10 ms·
LG TV's new software update installed MS Copilot, which cannot be deleted
- Boxxed 9mo agoI wonder how this went down. "Hey LG, this is the Microsofts. Just had an idea how we could give your entire customer base the middle finger, wanna hear it?"
- general1465 9mo agoCopilot usage must be abhorrent when you are pushing it into TVs and making it non-removable application.
- Neywiny 9mo agoAs a proud member of the LGTV community (yes I'm making 2 of those kinds of jokes back to back, fight me), and an occasional reddit user, I'm both horrified by the notion of getting this update and thrilled people are still using old.reddit.com. The new layout, which isn't even new anymore, still falls very short for it I'm looking something up and it's buried in a comment thread where ctrl-f can't find it.
- bdhcuidbebe 9mo agoProtip: https://farside.link/redlib/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1plldqo/my_lg_tvs_new_software_update_installed_microsoft/ https://farside.link/redlib/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1pl...
- dmsayer 9mo ago502 error
- stevesimmons 9mo agoAm I going mad or do some of those old.reddit comments slope downhill?
- GaryBluto 9mo agor/mildlyinfuriating seems to have a custom stylesheet that is deliberately mildly infuriating.
- traverseda 9mo agoNo, the subreddit has applied custom css to do that. It's the mildly infuriating subreddit. There's also an image of a hair visible on widescreen monitors, to make you think there's a hair on your display.
- christophilus 9mo agoI see the hair on my iPhone. That’s a nice touch.
- pmontra 9mo agoThe next step will be adding a web in a corner, to make us think we cracked our touchscreen /s
- lagniappe 9mo agotry eddrit.com
- sseagull 9mo agoI went there and saw two hairs, and yeah thought it was a nice funny touch. I then went back to HN and turns out one of the hairs was real and I needed to clean my laptop screen :)
- molticrystal 9mo agoThey have a bag of dirty tricks [0], here are a few highlights including a couple already mentioned: /* Dead subpixel (Thanks M) */ .content[role=main]:before { content: ""; position: fixed; top: 126px; left: 242px; width: 1px; height: 1px; background: #f0f; z-index: 9999; } /* Hair */ .content[role=main]:after { content: ""; position: fixed; top: 150px; right: 150px; width: 140px; height: 200px; border-radius: 50%; box-shadow: 2px 0 rgb(60, 24, 24, 0.3); transform: skewX(-30deg) scale(0.6); pointer-events: none; z-index: 9999; } .thing.comment[id*=c] { transform: rotate(1deg); margin-top: 30px !important; } .comment p a{ font-family:Comic Sans MS, Impact,serif; } [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/wiki/config/stylesheet https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/wiki/config/style...
- bromuro 9mo agoI have poor eyesight and I don’t support this practice of linking old reddit on HN. Old website is unusable for me. I have to load the link in the native app to read it. ctrl+F doesn’t work anyway as the comments are also buried in a “load more comments” on old reddit too. New website and app have a search comments field.
- Neywiny 9mo agoWhile true some are hidden, old shows a *lot* more and most of my searches for obscure issues don't yield more viral posts
- Gualdrapo 9mo agoI agree. I joined reddit when the "new" design was launched - I could never made sense of the old design. Way too cluttered and unreadable.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- pier25 9mo agoI wonder how you're using HN then
- rationalist 9mo ago> Old website is unusable for me. New website is unusable for me.
- shayway 9mo agoAssuming the issue with old reddit is font & element size, does zooming in with Ctrl+ not solve the problem?
- gcr 9mo agoI have shitty eyesight and old is the only version that’s usable to me because text zooming works far better in the old layout. Are you using a screen reader by any chance?
- caxco93 9mo agoactually, when you share a reddit link, HN automatically converts it to old.reddit
- rcarmo 9mo agoAnd yet we cannot have dark mode, which would be a simple CSS tweak. But I’m thankful for the other little things.
