The move embodies how ads are a growing and virtually inescapable part of the TV-viewing experience—even when you’re not watching anything.
As you might have expected, LG didn’t make a big, splashy announcement to consumers or LG TV owners about this new ad format. Instead, and ostensibly strategically, the September 5 announcement was made to advertisers. LG appears to know that screensaver ads aren’t a feature that excites users. Still, it and many other TV makers are happy to shove ads into the software of already-purchased devices.
LG TV owners may have already spotted the ads or learned about them via FlatpanelsHD, which today reported seeing a full-screen ad on the screensaver for LG’s latest flagship TV, the G4. “The ad appeared before the conventional screensaver kicks in," per the website, “and was localized to the region the TV was set to.”
LG has put these ads on by default, according to FlatpanelsHD, but you can disable them in the TVs’ settings. Still, the introduction of ads during a screensaver, shown during a pause in TV viewing that some TVs use as an opportunity to show art or personal photos that amplify the space, illustrates the high priority that ad dollars and tracking have among today’s TVs—even new top-of-the-line ones.
The addition of screensaver ads that users can disable may sound like a comparatively smaller disruption as far as TV operating system (OS) ads go. But the incorporation of new ad formats into TV OSes’ various nooks and crannies is a slippery slope. Some TV brands are even centered more on ads than selling hardware. Unfortunately, it’s up to OS operators and TV OEMs to decide where the line is, including for already-purchased TVs. User and advertiser interests don’t always align, making TV streaming platforms without third-party ads, such as Apple TV, increasingly scarce gems.
LOL, they are basically billboards that you purchase to display ads at home!
The fabled HTPC is a fix that few people know exists for a problem that few people know they can do anything about.
Anything other than the native TV experience. I use a Nvidia shield personally.
It’s not perfect but at least I don’t get ads for anything other than a few Disney shows in a small bar
Dystrophic…
Every day I turn on my LG TV, it wants an update. It’s been doing this for like 3 years now. Given the article, it won’t be getting that update any time soon!
I generally like the picture quality from my LG OLED but the interface is not great and you are sooo right about the updates. My SO constantly complains about turning on the tv and it needs an update.
The pop up is slightly delayed as well, and I think its very intentional so you turn it on and then start doing an action and select something, only to select the update.
My TV is probably going to kick the bucket in a year or two at most. Filtering “non smart TVs” on a site like BestBuy shows only commercial display options at this point.
Are there any well maintained projects out there that are able to replace the firmware on newer smart TVs to get rid of these features? I really just want a dumb display with an input for a Chromecast with CEC support (or similar device if Google decides to enshittify that platform with screensaver ads too).
If you want a Chromecast, why not just buy a TV that runs on Google TV (Android) instead?
Just don’t connect it to the internet and it’s a dumb display, simple as that
Last tv i bought wouldn’t let you set it up without connecting to the internet. Guess we’ll need open hardware tvs next if they don’t aleady exist
Couldn’t you theoretically set it up and afterwards unplug the wifi adapter?
I just returned it, but my idea was a separate VLAN and block all connections except for whitelisted ones for streaming. Smart tvs/rokus/etc do a lot of talking and they could theoretically brick themselves if there isn’t an internet connection available.
The future is a wonderful place!
I think the best way forward would be a single board computer that can do an open source equivalent to chromecasting. Plug that in and leave your TV unconnected to the network.
You can’t do chromecast directly, because Google holds encryption keys for it. Unfortunately, this means casting apps need to be modified to support it.
There’s a few projects like this:
Okay, I have to wonder… what is the point of shoving ads down user’s throats all the time? Ads make me NOT want to purchase something. If I see ads for a product it just makes me hate that product. If a product pushes ads I hate that too.
The primary goal is to simply get the information inside your mind. Whether you like or dislike it doesn’t really matter. That preexisting brand/product familiarity is often all that is needed to tip the scales months or years down the road, once you’ve “forgotten” all about the annoying ad, while you find yourself deciding between competing products on a shelf or on a store page.
