This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I’ve had a “smart” TV for about 4 years. It keeps asking to update the firmware.
No. Effin’. Way.
It’s just going to install more and more spyware, bloatware, and find a way to charge me for something I didn’t have to pay for before.
My lg TV is late 2024. When I first got and was setting it up, asked me to connect to the internet, something about benefits, AI. I was like are you insane TV? you will NEVER have access to the internet, this is exactly why my nvidia shield is locked in a old 8.9 version and pihole block all the things.
You should update the Shield. You'll get security updates and the Pihole will remove ads.
My LG tv is too old for this shit. But it does not get ethernet or wifi password just in case they decide to update the firmware
Never buy a "smart" appliance that you want a dumb version of.
The problem is that this is about normal LG screens, nothing smart about them.
Simply put, Microsoft detects you're using an LG screen, it downloads the appropriate drivers released by LG, and those drivers are in fact just nagware.
I have an LG smart tv that I've had for a few years now. It is easily the worst TV I've ever bought. The interface sucks, the remote sucks, it doesn't have the Dropout app, it is bright as the sun when the screen is on in the dark even with adaptive brightness on, slow to register button presses and load apps, etc. Even if it weren't a privacy nightmare, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
They've learned nothing in 13 years https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/lg-smart-tv-snooping-extends-to-home-networks-second-blogger-says/
On the contrary, they have learned a lot.
They've learned:
Smart TV's are such a dumb idea. Get an expendable side box that you have control over or can be disposed of when it enshitifies.
how the fuck can a monitor install software to a computer the second HDMI is plugged in.
Why is this even a feature that is possible.
The monitor doesn't. Windows shenanigans.
What dongle or what have you do y'all use that's privacy focused? I need to disconnect my LG TV and we have an old Chromecast but that's Google...
I had an old laptop that I hooked in and configured it to boot into a fullscreen browser to our Emby server. Could just as easily have it boot into a browser with shortcuts to your streaming services.
We use one of these mini keyboard/touchpads to control it:
Lately, though, I just picked up a set of wireless HDMI adapters and just plug one of those into the closest laptop and play from there.
That's too bad because the monitors themselves are pretty good.
Time to add LG to the list of computer display OEMs I will avoid like the plague on principle.