- 3RTB297 9mo agoI only use old.reddit.com when I am forced to sulk back over there and actually log in. To just look around I just use some redlib frontend. The numerous layers of attempted monetization schemes since 2016ish hilariously touted as "features" are sort of band-aided on top of each other on new reddit in a way that makes it the worst possible way to display the information. It's like a terrible UI challenge.
- jwr 9mo agoThe management of reddit doesn't seem to use reddit at all and they seem to be unaware of the fact that a) the "new" layout just isn't that great, and b) their mobile app is terrible. They killed third-party apps, which were way better than their garbage app and they don't seem to realize how much it annoys their users.
- kstrauser 9mo agoI thank them for that, because forcing me back to their horrid app broke me of my habit of hanging out there. I’ve got six digits of karma, and I’d rather walk away than suffer through its awful UI.
- juliusceasar 9mo agoAs a none user; what is a karma? Fantasy points?
- xingped 9mo agoSame. Only thing that ever managed to break me of my reddit habit. No 3rd party apps? Reddit may as well no longer exist as far as I'm concerned.
- midnitewarrior 9mo agoWelcome back to reddit! There is a third party app called Red Reader, it's free. https://www.reddit.com/r/RedReader/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedReader/
- joecool1029 9mo ago> thrilled people are still using old.reddit.com I noticed a day or two ago they quietly turned on the 'show new reddit as default' preference option, it was still possible to change default back but they won't stop pushing it.
- Klonoar 9mo agoThis happens every few months. You should just use a browser extension to do it since those don’t rely on an auth state anyway.
- rsynnott 9mo agoI don’t understand how anyone in Reddit thinks that new layout is better. If old.reddit ever goes away I’ll probably stop using it entirely.
- syntaxing 9mo agoI think them sneaking in and turning on that LivePlus feature is far more nefarious. The fact they can track whatever you watch and do to serve you personalized ads is insane.
- irilesscent 9mo agoThis is matching the levels of surveillance in north Korea. They also have software that takes pictures of your screen every few seconds.
- avidiax 9mo agoIt does this for HDMI inputs as well, BTW. Using such a TV as a computer monitor sounds dicey. There will eventually be a data breach of the uploaded screenshots, assuming they aren't able to fingerprint entirely on device.
- abbycurtis33 9mo agoUntil somebody releases a dumb TV, you just can't connect your tv to the Internet.
- newsoftheday 9mo agoOur LCD TV is almost 2 decades old. If we upgrade, I can guarantee we won't be connecting it to the Internet. Also none of our smart appliances are connected to the Internet.
- some-guy 9mo agoI am actually surprised at how well our second TV (Samsung) still looks [0] after 17 years. We inherited from my sister who bought it for some ridiculous amount of cash for the time. It’s heavy and runs hot, but doesn’t look any worse than cheap TVs of the same size today. [0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/samsung-touches-lcds-with-color-shine-9841603/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/samsung-touches-lcds...
- LeonM 9mo agoI bought the top of the line TV from Samsung in 2011. The 'smart' functionality services went offline after a year or two, which means all 'smart' functions no longer work and I am now happily using it as a dumb TV. Eventually every smart TV becomes dumb when they inevitably shut down the backend services.
- tempest_ 9mo agoIn 2011 smart tvs / phones were not quite the data harvesting devices they have become. The things stopped working because they were for you the consumer. The modern smart tv will keep working as long is its piping data back to the data retailers, they have a vested interest in keeping it going.
- amlib 9mo ago> Eventually every smart TV becomes dumb when they inevitably shut down the backend services. Except that on newer tvs all the nagging will still be there, all the ads will be "frozen" in time (mine has ads for stuff from 2023, the last time I connected it for some firmware update that _GASPS_ actually fixed some things) and some features may depend on internet connectivity. The manufacturer may care to release a final update and solve these issues, but you know they are much more likely to fraudulently just disable features that worked offline as a last middle finger. Repeat with me, SaaS is fraud. Proprietary digital platforms are fraud.
