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BenderIsGreat34

So, the 75 inch Amazon Fire TV is about half the price of any other tv of that size, presumably because it's constantly spying on your every move and selling this data to North Korea or something. Is there a way to remove the spyware? If it was used without connecting it to the home Wifi, and use an Apple TV + blluray player, would that work?

are there any TV manufacturers that DONT sell TVs that are just collecting information about viewing habits and selling them?

@andymoose there are manufacturers that make TVs that don't spy on you, but I don't think there are manufacturers that make only non-spying TVs.

@dragonfrog whats the tell-tale sign that a tv is NOT spying on you? The price? Or is there some keyword in the tech specs that would indicate it's probably ok - maybe the OS it's running?

@andymoose I was referring to "dumb" TVs with just an HDMI port to connect a computer you actually control.

I guess you could do much the same by getting a cheaper spyware sponsored TV and not letting it know about your network.

@andymoose I have not done this myself cos my TV doesn't connect to the internet, but a colleague sniffed the ip addresses his TV was calling and blocked them on his modem. It killed the ads that had started appearing just as the warranty expired. Worth a try and easy to back out of.

@rogerparkinson thats a good idea. I currently own a Sony Bravia tv that runs Google TV, but I disconnected it from the wifi and have an external AppleTV box connected instead, because although Apple are also complete bastards, they don't seem to be quite as bad as Google when it comes to spying.

@andymoose

This is what I do with our LG. I blocked it from the internet entirely and use an AppleTV. When I first got it I couldn't believe how often it checked in and uploaded data. Ended up blocking it from the internet on day 1.