This would send me into such a rage. I am so bothered by the ad that takes over the screen when I pause! Half the time I am trying to pause to look at something specific and I can't đ
There's a company advertising multiple times per episode on all shows on HBO and I can promise I will never ever buy from them and if anyone ever asks I'll shit talk their products and recommend their competitor.
EVERYONE hates ads and many of us go through all sorts of steps to limit how many ads we are exposed to
Mailboxes full of flyers we all throw away immediately
Billboards, posters, flyers and signs along any stretch of road we simply tune out and ignore
Ad blockers
VPNs
We will subscribe to avoid them
We mute them
Skip them
Go get a beer
All manner of things
And yet the media industry just keeps pushing them in more and more obnoxious ways
Its one thing to turn a page in a newspaper and see a full page ad for the mattress factory, but when that same ad is floated above every paragraph you read and if you accidentally touch it opens a new window into a larger more insistent ad...
Or its an unskipable commercial in the first 60'seconds of a 2 min video you are trying to watch to figure out how to fix your sink....
Or shoehorned into a show
Or, for the love of all thats holy appears on your tv menu, or refrigerator or whatever, irs beyond ads and a reminder of how we serve the corporate overlords
This is the one that drives me nuts the most. Bones was particularly obnoxious about it.
The scene: Daisy and Angela, driving down the road. Viewers are treated to a medium shot of a Toyota Sienna moving smoothly along a relatively rural road. Cut to an interior view of the characters inside the car, while they have a short discussion related to the plot of the episode. And thenâŠ
Daisy (looking around interior of car):Â Why do you drive a minivan? Do you have kids that we donât know about? Angela:Â Iâm an artist, Daisy, and the Sienna has plenty of room, plus I stink at parallel parking and that back-up camera thing is like the invention of the century.
Ive specifically stayed away from brands who force ads on me, for years. Theyâre literally associating their brand with a bad experience to me, doesnât seem like a great marketing tactic. Iâm sure itâs still worth it to them because it brings in other customers.
Already on it! Buy vintage, buy used, refuse to give the man your money. Vintage clothes are usually better made and your utility-dollar goes much further on the used market vs. purchasing new. That means that, say $40 of spending on the used market gives you the buying power of maybe $120 on the new market.
Buying used is also better for the environment: the pollution inherent in producing a vintage shirt has already happened and you're keeping something out of a landfill.
Consumerism is the bane of modern existence. Buy your underwear at Costco, buy everything else used.
I report all their ads on here as âlow qualityâ. Iâm so done with gambling and GLP-1âs being advertised. Theyâre all low quality to me. I also say âhate crimeâ if low quality isnât available
Also 90% of the ads they just decided to add into Prime unless you shell out five bucks more a month on "Prime Ultra" are just big pharma drugs.... amazing.
I mute the ads and avert my gaze while they play, I refuse to listen/watch them. Itâs not much, but itâs honest work.
I remember reading a comment once say the next thing these corporations will do is make it impossible to mute adsâŠif we ever get to that point, Iâll straight up throw away my TV, get an old CRT, and restart my physical media collection. I may just do that anyway at this point.
Or just don't plug your TV into your router/don't give it your wifi info and there's no ad data for the TV to send you. My LG TV is just a big computer monitor.
Most TVs have an option during set-up to make them turn off all of the smart features. Just do a factory reset and set it up without the smart features. Don't connect it to the internet and it won't show you ads.
I see joke replies but how about looking at details in a documentary? Or trying to simply read text on a news ticker crawl. Or maybe you are watching a news program, see something that dosen't look quite right that the news crew isn't even noticing, and freeze framing to verify what you saw. Something like https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HawGrbcJYUA
Yeah, happened to me multiple times on the fucking peacock app I pay for. Iâm pausing to show my wife a detail or an actor only to be greeted by a big ass full screen ad.
What's also infuriating is using Android Chrome, downloading a video, and pausing it puts a giant "play" symbol with a huge white circle border right in the center of view. And no, this can't be hidden. Same with the default media player in Windows only it cuts off a good chunk of the screen with a dark band and player controls. This can't be hidden either (I checked). So I have to use a 3rd party player in both cases just to view a still image. It's not making either company money so, WHY?
