These fucking televisions have less ram than my fucking 8 year old phone

At some point it's just better to factory reset this bitch and paste an RPI in the back with my own android TV so it can actually run with 8gb ram 256gb space

Or: buy a computer, once

It's not that hard, the original author is just lazy or ignorant or both.

My smart tv is a mid ranged i5 from 2012.

There is a brand that makes dumb TVs.

https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.html

Luckily the YouTube app gets way worse with each update. Mine now tries to dark pattern you into signing in, and now features extra ads when you pause a video.

I'm switching to sideloaded SmartTube on a GoogleTV with Chromecast dongle.

I'm actually quite happy with mine I don't think it's shown me a single ad, the only nuisance is it doesn't stay connected to my WiFi and only joins when I launch an app or something.

Its a Toshiba with Vidaa Os I think, not saying it's perfect it has all the UK channel apps but not Stremio which I would like it to have.

That said it hasn't done a single thing ad wise to annoy me unlike my firetv cube.

I have a Samsung smart TV and the operating system on it is so annoying. It's so slow, has dumb ads, and I can't cast to it like at all.

I'm even more pissed that they just disabled the Steam Link app for essentially no reason; it worked great for streaming games from my PC.

I've been thinking it would be cool to flash a different OS onto it, but I'm not sure if that's actually possible.

Generally it's not too hard to disable the smart TV part of it and just use HDMI for TVs running Android. But on Roku TVs for whatever reason you need to connect them to the internet and a Roku account at least once to unlock the picture settings. Hardware features of a TV like brightness adjustment have no business relying on some random server.

I wish there was a company like Fairphone or Framework laptops but for TVs.

This is why I am dreading when my 2017 dumb TV dies. It's really telling that dumb TVs, which should be cheaper to produce and sell, are either not available or very expensive (as in commercial displays). Really proves the point that the consumer is really the product.

Its only a matter of time.

I never understood why people hated smart TVs until one day mine decided to install an update that presents me with advertisements and a hub screen when I turn it on. If I don't select something in time, the screen disappears, which locks all of the controls, and I can only reset it by turning it off and on again. Why??? Just why?!?!

I remember the ancient times when you could buy something, turn it on, then have it do what you want it to do. Setting the clock was the difficult part. Other than that, it just worked.

Meanwhile, the marketing department reading this: "Boss! It's working! The people are actually enjoying it!!"

I'm in the market for a new tv and all this crap just makes me want to scream in frustration. But prolonging the decision will just make it even worse.

On top of that my 2017 shield is starting to show its age and there is really no comparable 4k (streaming) alternative thats not a security risk. I feel more and more pushed towards piracy, so that I can use my linux box and decide how and where to watch content. I hate it...

We have an older 2012 1080p Sony 55" TV. Super thin, still works great. It had a few "smart" things it could do, like local tv guide, weather. Very simple stuff, nothing like streaming apps. Those basic smart things haven't functioned in a while. Support ended for them a long time ago. I've had a negative opinion for smart TVs since then. Having those functions sitting there broken drives me nuts.

We always used some type of streaming box. Started out with some Roku's for a long time that worked okay until they updated them enough to run like shit. Ads were never egregious but you could tell where the trend was going. A friend let me have an older Nvidia Shield TV. It was FILLED with ads for shit we didn't care about. Google Play store shit, Nvidia shit, advertisement shit, AHHHHHHH. It too eventually was updated enough to where everything runs like shit. I looked into a lot of self contained media systems from no names on Amazon, but I just didn't trust them. I could set up a PC to do it all and I'd be fine with it but my wife wants something easy to use.

Sooo I ended up going with an Apple TV. So far it's been really nice. Zero ads on the home screen. It lists the previous content we were watching and then our streaming apps below it, that's it. When you move the cursor over the Netflix or other apps it lists what you previously watched and some recommendations for other shows but it's not in your face or moving anything around to do it. There are some apps you can't remove, but I just made a folder and threw them all in there. It's nice but it's costly at around $140. So far for me, I'd say it's worth it. We only use Netflix, Hulu and Plex on it, but all of them work great. It also supports the Steam Link app. I use it some, but I've started to use Moonlight that is installed on my Steam Link device instead, since the picture and stream quality is a lot better.

Sounds like an obvious spot in the market for a bullshit-free smart TV. You'd just have to get the UX right.

Last I looked, we could still buy commercial displays. They're dumb TVs. They cost more, of course.