LG TVs and monitors said to surveil users and install bloatware without asking
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244 replies
Is this not a felony under U.S. law? Computer hacking has HUGE criminal liability.
Name something you do as a corporation to avoid any laws or accountability with the current administration
let's see if that answer's on the board..survey says...!
DING
It's actually windows doing it
Another win for Linux
The more I learn about windows the more I wish I would've ditched it a long time ago instead of last month...
It probably says somewhere in the ToS, which is still a fucking disgrace that those exists, without having to make clear and obvious bullet points you click "consent".
Even having to make consent multiple times should be mandatory for every shit they try to do.
Solution if users shouldnt hit consent multiple times? Dont do shady shit.
I can't remember the specifics right now, but in Gamers Nexus video from yesterday, according to LG ToS you must disclose something regarding spying and wiretapping laws to your family and anyone visiting your house
Literally insane that you can even put that in an agreement to being with.
Apparently it's windows doing it. Not the monitor via the HDMI or something. I guess that's what you get for using windows.
Yep. Windows installs manufacturer “helper” apps automatically like drivers. Got a Logitech mouse? You probably have a Logitech app in there you never asked for too because you plugged it in.
Stop using windows.
I don't use windows
I think that was more of a PSA for other people reading along.
Stop using Windows.
lol jk. I'm glad that we here all ditched Windows. amirite or amirite?...
Than this won’t affect you
I had to go and find the Logitech app and install it myself. Otherwise it just used the minimal drivers that were built into windows.
Maybe wired mice and those without rainbow barf behave differently.
I've got a corsair rainbow barfer and I also had to install its control program manually. Mileage probably varies by manufacturer, most likely.
Soon-to-be-illegal-tooltip: openRGB is a thing.
OOOH! Can we manually add entries for unwanted software to windows defender?
I have a plan: we pass a law that any contract intended for the public (ToS, various other terms and conditions, privacy policies, etc) must be at the average reading level of the American public. We'll either incentivize better education or better contracts. Maybe both!
Doesnt matter if it's in kindergarten level reading, as long as it's a few paragraphs long, people will accept it.
Or standardize agreements that can be agreed to with just clicks so you can tell what's up from just seeing which agreement modules are included and what parameters they have (along with a bunch of sites that explain them in easier terms for the less literate, which will be useful because they are standards used by many agreements rather than needing a unique one for each version of each document).
Also, implied consent is not consent, and if there is no consent, the entire contract is unenforceable and therefore void.
Just a reminder that terms of service or any other contract never override law
Let me guess, proprietary drivers cause this and the open source or generic drivers lack “functionality”.
If it turns on, reaches its peek resolution and refresh rate that is good enough for me, I genuinely can care less for HDR or the nitty gritty features.
Monitors don't need drivers. Your GPU needs drivers, and you might need color correction for your monitor.
Microslop decided that any device that is plugged in might need drivers. They allow device manufacturers to specify an arbitrary program to be downloaded and executed by Windows Update, any time a device they make is plugged in.
And if that driver/software does evil or is so poorly written it meets driver verification but exposes vulnerabilities, how is that Microsoft's fault
Microsoft is the company that approved the software to automatically download and run as admin when a specific device is plugged in. The OEM submitted malware and Microsoft approved it. Both are at fault for letting malware download and run on your device.
In the case of vulnerabilities, MS is fully aware of this happening frequently and has announced they want to do something about it, but hasn't actually done anything about it.
Old monitors need it for absolutely nothing, like my 2020 LG. Every feature works out of the box, because it has to over display cables.
I think at most it adds an ICC profile, but it's not matched to the panel anyway and you can just install that seperately.
No, no no. That's only if you do it. If a huge corporation does it, see, that's different. Corporations are "people" for the purposes of free speech (with money) or even voting (example), but when it comes time to throw somebody in jail for overtly criminal behavior, all of the sudden the legal system can't find anyone to target.
Ironic
Bought a LG TV and a Monitor three years ago. Last time I will do that. Really happy about my decision not to let the TV have access to the internet.
Good luck finding a brand NOT doing it by the time you're ready for a new one.
