC with the Linux Distro of your liking.
LG is currently even worse than Android - it autoinstalls (gambling!) Apps(yes,we made sure there was no hack/malware), tries really hard to get into the network, etc. But I might be biased as I am very unhappy with their support as well - their display showed a faulty line exactly 10d after the guarantee/warranty ran out, they quoted more than the current retail value for the repair and 80% of the original retail value. For a problem that is very likely not even the display itself but a faulty cable. Fuck them.
Personally, if a Pi is out of the scope (which I totally understand) I would go with a Android box and any TV you like displaywise- while Android is as bad privacy wise as any other TV OS nowadays, it is usually far easier to lock it down at least partially so at least the worst problems can be avoided/most of them can be rooted or get linage OS installed. Just make sure the box you use can do that.
Because in the end it's also an usability problem - your parents will call you if Netflix, Disney+ or something like that refuses to play because they now require widevine in a newer version than LibreELEC offers,etc. If you want to support that, go for a Pi. If you don't, find a middle ground.
I asked the same question some time ago. I now use an old laptop with libreelec on it. https://beehaw.org/post/15312388
What they usually do with their TV? Watch Netflix/YT? You are asking this for many technical users and your parents might not be up to the hassle.
I have an older Samsung Tizen device -- you don't have to worry about privacy because the piece of shit has basically 0 servers to connect to and most of the time if you set a DNS server manually it will completely fail to connect to the internet anyway
Depends entirely what they are doing with it. If they are using services with DRM, e.g. Netflix or Disney+ I bet you will be out of luck because that pulls out an entire ecosystem, driven by Google, which is based on selling ads.
"not realistic to propose rpi and more complex systems"
If they have to install it, probably not. If they have to plug it on the HDMI port, power and optionally Ethernet honestly things like LibreElec or Kodi are pretty well done. Heck even a very young kid (talking not even 5y/o) can manage that (I've seen it, repetitively) or even start VLC to connect to DLNA server as long as it's properly setup.