We are in the minority, its pushed so much because it works.
There are some people who are outright influenced, but other times even shoving visuals at the user is enough to subliminally influence to a degree, advertising is all psychology.
That’s why when I remember this when considering compromising and using something with ads. Its never worth the sacrifice, starting to apply the same philosophy to services who subsidize their cost of operating using data. Sure it costs me more but realistically that’s how it should be, there’s no free lunch.
Cool. No internet anymore for my TV.
This is giving me 1998 MS Publisher vibes and I’m here for it.
Word art is in style now my man
You guys are going about this all wrong. All you gotta do is connect your smart tv to the internet. Don’t use pihole. Let your tv communicate exactly how it wants to. Then buy some DVDs of local indy pro wrestling. The kind where women staple each other with staple guns, and smash light tubes over each others heads and bleed profusely.
Now…why would you do this? Because advertisers HATE advertising with pro wrestling. They also have nothing TO advertise for women with bloody faces, and broken noses.
Let THAT data get back to them. Who’s going to advertise to the guy who watches pro-wrestling from a high school gym where women leave pools of blood on the ground??? If everyone did this, for 10 hours a day, advertisers would deem the American market not worth the money to advertise to.
This plays with the idea of data poisoning for the advertisers. Maybe there are some actual practical options for this regarding TVs. The idea was already implemented on PCs for example in the form of browser extension - Ad Nauseam by some professor lady. Maybe it could be expanded upon in the context of TVs.
Sure, waste electricity while being unable to use the TV as intended, and cause some additional wear & tear. Great idea.
Where are all the hackers out there that have the skills to crack a TV to load something open source? They’re computers. There has to be a way to jailbreak/root then.
Sure, it’s being done. Xiaomi TVs have custom ROMs available, and I’m sure a bunch of others. Thing is, state of the art TVs are are not exactly cheap, and you need one to hack it in the first place. Most hackers do it for free, so they can’t exactly go on a spending spree.
Yea, I know. But I need a cyber Robin Hood in my life right now.
Disconnect your TV from internet. They are slow & limited, have ads and a lot of data harvesting.
Get an Android device that faster and give you more control (not firestick etc.)
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
Any tips for a newbee where to start looking for learning to root a TV?
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)
Bingo. Shield pro, and blacklist the MAC address of the TV and NEVER update the firmware.
NEVER update the firmware
…bacause that would add ads. I hate this whole ecosystem.
The regular shield does just fine for me, I can attach hard drives to my router and mount them as smb shares, and then access movies with VLC Player.
What kind of router do you use? That setup has never worked for me with Asus routers for more than few days.
ASUS RT-AX88U with Merlin firmware. Running stable since 2019 or so.
Interesting. That is very close to the setup I’m using. Maybe I’ll give it another try.
Remember the tv in Back to the Future 2, how absurd it was?
We’re 5 years from someone proposing “smartwall displays” where the entire wall is your display. No more messy cables or creaky mounting brackets. They’ll, of course also have removed the on/off button and you won’t get to control the volume, but just think of the stimulation!
Fahrenheit 451’s technology just around the corner of the next shitty planned community coming soon near you.
If I’m not watching it, my TV stays off. But for how long anymore, I wonder…
Side thought: the smartphone ROMs/roots scene has slowed down, recently; maybe it’s time to start with TVs rooting.
One of the concerns I would have with custom ROMs for TVs is that I think a lot of the image processing magic that makes the image look good on these high end displays is done in some proprietary method that the custom ROM wouldn’t be able to use. Either in software or in hardware.
The magic of the high end TVs isn’t actually in the panel itself as much as in the driving of the panel.
Your TV doesn’t need a screensaver. You can just… turn it off.
for now
Soon that feature will be premium only.
You can still turn it off. Not much they can do about your turning it off at the wall.
Well that sucks, ironically I connect my C2 to the net for the NFL gamepass sub I’m actually paying for. Guess it’s back to illegal streams on the desktop PC