A lot of bad ones out there, but some are worse than others. For example, I'm not going to consider a Samsung TV because of how many times they've done something sketchy
LG is also falling down the list with this incident
Yeah fist time I saw an ad on my smart monitor I reset it and never connected it to my wifi again
What's the point of a smart monitor? It's connected to a PC. The PC is smart.
I’d love to know who wants all that extra crap
About 90% of Society. If you told my mom she was going to have to plug in a device and use another button on her remote (input) she’d look at you like you were asking her to replace a CPU on a computer. Can I do that? Yeah, I can but it’s delicate work fraught with danger.
Yep, mine has never reached the internet, it is connected but is blocked at the firewall so I can still hook home assistant up to it.
I was responding to his TV mention.
Not only that but my old LG smart TV (47LM8600, I think manufactured in 2012) has literal suicide timers in its built in apps. Mine has never been connected to any network and yet it mysteriously informed me after approximately three years of ownership that all of its player apps such as Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, etc. would stop working because they were "no longer supported," all of them within the time frame of the same couple of weeks. It knew this somehow, apparently via magic, or quantum fluctuations, or psychic brain waves. Without internet connectivity.
Obviously I don't use any of those features so I didn't give a rat's ass and I still don't. But I still find that deeply suspicious.
The only technical explanation that’s not malice would be that some certificate store on the device had expiring certificates and would need an update to continue to function (or rather connect to remote servers).
Are there ever certs that expire in 3 years?
Yes. Certs can expire after whatever time the issuer wants to set for them. That could be six months or 20 years. Some infrastructure has limits on max and min lengths (more max than min usually) but not all and there are best practices as well.
More importantly the certs could have been five years old by the time this person got the TV for a total age of 8 years.
It depends on their use. The most common certificates that you will "use and check" (implicitly) all the time are probably those, that get served by websites and the APIs that apps talk to. Those are usually quite short lived. Let's Encrypt IIRC issues them with a default life time of ~90 days and there's a push industry wide to reduce their lifespan generally to... IIRC something around 40 days. But there are more usecases and certificates and those may be valid longer. E.g. a developer that signs their code/compiled binaries.
Or - and thats more relevant - when you check a certificate you do not only check it's content, you also check that it was issued and signed by someone "you" trust (or rather the software on your device trusts). Ususally there's a central store on your PC managed by Microsoft (for Win), Apple (for Mac) or your Linux Distribution with a list of certificates that your device trusts. Those are usually quite long lived (often several years, probably even more than a decade). But will also end. And there will be new ones to replace the old ones. Or new vendors that get added to this trust store. If you do not update your device, this trust store won't change.
There are now several versions how this can affect the apps in this case, e.g.
Planned obsolescence is one of those things that just infuriates me so much about capitalism.
Need to fill the landfills.
Luckily for me at least, like so many of us dweebs here, I drive my TV with a little media center PC anyway. So I couldn't care less which of their services they disable. The more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned. The real annoying part is that these don't work (presumably), but you still can't remove the icons from the thing's home screen.
Same. My TV is a second monitor and really only gets use during football season. Who wants to watch TV in real time anymore anyway?
There was some controversy a while ago about Samsung TVs finding and connecting to open WiFi networks autonomously if they weren't connected to a network explicitly
Could be something as simple as a timeout. Three years of no connection, and it cuts you off.
I've used an LG monitor for about 5 years, and never install the manufacturer's software unless it looks genuinely useful. When I saw the Gamers Nexus video I went to check my installed apps, and sure enough there was LG's monitor app, installed silently without my knowledge. I used Bulk Crap Uninstaller to get rid of it.
To prevent this kind of thing in future, run gpedit.msc and enable “Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata” under Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System → Device Installation.
Or you could just change to an os that doesnt piss on its users constantly
Indeed. I use Linux most of the time, and MacOS a bit of the time, but the old Windows desktop is still there for the infrequent times when I need it to work on old music projects. I have it too dual-booting into Linux, so even it spends most of its time in a more sane OS.
Unfortunately, dual gpu and ray tracing setups don't work very well on linux.
Sounds like a hostage situation
Mine works, but I guess it depends on your setup. My main GPU is a 7800XT and my secondary is a 3090 I use for video encode/decode. OBS while streaming and recording simultaneously (if I ever have time), video editing and HandBrake conversions. It just works with EndeavourOS. I can do ray tracing on the 7800 XT but it's not something I care about in games so I always turn it off.