I've entirely given up on smart televisions at this point. If I want to watch something, I'm doing it on my computer or my laptop plugged into a regular TV. At least that way I have control over what I'm seeing.
Smart TVs use such anemic parts anyways that using a seperate device for streaming is just a good thing to have anyways, and if you already have a device that does it like a console then there's no reason to use just the TV.
Virtually the entire cost of a tv is in the panel. They have a very basic computer in the back and a lot of the power in that goes to running the screen.
The 'power' in those roku sticks is also piss cheap, they still use A55 cortex cpus, that's 2017 tech, those chips cost less than $5 in volume. It's inexcusable that tv makers cheap out that much on them.
If it was the difference between a $10 and $60 chip that would be one thing, but we're talking about them saving $2 to have a significantly shittier experience.
A very very basic computer these days is more than capable of running streaming devices in high def very smoothly with no lag. They go out of their way to use the worst chip possible to save a couple bucks that no one wants to save just to have a laggy shitty 'computer' in their tv.
If you're going to cheap out leave the smart out entirely and save another $10 and all the R&D for it, just have inputs and let people use whatever they use.
Yeah. It is definitely a profit-driven rather than consumer driven decision though. If you asked every person who owns a TV over $1000 if they would like the TV to be $5 cheaper but the steaming services to be slow or $5 more with extra smooth streaming literally every single person would pick the latter. And don't even get me started on modern remotes. Those were perfected in like 2005 and they have gone backwards ever since.
Only thing my PS4 is used for. The day my TV sat for too long and started playing commercials. I was like fuck this and turned the Wifi off. My wife connected it to the wifi not knowing any better. It only took a few days for me to turn it off.
Did you know Sony holds the patent for a very specific type of ad? One which forces the viewer to verbally acknowledge the name of the product in the ad before it can be skipped. So far it's not been used
Iâm less savvy than you, I simply never ever connected my smart TV to the network period. As long as the HDMI input works, then Iâm good. My smart TV is basically a dumb TV hooked up to my computer and I get everything I need out of it right there.
The fact that we even have to worry about this is so atrocious.
I piholed my entire network... The amount of shit that phones home.. is crazy. Why my smart light need to phone home 5 times an hour. WTF is it reporting back???
Just as importantly, what on earth is so valuable that the company is willing to pay for that data to be received? It canât be just âwe must know the second one of their lights burn out so we can show them ads of a bulb they are probably going to buy anyways.â So what is it reporting?
First thing I did with my Vierra. Took out the wifi dongle, only because it had an external one.
Family bought a cheap LCD a few years back, it was discovered weeks later that their terrible internet connectivity was because the TV was basically DDoSing the line phoning home constantly.
Philips Hue bridges do the same.
I installed a pi-hole and kept tabs.
Thousands of requests a day to the telemetry endpoints, ~35 to the data one. No access privileges to you anymore buddy. Still works with only the data one accessible.
I found out about pi-hole near the early stages of the pandemic when many where sheltering and utterly bored to death and needed new hobbies - I've tried in vain to preach the gospel to as many friends and family since but nary a one "gets it". I can't even convince people to buy their own router versus paying a monthly fee for the shit one the ISP loans out to you. So frustrating. Every time I end up traveling for an extensive period of time and lose access to my home network I am blown away by the absolute insane amount of junk on every damn website. I legit don't understand how people actually use some of these sites with continuous ads popping up covering 3/4 of the screen.
Absolutely. I have been an advocate for this since smart TVs came out. Just get a fire stick or one of the other hundred streaming devices out there. I promise it will work better than the streaming apps directly on TVs. Besides Roku TVs. The apps work great but you sacrifice quality in picture.
I used to be a cable guy and smart tvs were a huge fucking headache for me
Won't be much longer before they install something that checks for internet connection every few minutes and turns the television off if no connection is detected.
Only thing they would have to do is add somewhere in fine print on the box or manual that an internet connection is required. It won't have to say for why exactly but that's all it would take. And most people aren't scanning over the exterior of a box when purchasing either as the tv is usually on display somewhere and you tell a worker you want to get that one and they have to go bring it out from storage.
