My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app

Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by jghn on Sunday April 01, 2018 @11:24AM (#16728726)

I wound up having to change my wifi password.

Without thinking about it I configured my current TV to join my wifi network. After it so kindly started putting ads on the screen while watching things I turned it off. A few months later, ads again. Somewhere in the bowels of the settings the wifi was reenabled, so I shut it off. A few months later, more ads. In a new place in the settings it was back on. Repeat a few more times.

Changed my wifi password and that took care of that.

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by kstrauser on Sunday April 01, 2018 @03:56PM (#16730095)

I temporarily set my SSID to some long random string and connected my TV to it. Then I turned off my TV's networking and changed the SSID back to normal. Even if my TV wanted to silently re-enable networking, it wouldn't have a network to connect to.

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by judge2020 on Sunday April 01, 2018 @05:39PM (#16730605)

Just wait till they start trying every wifi in range with the saved password!

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by Keverw on Sunday April 01, 2018 @11:51AM (#16728874)

Wow. No way to opt-out of the ads?

Do they have a in-hardware or in-app purchase to remove the ads? <- That would be a horrible trend to start.

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by jghn on Sunday April 01, 2018 @12:28PM (#16729074)

Actually I take it back, that is what kept changing location. They'd have an opt out but bury it in increasingly arcane places, and of course since it was "different" I was opted back in.

Then I started disabling my wifi and that kept magically re-enabling.

And that's the point I took the nuclear option.

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by tass on Sunday April 01, 2018 @12:53PM (#16729222)

What brand of TV?

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by jghn on Sunday April 01, 2018 @01:28PM (#16729398)

Samsung, from about 4 years ago I think

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by tass on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @12:22AM (#16808015)

I had a Samsung plasma TV about that long ago and it started to show notifications every time it turned on that some service I never used was being decommissioned.

Same experience as https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/TVs/Annoying-notificatio... but with a different notification.

I don't think I'll buy a Samsung TV again after that, and I don't connect any TV to the internet anymore.

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Re:My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force ... by Washuu on Sunday April 01, 2018 @03:33PM (#16729995)

LG does this too. I had to black hole its MAC address in my router.

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