I'm sure if I ran dual 3090's in SLI it would be a pain in the ass but that's why I didn't try for that when upgrading my system, plus the power draw.
Multiple GPUs work fine in Linux. You can have one playing a game while you wait for the others to finish the real work.
I couldn't tell you about ray tracing, but it's been pretty painless for me to run specific apps on igpu/dgpu using switcheroo-control
Great; what OS has the equivalent of Group Policy and Active Directory besides windows?
The funny thing is, the people who care about Group Policy and Active Directory are the same people who aren't happy about their network potentially being compromised because someone hooked up their work laptop up to a monitor at their home.
Still didn’t answer the question.
This is the one thing holding open source back, and the thing Linux users keep pissing on without understanding it.
The CTOs inept nephew can manage your fleet of windows machines and you get all the checkbox security you need for compliance (and some real security):
That same feature set on Linux will cost you a ton of money in skilled staff if you want to check the same compliance checkboxes. (As for real security, who cares, no one is doing that anyway)
Kind regards: someone who has managed Linux fleets.
THANK YOU!
So many people just don’t get it; happy to see someone rational who does.
I WISH Linux had something like this, but it’s like NT 4.0; it doesn’t have it.
It’s getting there, slowly.
But the biggest issue is the mentality of ”I own my computer”. Sure, you own your private machine, but your company owns the computer you use for work and the data on it and has an interest in protecting that data from you. That particular threat model is hard to communicate, as Linux users normally don’t think of themselves as a threat vector.
Good to know they’re working on boot; what about something similar to AD and GPO?
I hope no one tries to push GPO-like stuff on Linux. I get where you are coming from, but for example Puppet will give you a lot more power and and flexibility. There is no registry. ”Everything is a file” is actually true, you just manage a bunch of config files instead.
As for AD, you have FreeIPA as the major contender. It works. You can also just join your Linux clients to your AD. Kerberos works just as expected.
(RedHat actually tried pushing management of Gnome via FreeIPA á la GPO. It sucks, because the desktop environment is just a tiny part of what you might want to manage, so suddenly you need to have both that bullshit and your normal configuration management tool.)
I didn't watch the video, but maybe they said how this done.
If it installed silently, it must be getting pulled in via Windows update right? Where Microsoft just sees this a regular old driver for a device I would imagine?
I have an LG monitor, maybe about 5 years or older. But I don't have windows so I assume it knows nothing.
EDIT: Nevermind. I went and watched the section at the beginning, and yep that is exactly how it is done. Does windows not even vet what a vendor hands them as a driver? Perhaps they don't care, but this seems like an easily exploitable route.
I suspect the thoroughness of the vetting is inversely proportional to the size of the kickback to Microsoft.
Got me curious. Quick search and I found three windows drivers that had keyloggers hidden in them. Go figure it was HP!
HP Notebook Keyboard Drivers: Keylogging code was discovered in the SynTP.sys file, which was part of the Synaptics Touchpad driver shipped with certain HP notebook models.
HP Audio Drivers: Researchers found keylogging features within the Conexant HD Audio Driver (specifically version 1.0.0.46 and earlier) used in various HP laptops and other Windows systems.
That's what I thought was happening here. The headline is a bit incorrect... the monitor didn't install the bloatware, Windows did.
Now the drivers/software that Windows installed is likely from the MS store/update path and was made and signed by LG, but still. Plug this monitor into linux and it's not going to do it because linux doesn't have that mechanism.
Same. I noticed earlier this month when I got a popup to install Mcafee, out of nowhere. I was mortified.
Oh my God, I just checked and me too.
I have an LG TV that has never been exposed to the internet and it's amazing.
Same! I jailbroke mine and can watch YouTube and Twitch ad-free, and it's got Jellyfin on the homebrew channel, so I can access my server off my TV :)
Omg you can jailbreak smart TVs now? HELL yeah
EDIT: I am especially interested in LG webOS because I was a Palm Prē enjoyer back in the day and I rooted the fuck out of that phone (still have it somewhere)
Check out rootmy.tv to jailbreak your LG smart TV. Depending on the model and firmware, there could be additional steps you need to take, but in my case, since I still had the stock firmware installed, it was just a single slide of a button on the TV's web browser.
