I remember the ancient times when you could buy something, turn it on, then have it do what you want it to do. Setting the clock was the difficult part. Other than that, it just worked.
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Last I looked, we could still buy commercial displays. They're dumb TVs. They cost more, of course.
99.9% of all these "problems" can be solved by using an ablocker DNS and a couple of adb commands (on Android).
i haven't even turned on my tv in over a year because of that bullshit. i've just been using a monitor + laptop + 2.1 pc speakers.
I honestly wonder how hard it would be to do a full lobotomy on a smart TV and if there would be a big enough market for that kind of service.
best thing is to never hook 'em up to the internet. provided the manufacturers don't all start requiring internet to 'set up' a tv.
next best thing would be a revert of firmware or a full 'reset' of settings; if possible. to return it to an 'out of box' state--then above, never connect it to the internet.
replacing a cheap streaming device is a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing the tv once the software gets obsoleted for whatever reason.
my coworker (and boss, technically) just casually mentioned that her inlaws 'updated' their tvs when they were visting over the holidays. i cringed so fucking hard because i have the same model, just smaller--so i know what happens.
they had just recently hooked-up wireline internet and could actually stream stuff now.. so i had just given them a new streaming stick to use instead of connecting their now 3 year old tv to the wifi.
You'd still have the TVs default OS running on a potato. I'm thinking more along the lines of replacing that with a bare bones old school OS that was responsive.
My 2017 Shield pro is starting to die and I'm dreading getting another TV box. Anyone have good experience with LibreElec or a similar distro? I am thinking of getting some sub $100 USFF from eBay
Another Shield Pro?
For me the icing on the cake on that image is the "Translate" link which makes me wonder how you might translate this into say Klingon or CEO talk or ELI 5.
Other than that, it's a sad state of affairs that we've allowed this to happen unchecked and wholesale across the planet.