…due to seemingly installing adware on PCs and telling you to warn guests they may be recorded by AI features, to comply with ‘wiretapping’ laws
What if the tv can connect to public wifi? What if the tv has a sim in it? What if the tv has a microphone, and a camera in it, and what if they are on even when the tv is in standby? What if you walk into someone else’s house, or into a business?
I have an “ancient” 720p dumb TV and I refuse to get rid of it because of shit like this. My disabled eyes can’t tell the difference between that and 4k anyways
Fighting the good fight with Pi-hole and I understand most people cant set it up or afford the hardware but its worth it.
Sorry if I’m daft but what’s the pihole blocking? The “Live on LG channels”?
I have an LG OLED but I don’t use the TV OS
Much simpler this way. Just don’t connect the TV directly to the internet, all problems solved.
Yeah, Pi-hole, with the support of the Firebog community’s blocklists, blocks about 99% of this kind of ad (and much more), and I absolutely love it. This is a 120Hz 4K LG OLED TV that I primarily use with my PlayStation 5, although I use LG’s built-in operating system for Plex because it’s the most convenient option.
If you watch youtube on the tv does it block ads?
No, I wish Pi-Hole blocked the ads that are embedded directly into the YT stream. I don’t watch YT on my TV only on my computer. If you use Firefox with the uBlock Origin extension, you can block all of those annoying embedded YT ads. I haven’t seen ads on YouTube in years, and whenever I watch it without the extension, it feels strange.
I wish it worked on Roku. Wat hing shows on the PC is great, then I watch the same streaming service on Roku and gets ads.
Yeah absolutely how I watch youtube but if there was a big screen way I would be so in. I wont pay google thought
I presume the LG OS is some version of Android. If you can get into the admin menus or use an android streaming box, there are several YouTube alternative apps that don’t show the ads. Pipe pipe is y favorite.
Not android, actually it’s WebOS which Palm developed first on their Pré line of smartphones before being bought out and then subsequently destroyed by HP. HP sold the OS to LG who has been putting on their TVs ever since.
WebOS was way ahead of it’s time and actually did a lot of things that both Android and iOS later copied years later.
“Whoever came up with this…”
Executive with shit eating grin in the corner of the room
“And I’ll fuckin’ do it again”
When I was shopping for a new monitor a while back I stayed away from “Smart” monitors with their own operation system. I’m connecting it to a computer, why would I spend an extra $600 when the exact same monitor without an operating system exists?
Look! You can watch Netflix on this monitor!
Well, yes, there’s a PC stuck on it, of course I can.
No, you can watch it without the PC!
Why would I want to use a monitor without a PC?
It’s only half again as expensive! It’s a steal!
Tbf, you could probably actually stream Netflix at 4K on it since it gets limuted to something like 720p in the browser. But that’s just because Netflix are bastards, not because of technical limits
it gets limited to something like 720p in the browser
I think that depends on the browser (for reasons that I never really looked into). Some do 720p (I think that’s Firefox), some do ~1k (the Chrome based ones), maybe more.
Remember, LG stands for “Literal Garbage”.
Lecherous Ghouls
Connecting your tv to the internet is a terrible idea and has been for years. If you have webos and must connect it for some reason root it, block all updates (they rarely include bug fixes, just make the UI more sluggish with increased advertising), and block all lg ad domains in your router.
||snu.lge.com^ ||su.lge.com^ ||su-ssl.lge.com^ ||snu-dev.lge.com^ ||su-dev.lge.com^ ||nsu.lge.com^
Are the domains to block, formatted for adguard.
Unlike a lot of what I see on the internet your TV is 10000% listening to you (sole purpose is to target ads) anyway just disconnect or isolate your TV from the internet.
I mean, that’s a bit complicated, and they can always change the domains. I just block the whole-ass TV from WAN. I can still interface with it for smart home stuff on LAN, but it can’t update or access anything outside my network. And since it has an IP on the LAN, it doesn’t bitch and moan about not having network.
Yeah but this is going a step further. This is also happening for PC monitors which are a bit harder to keep away from internet seeing as they connect to your internet-connected computer. Router blocking will help there too of course but the average user will not be able to set this up.
The monitor thing is crazy because I have no idea why you would install software for your computer monitor?? Like the monitor itself isn’t connected to the internet and the adware comes from installing some lg monitor tools suite, and I have no clue why you would do that? Like are people really dead set on changing their monitor input via pc instead of the monitor osd??
Monitor should and does just work. Lg just scams people into installing unnecessary software because it’s harder to shove ads into a computer monitor
Windows does that automatically. The software is part of the LG monitor driver and is distributed through Microsoft’s automatic driver setup infrastructure.
There’s an obscure GPO that can prevent Windows from auto-installing “related files” but of course most people don’t know it exists or that it’s yet another core OS feature you have to turn off to use Windows in peace.
“I turned it off but it got turned on again during the next update.” There is no peace. To use Windows, one must constantly be at war.
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.
Thanks to:@[email protected]
That’s the part I’m confused by. Why does a non touchscreen monitor even need a driver? It should work fine before windows is even in the picture?
Might be glorified ICC profiles. Normally EDID should cover most bases already but I can see how config files might improve matters.
Of course there is no justification for adding a dropper for unwanted programs.
Windows
i found the problem /hj
/hj
Handjob? Never seen that tag before…
It means 'Hey Jude". You have to take a sad song and make it better.
Well a hand job can make most feel better too, at least for a short while.