I had to put malicious mp3 files on a USB for my newer C2, but my older C8 was rooted in the browser
LOL, this is hilarious, while simultaneously infuriating that the owners of hardware are required to install a Trojan Horse to uninstall the malicious software installed by the manufacturer.
https://github.com/throwaway96/dejavuln-autoroot#instructions
So are there downsides to rooting? Like do the apps no longer work or is there functionality limited?
I'm running pinhole on my network currently so I think most if not all of the bad LG behavior is restricted and I use a Shield for most things, but I'm still tempted to root it anyway. Just want to know the downsides, if any, before I update my family's TV
I'm probably an unsuitable person to ask this since my TV is basically a glorified monitor, but from what I could tell there are no downsides except for the obvious one being that I can't update my TV. But considering much bloat and spying is going on with (LG) smart TVs, I don't mind it all.
I use Twitch, YouTube, and Jellyfin on mine, and it's been awesome. I hadn't used any other functionality or apps the TV comes with before rooting and I likely won't in the future. So even if some of them didn't work, I couldn't care less.
Maybe do some research and find out for your specific model?
Thanks so much for the rootmy.tv recommendation, exactly what I need but didn't know to look for!
on my 5+ year old TVs that didn't work. you need a developer account, an app, and a few commands over SSH
That phone was the coolest thing, it's such a shame how it died. I've still got mine lol, I can get it to boot and play that one flight sim game you could buy on the app store.
You don't even need to jailbreak LG ones, just enable developer mode, install webosbrew, and install things like youtube adfree and space cadet pinball
That's awesome. Mine is 42" and I'm using it as my monitor for my desktop. I had no idea you could jailbreak TVs now, what a time to be alive. I recently picked up a Raspberry Pi 5 and I'm planning on using it to replace my stupid Chromecast on my living room TV. As long as the Pi can stream from my Jellyfin server and watch YouTube then that's all I need.
There's a website called rootmy.tv that can help you find or execute roots right off the TV's web browser. When I bought the TV, I hadn't connected it to the Internet a single time, so it still had the stock firmware. I could just type in the URL and click a single button - that's it. Depending on the firmware, model and brand, this could look different for you. Also I'm not sure if this only works for LG TVs - might have to do some research to find a suitable method for yours.
That also sounds very practical. I'd love to get into Pis sometime, but the RAM fiasco is making them quite expensive for my current budget, sadly.
This is it. Skip all the setup screens and just use it
I went through the nonsense of putting the LG tv and some other stuff on a separate network that has no internet access but I can still connect to them. It’s annoying that’s needed.
My LG TV is just so old it isn't allowed to connect anymore lol. I just keep my old gaming laptop connected and it's a far better experience then any modern smart TV with all the image smoothing junk.
That won't save you. It'll still install the driver if its hooked to Windows.
So, I don't get this; if you let it install the drivers and then uninstall the drivers and use it, will it just keep reinstalling the drivers with each next connection?
Apart from the obviously superior solution of switching to Linux, would someone need to connect while fully offline to prevent it from installing drivers and just watch predownloaded stuff (or play games offline) or what?
By default? Maybe.
But there are both global and granular Windows policies to tweak this. I disabled the device driver specifically, as I do like plug-and-play for other devices.
It will install the drivers... through HDMI? I don't think so.
No, I just mean windows update will pull an LG “driver” and install it to your system automatically when it detects the display.
My wife and I bought a TV on the internet. What brand? I have no idea but it's the type they have in waiting rooms and restaurants. Zero internet. Zero apps. You push the button and it turns on. It's the best fucking purchase we've made in the last five years.
I recently purchased a current year TCL, I don't remember the model number but it's the one right under their flagship.
It's 75" and is the most beautiful tv I've owned. Fast, almost OLED levels of dimming, I'm in awe when watching the right content.
I'd pay an extra $500 for a version with no smart capabilities. Let me turn it on and boot into my android box, or console, or whatever.
Got ours second hand from a buy nothing group. It has no apps. It doesn't know what the internet is. It has D-SUB and RCA ports. It's perfect
Commercial displays are like that. I have a couple that haven been decom’d from work I use. They don’t have speakers but I don’t need those anyway
A lot of commercial displays are smart now too.
