the answer is basically all TVs are subsidized to some degree. A list is somewhat pointless because they all do some sketchy shit and as lg has recently shown they reserve the right to change the terms years after the fact with firmware updates, even if you buy a flagship model that cost 3-5k

Basically you need to use it intelligently. Either don’t connect it to the internet at all, only connect it to an intranet/isolated vlan, or (least effective) block every suspicious outgoing request with your router or a dns thing like adguard/pihole.

The alternatives are to buy a non consumer display (eg something for signage or for like a meeting room in an office) which are usually more durable but also often far more expensive (no ad subsidies), the panel quality is generally noticeably worse (unless you’re buying a mediocre tv), and you lose out on enthusiast features (earc, vrr, etc). Or you can get a solid projector; the cheap projectors are usually kind of junk but nice ones are quite nice and often (but not always, they’re increasingly “smart”) have barebones ui/os. This can be pretty impractical for your living situation though

pfsense running on whatever hardware that doesn’t use too much power

Have you ever actually used gallery? it sucks

in short they’re further reducing transducer size for a $100 price increase. Gonna get sick bass from that 1.25” woofer bro

This isn’t really true, they don’t write a separate os for the fancier TVs. The $5000 83” oled still does all this. It’s not as bad as the $75 37” lcd that’s heavily subsidized but that’s only partially because of less intrusive ads. The ads are still there, just not as much, the data collection is still there, and the tv is just runs smoother because the hardware is generally (a bit) more powerful

Ensure it works offline before buying would be my only advice here. Also don’t be surprised if it still has ads, I know android tv can have ads without connecting to the internet because it’ll have them cached from a fresh install. Adblocking on android tv is a pain because the caching of ad content can make you think it’s not working

I’ve heard this and while they are sturdier they generally also have worse panels from an image quality standpoint. If you’re buying a $400 60” lcd tv it probably won’t be all that different but if you’re looking for an oled level tv these panels will be noticeably worse in comparison

Another alternative is projectors. Can be impractical in many scenarios but often come with a pretty barebones OS, especially if you get a proper one and not one of the goofy portable ones they sell for $100

While I overall like my lg tv they have some shitty things from both a tech perspective (can’t play or pass through dts audio bc of licensing bullshit though this may not be the case on newer models) and an anti consumer perspective (data collection and ads)

On the first point you can circumvent by using e-arc and avr

On the second point you have to dig through settings and make sure sales of your personal data is not enabled (it is by default and can be re-enabled with updates)

You can also block the following in your router/dns:

us.ad.lgsmartad.com us.info.lgsmartad.com ngfts.lge.com lgad.cjpowercast.com edgesuite.net us.rdx2.lgtvsdp.com us.info.lgsmartad.com us.ibs.lgappstv.com us.lgtvsdp.com ad.lgappstv.com smartshare.lgtvsdp.com ibis.lgappstv.com us.ad.lgsmartad.com lgad.cjpowercast.com.edgesuite.net ngfts.lge.com yumenetworks.com smartclip.net smartclip.com

snu.lge.com su.lge.com lgtvonline.lge.com

This will block the ads in the os as well as hamper their data collection, somewhat. The last three specifically will also block updates.

You can also root webos in some scenarios which gives you certain options to block ads in YouTube and such

On one hand don’t support TVs that do this anti consumer bullshit. On the other hand good luck buying a tv in 2024 that doesn’t pull some kind of anti consumer bullshit? Any tv with google/android tv, Roku, etc built in is just as bad or worse. Most if not all manufacturers engage in OS level data collection.

Unless it’s a rewritable cd, or the cd is the first step in a chain of exploits that allows write access on the usb ports used for peripherals so that an inside person could get away with a usb key or modified keyboard, or something else we can’t conceptualize but some group of well funded state actors can

I mean therein lies the problem. If you remove mass storage devices but allow cds then that’s just a different attack vector to exploit. You could potentially make it so there is no way to interface with any kind of storage but then when someone finds a way to break things open with a hid device you now have no practical way to fix the issue (plus working with the machine will be a nightmare)

Not that kind of cable

Depends on the piracy site. If you go to some of the pirate streaming sites or the blogs that host tons of pirated software with 30 rapidgator links that die after a month (instead of just using a torrent like a normal sensible person trying to share a 2-30+gb file that is begging to be taken down) without Adblock it’s absolutely comical how many ads there are. Even with Adblock those are the sites that manage to still have ads because they’re on the cutting edge of sketchy shit. It’s like seeing a late 90s to early 2000s website with how much random bullshit is pasted everywhere