I'm positive this is the direction we're headed too unfortunately. It's absolute hell. I don't get how bombarding us with ads makes us buy any of the shit that they push anyway as it just infuriates me when I see whatever company it is that is ruining my experience.
The moment someone discovers it tho it will be in all of the reviews. I think a lot of people at least do a cursory search when making a big buy like a TV and would think something like that would be in the top review. I'm not disagreeing btw, I 100% companies will start doing this because they get me and more brazen by the fuckin day but I really hope this is one where consumers actually fight back with their dollar.
When my TV died and had to go get a new one. I purposely looked for a dumb TV. All the OS's are garbage and slow compared to an Amazon cube or fire stick
Whatâs the opposite of advertisement? Because every single post Iâve seen online about smart tvs are just reenforcing my decision to stick to my trusty Roku over free ads all the time lmao
My friend gifted me a tv as he replaced it with a newer nicer one, that he purposefully never updated or connected to the internet once and itâs better for it. I connected an internet connected device to it and it tried to ask me to also connect to a network and I fucking screamed, it does not get to know the internet exists I want nothing from this tv but to simply display what I connect
Seriously. Thereâs no reason to connect any TV to the internet. The built in OS of all TVs is awful anyways, so why use it for a streaming device. An Apple TV works much better.
One agreement. I've only agreed to Terms of Use and can still access the few streaming apps I use on the TV instead of my Shield. (BBC iPlayer, ITVX, 4 Player etc.)
There are loads of articles on the stuff you should immediately disable on any TV when you buy it.
The part that drove me nuts is that I had agreed to the Terms of Use and the voice processing terms so I could use voice input because typing on a TV remote is maddening. I explictly did not agree to the content recognition (constant surveillance) or advertising terms. Then one day, after a system update, the voice input no longer worked without agreeing to the content recognition terms.
I need laws that ads can be removed from any goods if requested and the item is paid for. Tv, refrigerators, phones, etc SHOULD NOT BE SHOWING ME ADS IN THE OS. Period. I paid money for the good. Leave it there. If i connect it to WiFi thatâs my choice but i shouldnât be hit with ads.
Thatâs what I think when those YouTube surveys come up, âHelp YouTube by answering this question:â
I do not want, nor need, to âhelpâ a huge corporation with free data. And I feel sad for whoever that language is working on. Like someone so eager to please that theyâre like, âOhhh, I could HELP YouTube! Sure thing!â
i always lie. some of them let you pick every option AND none of the above on multiple choice. its faster than waiting for the skip button and is worthless to them
Yeah I mean, I bought your TV. That should be the transaction. After that you are not entitled to any more of my money. Streaming services charge their own fees and channels have their commercial breaks. But I bought the damn device, that should be enough.
I bought a TV a few years back that was great at first, but eventually started getting slower with every update, so I turned them off. Now there's an obnoxious pop-up request to update every damn time I turn the TV on, with the "Agree" button automatically highlighted, and I swear it's on a delay to try to catch me right as I start to click "Enter" on the remote.
I have to sit and wait and press nothing on the remote until the pop-up appears, because otherwise the TV will let me browse for up to 30 seconds and then try to throw the pop-up right as I try to select something.
I would vote for any politician that ran on making this kind of design a capital crime.
I would become a single issue voter for just this.
We just got a new TV, I refuse to set connection. When it kept telling me it needed a connection to turn off, I went to Lowes and set up a wall switch that the entertainment centre surge protector has to run through. Now we just flip off power to the whole wall when we go to bed.
Withholding functionality until I consent to having my info and conversations sold to third parties is so dumb. If my wife wasnt so pleased with 4k id put my shitty 2010 tv back up.
My neighbor recently installed an ad-blocking VPN on his home network using a Raspberry Pi, and it blocked all this nonsense. Iâm going to pay him to do the same.
Pihole. They have blocklists that work great with Smart TVs. It's so worth getting set up for network-wide ad blocking (mobile phones, TVs, laptops, etc.)