Where'd you find it?
Look for "digital signage" displays - but beware that some of those are "smart TVs" too.
Amazon, unfortunately.
This is 100% also Microsoft fault and they are to be held accountable for this. With many drivers it can happen that one manufacturer goes rogue, but Microsoft needs to have a zero tolerance policy for this: do it once and your signature is permanently revoked for all your drivers
LG clearly stands for "Literal Garbage". The DisplayPort and HDMI ports on the gaming monitor I bought a few years ago failed approximately 6 months in.
My old LG monitor (32GK850) would occasionally 'crash' and require powering off at the mains.
Only monitor I've ever had do that.
The HDR was worse than useless too, obviously you can't do much with edge-lit VA, but the tonemapping was just plain awful.
I wish we would stop using smart to describe surveillance technology. Smart sounds nicez but there's nothing smart about it...
That is the neat thing about language, it adapts. Euphemisms wear off and something like "smart device" increasingly sounds like "nasty anti-consumer surveillance home appliance" all by itself.
you need popular public sentiment for that. most people just shrug it off if even that
And you think the other manufacturers are different?
Only solution is NO NETWORK. Use as a simple TV. I have 2 fairly new LGs and none are network connected. They work perfectly that way. I learnt the lesson with my 15y old Samsung SmartTV, one of the first to the market, and it wanted to use a Samsung account for almost everything, even to use the Youtube client. Nope.
These are computer monitors, not TVs. Plugging them into a Windows box triggers Windows to silently install their "driver," which silently installs a handful of other startup apps. It's an escalation of the smartTV-wifi path.
Anybody truly worried about being monitored isn't going to be running windows.
Better alternatives existing doesn't give Windows a free pass to be as shitty as they want.
Of course it does. Your whining sure as fuck won't change anything kiddo. You can downvote this fact all night long if it makes you feel better though 🤣
Yes.. No true Scotsman would use Windows.
Elevator Recognition | Burnistoun
I grabbed a used Samsung dumb tv off fb market place but I haven't decided how im going to configure a streaming device to it. All the streaming sticks do the same thing. Building my own sounds like a pain.
I have a little server but I want a remote and a basically have to make my own box to be able to cut out these 3rd party spies.
All of this is true but I really hate the headline. Headlines for this SHOULD SAY "Microsoft's Windows update feature is distributing adware."
Both LG and Microsoft share responsibility. LG for doing it and Microsoft for allowing it.
This has been going on forever, though. I had an Asus motherboard that literally installed adware, and an even older Sony laptop that topped it.
LG is on my permanent vendor shitlist for related reasons.
Lol, "monitor" app, because it monitors users.
Im sorry. Im drunk.
Straight to the list of things "I will never buy in my life".
Yeah, Same here honestly
As much as I'd like a bigger TV with OLED, I'll be sticking with my old Toshiba dumb TV. It's good enough and doesn't even know the internet exists.
Does anyone make dumb TVs anymore? Seems like there's a sizable market for it. I haven't had a TV in 6 years and want one for local channels, but I really don't want a smart TV.
I just never gave my smart TV network info. It’s at the factory settings and can’t connect to anything. If there isn’t a console connected to it then it is useless. Just like the good ole days.
They still have ways to connect, though they're lower bandwidth and less reliable.
How?
You didn't connect your Samsung smart TV, but your neighbor did, and they connect over a second separate Samsung™©® network that you and your neighbor both 'consented' to in the Eula's, where media fingerprints and timestamps are exchanged updated, etc during downtime. Evil mesh networks, basically.
Or Sony™, or rjfyjdokfdrlvdgjg™, or whatever.
That's really interesting and very plausible. I'd never considered it.
Documented. Forget where.
I wish Lemmy had a ban list and post/thread removal list. It'd make it easier to know what's allowed here.
just get a smart one and never connect it online
ok how can I watch anything then?
Plug your own devices in with HDMI.
assuming you have a coax cable connection on it, mount an antenna, go to settings and find a channel scanner to run
They still access and provide a route through your wifi.
What? How would they do that if they are never connected to WiFi in the first place?
They still talk and connect if you want them to or not. The "permissions" is mostly for the apps to talk back and forth. It is still usable by anyone who knows how.
Smart TVs do not magically connect to your WiFi without credentials.