I have no idea why you would install software for your computer monitor??
AI. They need to be able to scan the pixels for…reasons
I didn’t connect my tv to the internet, I never accepted the terms of service. All you’re supposed to do is display what the HDMI tells you to.
Sadly the vendor that recommended this TV didn’t get the message that I wanted a dumb TV
LG gaming monitors automatically installing unwanted software on PCs - how??
Through abusing the windows update mechanism, I think
Logi has been doing this for years.
Steelseries as well.
Thought Microsoft would control that? Like LG monitor xyz -> one display driver from LG
Hahaha. MS I’d complicit. They have only quarterly numbers to lose if they did that.
Been thinking about a monitor upgrade… I should get on that if they’re going the way of TVs. Any recommendations that don’t have all this shit?
I’ve been using the same monitors for… holy shit, like almost two decades. One was a Goodwill trash purchase to use as a secondary, the other was a highschool graduation gift. Highschool. I barely even remember highschool at this point. Anyway, they’re showing their age. And I’m way out of touch with what specs to shoot for, or what they even mean. I need a ‘For Idiots’ guide to this shit.
I got a scepter two years back. Specifically because they advertised no smart bullshit.
Price on Scepters look decent too. Fuck it, going for it.
Thanks for the insight!
I bought a Dell monitor back in 2022, though I wasn’t caught up with their support towards the Israeli atrocities back then. Would recommend literally anyone else besides Dell or LG. Maybe Samsung, if they offer dumb monitors?
“Please allow ads on this site. Click OK to learn more.”
Here’s the Gamers Nexus report.
TechRadar is a shitty content mill that, in this case, basically just half-asses a summary of the GN video, embeds a few Reddit comments, and calls it
macaronijournalism.Thanks Steve!
Super short version for those who don’t want to fight the site, some lg monitors install upsettingly comprehensive spyware onto your computer.
Some lg tvs, years after purchase and with no warning, do the same thing to themselves. Like sleeper agents.
And I’m not talking “monitor the images” spyware, I’m talking “listen in on your every word and send the transcript to lg” level spyware. “We have clauses around wiretapping wormed into the user agreement” level spying.
🤣 RIP
Nah, fuck Chuck. He was a hateful piece of shit, and the world is better off without him in it.
They are not even asking though. They just install it.
Is it possible to physically disable the mic on the TVs without adversely affecting other functions? I see no reason a mic to be necessary on a TV at all.
I have a tcl smart TV and it has a physical switch on the base of the TV that turns the mic on and off.
I was also able go download a program called productivity sweet which bypasses the TV’s base menu and just loads to a hdmi output screen and apps you want to see so there’s no adds or anything
Probably, just cut the wire connecting the mic.
I did a quick search and other suggestions are to fill the “mic hole”, stick a needle in the mic hole to damage the mic, and applying a soldering iron to the mic. My LG tv has no visible mic hole, so they are getting crafty at hiding them.
The soldering iron might be a bad idea if you don’t know what you’re doing as it could lead to a short.
Not sure about LG, but other brands usually put the microphone on the remote
I have a LG oled tv and keep it off the internet because I keep hearing about crap like this
I connect it occasionally because it has been pretty unstable and I hope that updates will resolve issues, but seems they are more concerned about updating ads etc than improving the system software
I have a LG oled tv and keep it off the internet
I connect it occasionally
So then you don’t keep it off the Internet, it would seem.
Well it’s not streaming back data to them all the time
Better than the alternative I suppose. I have never owned a smart TV but need a new TV soon. Not looking forward to the shopping experience for that.
Just return it if it doesn’t work right. You don’t need to tolerate this.
uBlock Origin anyone for the shitty ads? How do you folks even use internet without adblockers?! I don’t give a shit if it “pays” for the websites, it’s shit.
As for LG, I put it on my shit list. Their panels might be good, but I will never buy TV or monitor branded by them after seeing this shit. Then again my MSI motherboard has its dumbass Armory whatever driver nonsense that I need to disable in BIOS every time I reset CMOS which is pissing me off too.
Issue here is actually combination of shitty behavior from both, LG and Microsoft. LG doesn’t technically inject anything, they just send a hardware flag to Windows which then just gladly pulls shit from internet and runs it. Not only it’s annoying as fuck, this is malicious behavior and on top of that huge security risk. If anyone hijacks this shit from LG and Windows will just gladly parse and execute WHATEVER binary on millions of LG monitors. WHAT. THE. FUCK. You don’t have to compromise each individual system, you just need to compromise single target which is LG. I don’t think I need to further explain how that is insanely bad idea and Microsoft should disable this bullshit in Windows ASAP. I hope there will be more outrage about this…
The ads are inherent in the software which Windows 11 automatically downloads as soon as you plug in the LG monitor. It doesn’t ask, and you will get the ads even with an adblocker because they are not shown in a browser, but in Windows itself.
The best solution is not to use LG or Windows.
An adblocker plug-in might not help but something like pihole will
This annoys me intensely. I don’t own a tv or monitor from LG, but I do have an excellent (dumb) washing machine and fridge, I would have updated my TV which is currently a fairly basic Samsung TV, because of it’s ads and I’ve decided they are on my shit list for this kind of thing.
Surely there is some legal recourse? It’s vandalism. They are putting things on YOUR property. Secondly, shouldn’t they be paying YOU to lease your advertising space???
You are licensing their property. You do not own the TV.
It feels preachy but I try to explain that to people when appropriate
