My TV (dumb but attached to a Roku Express) died last month and since then I’ve been watching on computer + Zen Browser + uBlock Origin, with zero ads.
And noticing that I don’t see a single TV for sale in nearby shops that is not a (usually Roku) smart TV, i.e. data surveillance capitalist tool.
Instead of looking for a tv, look for a commercial display. They’re basically a computer monitor the size of a TV. Samsung makes a line that we use at work, and the cost is similar to a mid-range TV. They can function completely without internet.
I’m fearing when my tv finally dies. It’s a 15 year old 75", and I know i won’t have the money for a new one when the time comes. Especially not enough to shop around for a dumb tv the same size.
The funny thing is you can just use an external box and never connect your tv to the internet at all. Let it collect all the data it wants. It’s not like it can tell anybody.
It may not be that way for much longer. Take a look at Amazon Sidewalk. They’re using low power, long range mesh technology so Ring Doorbells and Echos can communicate without access to the internet. That may not sound like a big deal, but the potential is huge.
If companies like Amazon/Google are able to create a “side network” they could use it to provide low bandwidth backhaul for other companies that want to get telemetry from their airgapped devices.
So, for example, you get a new Roku smart TV and don’t connect it to your Wi-Fi, but your neighbour has a Ring doorbell so it just uses that.
Mesh tech is awesome, and so is tech in general, but we are so slow at regulating it. This stuff needs to be opt in at the absolute minimum.
While that is concerning, it’s not something that would scale well. Mesh networks don’t have the bandwidth for all the telemetry data from tons of users all at once. It wouldn’t work unless they cut back on the amount of data they wanted to get and they will never be asking for less data.
The data would have to be scaled back, no doubt about that. Right now they collect everything under the sun because they can. Remember, this would be data they otherwise wouldn’t get at all.
If I were to predict how it would work I would say they would continue to send back full fidelity data over Wi-Fi the same as today, but mesh would be used as a fallback if nothing is available. That data could be bundled to once a day, or week or whatever they decide makes sense and would only include summary information like, how much time spent on each channel per day, SSIDs scanned in the area, etc.
A quick way to test would be installing the Flatpak version of FF. As far as I know it should contain everything you need in one go, plus super easy to uninstall.
My TV (dumb but attached to a Roku Express) died last month and since then I’ve been watching on computer + Zen Browser + uBlock Origin, with zero ads.
And noticing that I don’t see a single TV for sale in nearby shops that is not a (usually Roku) smart TV, i.e. data surveillance capitalist tool.
Instead of looking for a tv, look for a commercial display. They’re basically a computer monitor the size of a TV. Samsung makes a line that we use at work, and the cost is similar to a mid-range TV. They can function completely without internet.
Something like these: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/commercial-displays/ci/35567/N/3538895735
Awesome advice
Amazing! That 55" is about what I paid for the Roku tv before all of this blatant “shit on the user” bullshit, and it still suuuuuuuuuckss
Edit: the Roku tv sucks… Not the Samsung dumb tv
I’m fearing when my tv finally dies. It’s a 15 year old 75", and I know i won’t have the money for a new one when the time comes. Especially not enough to shop around for a dumb tv the same size.
The funny thing is you can just use an external box and never connect your tv to the internet at all. Let it collect all the data it wants. It’s not like it can tell anybody.
It may not be that way for much longer. Take a look at Amazon Sidewalk. They’re using low power, long range mesh technology so Ring Doorbells and Echos can communicate without access to the internet. That may not sound like a big deal, but the potential is huge.
If companies like Amazon/Google are able to create a “side network” they could use it to provide low bandwidth backhaul for other companies that want to get telemetry from their airgapped devices.
So, for example, you get a new Roku smart TV and don’t connect it to your Wi-Fi, but your neighbour has a Ring doorbell so it just uses that.
Mesh tech is awesome, and so is tech in general, but we are so slow at regulating it. This stuff needs to be opt in at the absolute minimum.
While that is concerning, it’s not something that would scale well. Mesh networks don’t have the bandwidth for all the telemetry data from tons of users all at once. It wouldn’t work unless they cut back on the amount of data they wanted to get and they will never be asking for less data.
The data would have to be scaled back, no doubt about that. Right now they collect everything under the sun because they can. Remember, this would be data they otherwise wouldn’t get at all.
If I were to predict how it would work I would say they would continue to send back full fidelity data over Wi-Fi the same as today, but mesh would be used as a fallback if nothing is available. That data could be bundled to once a day, or week or whatever they decide makes sense and would only include summary information like, how much time spent on each channel per day, SSIDs scanned in the area, etc.
Why not librewolf, Firefox has native vertical tabs since Firefox 136
Video playback smooth in Zen but jerky in Firefox. Haven’t tried in Librewolf or Firedragon.
Are you using Linux? Do you have the right codecs installed? Firefox shouldn’t be jerky.
Linux: Yes, Linux Mint Xfce 22.1
Codecs: Yes,
mint-meta-codecs.Everything seems fine in Zen, Falkon, FreeTube, SMPlayer, VLC etc.
But the one time I tried watching video in Firefox recently, it was jerky.
A quick way to test would be installing the Flatpak version of FF. As far as I know it should contain everything you need in one go, plus super easy to uninstall.