Now if there is an open WiFi available, that might be a way or if the TV has a deal with a carrier to use all that open automatic WiFi.
I'm confused; are you suggesting the TVs ship with an embedded SIM?
A bit more technical details please. How do the connect to what? It sounds a bit like they can just magically connect via telepathy to their home base if you phrase it like that.
Its not that difficult, scan for open wifi, if detected, connect, phone home to spy central.
The more sinister, each tv that successfully detects a connection to spy central broadcasts a 2nd wifi that the tv can scan for and connect similar to mesh networking.
There are tons of reasons to want a network connected monitor, the problem is no-one seems interested in producing one without the spyware. I’d love a 40”+ device that supported rtsp, etc but until enough people step up and boycott all this spy crap it’ll never be worth producing better devices. 😞
Mh, yeah I see the possibility of using an open network in theory, but in practice I haven't seen a open Wifi network in years (excluding business owned ones, but usually you need to confirm something there and can't use them forever). So not sure how feasible that is. The more sinister option is done by Echo devices for example (that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Sidewalk), but also requires a second device nearby. Much more possible possible though, if similar devices are nearby. But that can't be hidden anyway and it should be possible to check for that.
I feel like the best option to get the monitor network connected is still a secondary device and never using the built in firmware (and first checking if said device got things like you described).
not if you dont connect it. of course my "smart" tv allows that, your's may not. they all will bitch and moan about turning it on when first set up but you should be able to ignore it or set it up "later"
Sceptre seems to be the only company makinh consumer-grade dumb TVs.
There is, its called industrial tv "iiyama" for example is a brand of those
I've looked into these in the past. Unfortunately, they are extremely dated TVs that are visually and aesthetically unpleasing.
You should just get a smart TV which allows setting it up without wi-fi instead.
For the PC Monitor issue: To prevent this sort of behavior. Open Group Policy Editor Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>System>Device Installation Prevent automatic downloads of applications associated with device metadata = Set to Enable.
To get rid of it once installed you have to remove it from the Windows Store since it's an app, not an installed program. For me, this was not possible as there was no way presented to uninstall it in the app store. I had to do it from terminal with this command, which could vary a bit depending on the exact app version:
Remove-AppxPackage LGElectronics.LGMonitorApp_1.2606.1601.0_x86__cfnzzhwkr8z5w
Keep in mind this will disable plug-and-play for other devices one plugs in.
Which is excellent, from a security standpoint, but something to be cognizant of.
store apps can also be uninstalled from the settings app.
for the first setting, it's easier to turn that and more off with o&o shutup10
Also using winget.
Tried going through this with my grandma on video call. She asked: "why is there a police group in my computer?"
You can search for it by the appx name and then use a pipe to remove the package. Then you don't need to worry about specific version numbers:
Get-AppxPackage -Name 'LGElectronics.LGMonitorApp' | Remove-AppxPackage
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.
I have 2, one a high end Oled and I don’t use their UI, I use an Apple TV. Always have. Tv UI’s are all terrible
Which is interesting. I had an LG TV from 2017 that I replaced with a newer Samsung TV. The remote sucks, the interface sucks, apps work poorly, and they're displaying ads, the fuckers. The entire family misses the LG TV.
Samsung one-ups them though. The UI and remote are, somehow, even worse.
Firstly, 👊 for being a Dropout appreciator. But it's definitely in there somewhere. I've got Dropout loaded and running on my LG from years back.
Which model? I bought an OLED48B4PUA a while back and I've been happy with it. Could be brighter, but I knew that going in.
But I also don't use it for anything but being a display. It's not connected to the Internet; I just use a Chromecast from my phone for most things (or connect directly to HDMI).
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.
And thus vulnerabilities are introduced. Either by not updating the FW, or by updating the FW.
The odds of someone attacking my tv via the internet are as close to zero that “never gonna happen” is just about right. If it did happen, it would be because they went via the server maintainer for the firmware to attack all the TVs, and if they did that then an updated firmware would just as likely be a culprit.
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 have a ShieldTV plugged into mine and it has been great. You can install a new Launcher to have full control of what you see and it works great. I pretty much just use it for Jellyfin and YouTube now, but in the past have had all of the streaming services at one time or another.