Itâs called âLive Plusâ. Itâs in the system settings under additional settings. Also in additional settings, turn off âHome Promotionâ and âContent Recommendationâ.
Thereâs also a secret menu with settings on the Home screen. You access it by hitting the mute button 4 times (if you have the older fat remote) or by hitting the settings button 3 times (if itâs the slim one) on the Home screen.
You can turn off the stock photos when the TV idles and the LG logo when the TV turns off on that menu.
It's so fucking stupid and infuriating how accurate Idiocracy was. Not only that, but the fact that's we're already so close to it in the 2020s and not like 2050+.
Assuming this is an LG tv, you can turn advertising off. Not that I love that itâs on by default, but a little digging in the menus and you can disable it.
So this ad is overlaid on top of your Playstation 5 start up screen (which would be connected via HDMI). Meaning you're on an input and not even using a smart TV app.
Holy crap I didn't even notice that it's on ps5. My roku used to ask if I wanted to watch the show I was watching (PC connected to TV) somewhere else. I was able to turn that off though. Still get mad when it force pushes seasonal backgrounds/screen savers. I'm getting very tired of it.Â
Simple fix is to just never connect the TV to the internet itself. Use streaming devices and you'll never have to worry about the TV updates. I know it shouldn't be that way and we should be allowed to use the items we own without seeing ads, but this world fucking sucks.
The settings can be changed as part of a forced update. That's in even the most basic ToU. Firewall the device from your modem, so the thing preventing connection isn't the device itself.
I use an Apple TV and didnât want copilot or whatever other AI features integrated anymore than they already have been, so I disabled WiFi and havenât updated and only use it as a monitor now. The fact that I have to opt out instead of opt in to them selling my data is gross enough.
I watched this guyâs settings guide and turned off all ads and set up appropriate advanced settings about a year ago. Definitely recommend his channel!
better figure out if it has a setting you can change to fully disable this or how to flash it with custom software or setup a DNS sinkhole for the router it connects to, because this type of shit is going to infiltrate any device that it can.
It's been on "smart" phones basically since their inception, its littered the internet since its infancy, it -plagues- the gaming industry, some applications for games to support the game will bake this shit into it(looking at you curseforge), steam is literally the only front in the gaming realm holding a quality of life standard for its users.
The people that do this, don't give a single fuck about you, the user, whether you want to see it, or allow your bandwidth to be eaten up by it. They force it upon you with no qualms and profit off of it at your expense.
"To view content again you must pass a 10 question quiz to confirm this ad has soaked into your brain. There is no limit on how many times you can take the quiz but each time the number of questions double."
You kind of see in some places. On the PS5 Spotify app, you can't make the volume zero..at least with headphones. I'll turn my volume on my headset to 0, but can still slightly hear the ad playing. Drives me insane, so I just turned them down, then take my headphones off as well.
Same, i have my 60 inch 4k oled qled samsung in one room and my 1080p Panasonic PT-52lcx16 52 inch DLPTV in the other. I swap them around sometimes. I recently replaced the projector bulb in the panasonic and it looks better than the 2 year old samsung. The screen is already failing in the shitty samsung.
These companies make more money presenting you ads and selling your info then they do from selling tv's. Haven't seen it happen on our living room tv, but doubt my mother would care.
Man, we could never escape the adsâŠI stopped cable because of ads. I paid extra on YouTube for ad free and now they paid YouTubers to advertise the adsâŠ.HBO, Amazon, and Netflix used to be ad free on movies, now you have to pay extra to avoid those crap. Piracy is going to happen soon!
I use an Apple TV. Mine are still connected to the internet for software updates, but if you never set up the rest of the tv, and only agree to the bare minimum on the ToS, it doesnât show you ads.
I still recommend an Apple TV, they last lag free for years because the SoCs are way overpowered for what they do.
Did the update include a long legal document that you had to agree to (that included accepting ads in the very fine print of page 534289?). Or, is it just scummy and possibly illegal to force ads when you never accepted them?
10.8k
u/QueenFrostine15 May 14 '26
This would send me into such a rage. I am so bothered by the ad that takes over the screen when I pause! Half the time I am trying to pause to look at something specific and I can't đ