Privacy

32115 readers

856 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Smart T.V. Privacy Overview? (feddit.nl)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by czim@feddit.nl to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

51 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm considering buying a new TV. There's plenty of posts about trying to find dumb TVs, comments like 'just don't connect it to the internet/network'.

What surprises me is that there isn't a good overview of (popular) TVs or brands with basic information, answering for each TV:

Can you use it as a basic TV by choosing not to enable smart features during setup?
Can you opt out by just not accepting a bunch of agreements?
Does it have a camera and/or microphone? Where in the device are these? Is there a physical disable switch for microphone?
Does it nag when not connected to any network?
Does it have higher than normal power usage when not able to phone home?
Has it been discovered to connect to public WiFi networks? Does it have the (theoretical) ability to connect to 5G mobile networks?

And similar.

There are extensive lists with a lot of detail about VPN services but nothing like that for TVs. Am I ignorant of a good source, or does this just not exist (yet)?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] czim@feddit.nl 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks! See, that distinction is super helpful. I've found (old) lists of Smart TV OSes and how their privacy settings work (or don't), with some details on what happens when you decline EULA's, but not many and not very useful ones.

The answer may well be that anyone that actually cares about this stuff just doesn't buy any smart TV (or otherwise hasn't had to in the last few years). Still, with the answer 'just don't connect it to the internet' being the most common, I'd expected to see a bit more information like you've given.

So the Samsung keeps nagging even when you're watching direct HDMI input? And does the LG need to boot up the entire (Web)OS to view HDMI input?

[–] robolemmy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

The Samsung tries to “identify” what’s on an hdmi input before it will connect. It seems to call out to the internet to do that because it takes forever to fail and show you the display anyway when it’s not connected to the internet. Even when it is connected, it takes a stupidly long time to switch to a new input. I super hate it and will never buy another samsung tv.

I guess the lg needs to boot tizen before it works, because I see the logo briefly but then it goes directly to the last used input with no other bullshit, so it’s fine with me.