Our shield TV recently stopped allowing Projectivy launcher (the 3rd party one we were using) to be bound to the home button on the remote. I can launch Projectivy and switch to it, but as soon as I hit the home button it's right back to the default launcher.
I assumed this was something nvidia (or google) did to be dicks, but it sounds like that hasn't happened to you, so now I'm less sure.
What 3rd party launcher are you using? Maybe I should try a different one.
I think I am using the wolf launcher? I can’t check right now, but I set it up a long time ago and then forgot about it.
I haven’t had any problems with it, I have both a tube and a shield pro and the white circle button works great on both.
There might also be a button remapper that you can get if you want the Netflix button to be a mute or something.
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.
KDE Connect is also a control option
Kde connect really is amazing, its on all my devices
Weve had a similar setup for nearly 10 years and its fricken great. We built a low spec computer using old parts from our desktops, hooked it up to our tv via hdmi, and plugged in a wireless keyboard with built in trackpad to act as the remote. We get all the same AD blocking and content access as a desktop because, you know, its a desktop but in the livingroom. My personal favorite is using a second account on discord to pull up streams on the tv from the couch while joining on my phone via my primary account for voice.
Have one those keyboards too. Thing is fantastic!
The best cheap solution is a Google TV with Projectivy launcher to bypass the adware.
The best fully non-adware solution as others said seems to be a mini-pc running Linux or other cleaner environment you set up.
Yeah mini-pc is the way. Throw Linux on it and it'll last for years, trouble free
I have a Linux mini PC. There are definite pros, like controlling it via SSH from my Home Assistant, running Netflix in Firefox with adblocker... But drawbacks are no HDR, no 4k for streaming, heck, even 720p max for Hulu (and Disney, but I don't have one).
However, high sails have higher resolution too, it's just an additional step.
Linux definitely has HDR. I've been using Bazzite with Steam Big Picture mode as my TV interface for years and can use HDR just fine.
I definitely recommend piracy, but there are also ways to get streaming services to send full quality streams. I won't recommend them though, because you shouldn't have to do it in the first place for a service you're paying for. Just pirate and use a media server or something like Kodi for a nice interface for local files.
He is saying those streaming services wont allow HDR even if Linux itself is capable. Which is why he could set sail to recover that functionality.
I love projectivy and how clean it is but I have had so much trouble getting the tv to launch straight into it on 2 separate Google TVs so I just don’t use it anymore really.
Yeah, I suspect Google pushes changes to the backend OS that keep breaking it on purpose, but at least we've got it to stick on our two TVs with a lot of effort and setting changes. Least worst option considering how pricy mini-PCs are, unfortunately.
I use an nvidia shield, and used the developer options to disable Google's built in launcher (and most other google related services). That's what it takes to keep your chosen launcher. I also used an app to remap the netflix button on that stupid toblerone they call a remote to act as a mute button, so accidentally pressing it doesn't cause me a minute of trying to get back to my content.
Bought an Onn 4k TV box from Walmart when it was $20, and I followed these steps to deGoogle it: https://old.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/12rya0t/change_launcher_debloat_the_new_onn_4k_streaming/
raspi4 + libreelec
But I'd suggest OrangePi instead if you were buying new stuff.
I'll give that a look, thank you!
I connected a raspberry pi to my TV and control it with a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo to pirate all of my shows on a greysite
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
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.
After the dashboard change on my shield, I simply installed projectify as the new launcher. Now I only see what I want without ads.
yeah I have it as well
You can root it and disable the updates. If you don't accept the terms, the ai tool isn't working.
There's a new root way released recently that most likely works with your model.
How can a monitor install stuff on a PC? Can you do that over hdmi/dp? Does it require usb?
Either way, this stuff should be illegal or at least require a much more explicit warning than hiding it in terms of service that nobody reads. And of course everybody would do well to avoid LG out of principle from now on.
Saw the video by Gamers Nexus and basically Windows auto installs an LG Driver utility that has ads.
Video: https://youtu.be/Q9uefFYe6bM?is=aetOlpepSBu_cXF2
Razer mice have some crapware that auto-installs on Windows now, through windows update. Their official driver that it downloads adds the crap and Microsoft just lets it do it all.
No such hassles on Linux though.
