LG TVs and monitors said to surveil users and install bloatware without asking

Or standardize agreements that can be agreed to with just clicks so you can tell what’s up from just seeing which agreement modules are included and what parameters they have (along with a bunch of sites that explain them in easier terms for the less literate, which will be useful because they are standards used by many agreements rather than needing a unique one for each version of each document).

Doesnt matter if it’s in kindergarten level reading, as long as it’s a few paragraphs long, people will accept it.

Yep. Windows installs manufacturer “helper” apps automatically like drivers. Got a Logitech mouse? You probably have a Logitech app in there you never asked for too because you plugged it in.

Stop using windows.

No, I just mean windows update will pull an LG “driver” and install it to your system automatically when it detects the display.

By default? Maybe.

But there are both global and granular Windows policies to tweak this. I disabled the device driver specifically, as I do like plug-and-play for other devices.

That phone was the coolest thing, it’s such a shame how it died. I’ve still got mine lol, I can get it to boot and play that one flight sim game you could buy on the app store.

Check out rootmy.tv to jailbreak your LG smart TV. Depending on the model and firmware, there could be additional steps you need to take, but in my case, since I still had the stock firmware installed, it was just a single slide of a button on the TV’s web browser.

There’s a website called rootmy.tv that can help you find or execute roots right off the TV’s web browser. When I bought the TV, I hadn’t connected it to the Internet a single time, so it still had the stock firmware. I could just type in the URL and click a single button - that’s it. Depending on the firmware, model and brand, this could look different for you. Also I’m not sure if this only works for LG TVs - might have to do some research to find a suitable method for yours.

That also sounds very practical. I’d love to get into Pis sometime, but the RAM fiasco is making them quite expensive for my current budget, sadly.

Sounds like a hostage situation

Mine works, but I guess it depends on your setup. My main GPU is a 7800XT and my secondary is a 3090 I use for video encode/decode. OBS while streaming and recording simultaneously (if I ever have time), video editing and HandBrake conversions. It just works with EndeavourOS. I can do ray tracing on the 7800 XT but it’s not something I care about in games so I always turn it off.

I’m sure if I ran dual 3090’s in SLI it would be a pain in the ass but that’s why I didn’t try for that when upgrading my system, plus the power draw.

Got me curious. Quick search and I found three windows drivers that had keyloggers hidden in them. Go figure it was HP!

• HP Notebook Keyboard Drivers: Keylogging code was discovered in the SynTP.sys file, which was part of the Synaptics Touchpad driver shipped with certain HP notebook models.

• HP Audio Drivers: Researchers found keylogging features within the Conexant HD Audio Driver (specifically version 1.0.0.46 and earlier) used in various HP laptops and other Windows systems.

It depends on their use. The most common certificates that you will “use and check” (implicitly) all the time are probably those, that get served by websites and the APIs that apps talk to. Those are usually quite short lived. Let’s Encrypt IIRC issues them with a default life time of ~90 days and there’s a push industry wide to reduce their lifespan generally to… IIRC something around 40 days. But there are more usecases and certificates and those may be valid longer. E.g. a developer that signs their code/compiled binaries.

Or - and thats more relevant - when you check a certificate you do not only check it’s content, you also check that it was issued and signed by someone “you” trust (or rather the software on your device trusts). Ususally there’s a central store on your PC managed by Microsoft (for Win), Apple (for Mac) or your Linux Distribution with a list of certificates that your device trusts. Those are usually quite long lived (often several years, probably even more than a decade). But will also end. And there will be new ones to replace the old ones. Or new vendors that get added to this trust store. If you do not update your device, this trust store won’t change.

There are now several versions how this can affect the apps in this case, e.g.

• They might not be able to talk to servers using “newer” certificates, as they cannot validate them. There might even be the problem, that the update mechanism breaks, as it wouldn’t be able to get updates from the server to get new certs effectively locking you out.
• They might only allow apps that are signed by them, but their old cert is running out and if it’s invalid, they might prevent the apps from running (as their cert is now untrusted) - note that you can provide ways around that (e.g. checking if the cert was valid when it was issued vs. checking if it would be valid now), but for a device that’s designed to be able to get updates, you might have forgotten that or didn’t think it was an issue or…

Yes. Certs can expire after whatever time the issuer wants to set for them. That could be six months or 20 years. Some infrastructure has limits on max and min lengths (more max than min usually) but not all and there are best practices as well.

More importantly the certs could have been five years old by the time this person got the TV for a total age of 8 years.

Same. My TV is a second monitor and really only gets use during football season. Who wants to watch TV in real time anymore anyway?

I’d love to know who wants all that extra crap

Better alternatives existing doesn’t give Windows a free pass to be as shitty as they want.

Yes… No true Scotsman would use Windows.

Kde connect really is amazing, its on all my devices

I have a Linux mini PC. There are definite pros, like controlling it via SSH from my Home Assistant, running Netflix in Firefox with adblocker… But drawbacks are no HDR, no 4k for streaming, heck, even 720p max for Hulu (and Disney, but I don’t have one).

However, high sails have higher resolution too, it’s just an additional step.

I use an nvidia shield, and used the developer options to disable Google’s built in launcher (and most other google related services). That’s what it takes to keep your chosen launcher. I also used an app to remap the netflix button on that stupid toblerone they call a remote to act as a mute button, so accidentally pressing it doesn’t cause me a minute of trying to get back to my content.

Yeah, I suspect Google pushes changes to the backend OS that keep breaking it on purpose, but at least we’ve got it to stick on our two TVs with a lot of effort and setting changes. Least worst option considering how pricy mini-PCs are, unfortunately.