Despite that I’m pretty sure that Amazon, google, etc do far more nefarious shit behind the scenes in terms of tracking/fingerprinting you and collecting data to sell

It’s a trivial repair assuming that’s the extent of the damage and there’s not any quirks associated with an extremely complex medical device that has no documentation whatsoever. Like maybe after not having the controller’s power supply connected for such a length of time there needs to be a calibration process upon bringing it back to life that can only be done with proprietary software

The biggest thing though is that by going in and fixing it yourself you open yourself to the possibility that the company will now say “oh this was worked on by someone else and that’s why it’s broken, we won’t work on it now”. That’s the state of repair rights in America, vendors are openly hostile to people who fix their own things even if they do it sufficiently. We used to have political representation that gave us regulations to allow us to work on and even modify our cars without impacting the warranty but that’s been eroded and there’s not really anything of that nature for tech stuff (other than judgements saying broken warranty seals don’t count for anything)

What kind of tv? For webos it’s potentially a bit complicated but also potentially stupid easy depending on which version of webos your tv has

https://www.webosbrew.org/rooting/

I would strongly suggest avoiding nvm even if it’s supported unless you’re very comfortable with hardware hacks. The others are all software and fairly easy to do if you’re capable with following instructions. The most recent, dejavuln, is fairly simple but can be a bit finicky (you may have to try a bunch of times) but lg is also rolling out patches for it so if your tv is updated you may be out of luck. It’s hard to say because the patches aren’t rolled out unilaterally. Webos is a bit confusing and there are many “branches” that all have similar features but wildly different numbering. If your tv is patched block updates by either disconnecting from the internet or blocking the above sites in your router and watch the webos homebrew discord (linked on that site). There are people actively researching new exploits and if one pops up it’ll be discussed in the discord first (and if it’s a big deal, like they expect it to be patched, they usually ping everyone to let them know to do it asap)

As if android tv isn’t also loaded to hell with ads and reliant on streaming networks that basically all have increasingly obtrusive ads

Either only buy physical or pirate all of your media, set up a jellyfin server, set up a dns server that blocks ads (adguard, pihole) and point any device that can connect to the internet at it. Cancel all of your streaming subscriptions and use a coreelec box to watch your media from your jellyfin server. There are literally no other ways to not get obtrusive advertising.

If you have an lg webos tv like me you can keep it connected to the internet but root it, block updates in homebrew channel, install YouTube with adblocking and sponsor block, and then again make sure it’s getting dns from your ad block server. Add in custom rules for

us.ad.lgsmartad.com us.info.lgsmartad.com ngfts.lge.com lgad.cjpowercast.com edgesuite.net us.rdx2.lgtvsdp.com us.info.lgsmartad.com us.ibs.lgappstv.com us.lgtvsdp.com ad.lgappstv.com smartshare.lgtvsdp.com ibis.lgappstv.com us.ad.lgsmartad.com lgad.cjpowercast.com.edgesuite.net ngfts.lge.com yumenetworks.com smartclip.net smartclip.com

snu.lge.com su.lge.com lgtvonline.lge.com

These block ads and the last three block the update servers. The update blocking isn’t strictly necessary if you have rooted and blocked updates in homebrew channel but it will get rid of the annoying “new version” nag that pops up when you turn on the tv. You may have to clear caches on the tv

In some less common scenarios you may need the ftdi or ch34x drivers. Support for these is usually already in the kernel but if not the ftdi comes with the arduino sdk and the ch34x drivers are available

You would generally only need this for older or super cheap printers, and even then you would generally only need this if you need to reflash the firmware for some reason or refuse to print from an sd/usb. but don’t refuse to do that, even back in the days before wireless printers it was a dumb idea to print via usb

You can also use komf alongside komga/kavita to just scrape metadata automatically upon import. A bit finnicky to get going (a tampermonkey script is required to give it accessible setting on the komga page) but works very well and even has a gui for identifying results and selecting the correct option if the auto scrape fails similar to jellyfin

For the actual reader part I just use komga as a server and read through Mihon (one of the tachiyomi forks) on my ereader mostly. occasionally I’ll use paperback on my iphone (although recently I’ve been trying Tachimanga, which is basically an iOS tachiyomi fork). Loads library, can sort by tag/library/date added, reads most things very well, can sync read status with the komga server (and/or manga updates or whatever), etc.

If you have a rooted webos tv there’s an app for this in the home brew channel

https://repo.webosbrew.org/apps/org.webosbrew.inputhook/

a virus perpetuates and replicates itself infecting other executables with its code, thus the name “virus”.

this is just shitty code that crashes hard. it’s not even particularly malicious, it doesn’t destroy anything

that’s not what a virus is