Windows update, by default, is set to automatically download and install the malware for them when the HDMI cable is connected to the computer, within less than a minute.
It's pretty much impossible to buy a dumb TV nowadays. It's much easier to disconnect a smart TV from the internet using a firewall.
Or don’t add it to your network
Jellyfin app works really well on LG TVs. I think it's the app that gives me the least issues of all the ones I've used. I find it much easier to use than pluging in a laptop. In other scenario external computer may be the best option.
Not impossible, several options are still out there if you actually search for "non smart TV" on retailers' websites.
Sceptre was one brand that made decent non-smart TVs but they seem to be vanishing off the market now. Many used ones still on ebay and other secondhand markets. Their website still shows a bunch of TV models but the retail links turn up empty.
I searched and didn't find anything in Europe. And that was couple of years ago already. Maybe there are some sources I don't know about but I didn't find any in typical stores.
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.
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:
True. I thought they got fined over what they did in 2013, but I can't find it with all the news of Texas suing them and other manufacturers. Even if they did get fined back then, the fines are never enough for these large corporations.
I think my LGTV predates a lot of this, thankfully. I've had it since 2020, but there are still several settings (like 'ad personalization') that I have turned off, and I never connect it to the Internet on purpose.
My dumb LG monitor from 2020 got the adware update.
If you run it on Windows, it has nothing to do with the monitor's hardware. Windows Update will just install the driver to your system when it recognizes the display.
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.
It is because the LG software is in one of the Windows Update channels.
Once Windows detects the LG display the OS pulls down the LG software and installs it like any other OS update.
Essentially they are abusing something Microsoft provides to better deploy legitimate feature and security updates for firmware to push out their data mining and malware packages.
Sounds like people need to be equally angry at microsoft for not policing their platform access better.
Exactly, Microsoft is more guilty than LG because this is not the first time it happened, last time it automatically installed some Razer malware when a mouse was connected (or maybe it still installs it).
That Razer malware allowed system privileges on a restricted windows account: just plug a mouse dongle and the system is automatically exploitable
The monitor doesn't. Windows shenanigans.
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.
Talk about a company that has enshitified, I had an LG TV from 2008 that still worked when I gave it away a couple years ago, the LG TV I bought in 2019 has already died.
Article won't load if you block ads.
Yep. Do they really expect me to figure out which of the half million ad-sites my pihole is blocking so I can read the article?
good.gif
I just never gave my smart tv network info.
Time to add LG to the list of computer display OEMs I will avoid like the plague on principle.
That's too bad because the monitors themselves are pretty good.
been a sceptre user for years
If the terms and service include conditions, then include the terms and service. I dislike the the 'trust me, it's there'. Show me.
Fucking degenerate chaebol.
Nope! Another thing to avoid buying
can't wait to install one in the toilet and have them listening me fart all over the place
cannot be that hard to disable the windows store
Laughs in Microsoft
Laughs in linux
Laughs in Be OS
Transcends in TempleOS
It certainly is not. As administrator:
Get-AppxPackage -allusers *WindowsStore* | Remove-AppxPackagei understand how smart TV can be a problem. But monitors too?
They'll install the spyware via your hdmi / display port or what?
This was already answered multiple times in the comments when you posted this. And also in the article. Are you running in write-only mode?
Jesus… this is actually 1984 territory now. We all have "TV's" (monitors) that actually monitor us. Yuck
The article is just full of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and untruths.
"Anyone who owns an LG smart TV must inform all guests and family members that they are being monitored – this is required by LG’s current terms of use. Meanwhile, LG monitors install potential malware and surveillance software on a connected Windows computer."
Completely unfounded.
What conspiracy theory? You can look up LG's terms of service and read it for yourself.
Quote from LG's terms of service:
"CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Product and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act"
Not quite what was in the story, was it.
Gotta love the conspiracy theorist mindset that throws common sense out the window.
LG sells ~22–24 million TVs per year and ~25–35 million monitors per year
-Do we see a problem with that and 'surveillance' yet?
The state of Texas named LG in an ongoing case about their surveillance of the end user.
https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/texas-sues-smart-tv-makers-acr-surveillance-2026/
Knowing Texas, the settlement of the suit will net nothing for end-users. LG will just have to give Texas surveillance gear for their concentration camps.