alt Hacker NewsJust buy a TV and don't connect it to the Internet. I have even seen people remove the WiFi daughterboard. That's essentially your "very large monitor." You absolutely do not have to endure the adware and privacy invasion of content recognition and other spyware. Beat the TV manufacturers at their own game.
Replies
imp0cat • yesterday at 5:04 AM
You can set your TV to "dumb mode" by choosing Apps only mode or Basic TV mode (might be only available for Sony Google TVs).
You definitely want to turn "Samba Interactive TV" off.
> Just buy a TV and don't connect it to the Internet.
There are some TVs that eventually pop-up a “please connect” or similar message over any display (even if just using it to display content from another device via HDMI) if they have not been connected for some time, so that you can't permanently use them disconnected. I forget which brand(s)/models are involved, it was talked about in at least one of Louis Rossman's rants so you might find some details in the consumer rights wiki he is associated with.
There will be ways around this of course, though they might involve mucking about in a way the average TV user will not want to risk playing aroud with (rooting the device so you can alter an internal clock that is not affected by any clock you can modify on the UI, or pulling a battery backup out so everything resets (assuming the clock's state is not stored in solid state memory than needs no powered at all to maintain)).