- baby_souffle 9mo agoIf supported, rooting is easy. https://cani.rootmy.tv/ https://cani.rootmy.tv/
- phoronixrly 9mo agoJust did that yesterday because it disables updates. I had stopped updating and disconnected my TV from the Internet completely in 2021 in fear that an update will bring ads, and in hope that a jailbreak will come around eventually.
- zeeed 9mo agoWas that an LG?
- phoronixrly 9mo agoYes, OLED65BX
- anonymousiam 9mo agoDoes this link now work for LG TVs again? I rooted mine about four years go, so no annoying AI firmware updates, but I remember there was an update to the LG webOS that prevented the exploit that allowed rootmy.tv to work. If rootmy.tv is working again for modern LG TVs, I'll run out and buy another one.
- baby_souffle 9mo agoSite shows known exploits and known vulnerable versions based on model. I don’t think there’s an exploit for anything new in box… and even if there was, it would be treated like an 0day and LG would patch. Your best bet would be to subscribe to some notification for a new film and go out and buy a new LG that week.
- pndy 9mo agoOne user mentions that LG also enabled content-aware data mining: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1plldqo/my_lg_tvs_new_software_update_installed_microsoft/ntt91op/ https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1plldqo/...
- jmclnx 9mo agoI really use to like LG products, but between your link and this, I will never buy LG again. They were added to the same list Samsung was added to years ago. It is like these companies do not want to sell what people really want, but only want to spy on you. The way things are going, it will be back to the old crt TVs, which you can still find used if you look hard enough.
- smackeyacky 9mo agoBest 2nd hand TVs seem to be Panasonic Viera at least in my experience. You still need a set top box of some kind as they don’t understand H264 channels only mpeg (at least here in Australia). I like them because the back lighting is quite diffuse compared to other brands. Those plus a google TV streamer is more than good enough without laying out piles of cash or subjecting yourself to a smart TV.
- pier25 9mo agoACR has been going on for at least a decade now. It's the reason TVs are so cheap now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 9mo agoIt is interesting. Arstechnica just had an article about how to get a dumb tv, which I saw on google news. I want to believe there is a tide turning among non-hn peoples ( I tried various phrasings and neither worked in terms of exclusion ).
- bdhcuidbebe 9mo agoI just read that, too. Its interesting and somewhat depressing that the best option for the last 10+ years according to ars and this linked reddit thead, and comments in this thread all suggesting Apple TV. I hope to see a viable foss option soon.
- al_borland 9mo agoThere are options like LibreELEC (Jeff Geerling did a video on setup a year ago[0]). However, these options are rarely plug and play. It also doesn’t let people simply download and use apps from the popular streaming services. They tend to rely on pirated content or someone who is willing to rip all their own physical media for more convenient access. FOSS has always had an issue with that last 10% of the user experience, and the services to make things pleasant to use, which I think really hurts mainstream adoption. [0] https://youtu.be/3hFas54xFtg https://youtu.be/3hFas54xFtg
- 1970-01-01 9mo agoIs there a DNS filtering list anywhere that just blocks these firmware updates? That would be the easiest way to maintain dumbification without getting into hacking the software while still allowing streaming services.
- ezst 9mo agoTill yourself get hacked because the connected-to-the-internet TV is running an insecure software version. We should legal action the hell out of such practices.
- jitl 9mo agoIt’s well worth the $100 or whatever to do all the streaming through an AppleTV. It’s the only streaming device I’ve used that doesn’t seem to constantly try to upsell random garbage.
- richid 9mo agoThis is the answer. AppleTV is worth its weight in gold. Well supported and quality apps, good connectivity options, enough horsepower for hardware decoding, and Apple has a good reputation for privacy (hello no ACR).
- hsuduebc2 9mo agoThis is beyond tiresome.
- the_af 9mo agoAh! I can finally chat to my TV by writing text to it and have it hallucinate shows that don't exist, or tell me I'm right about everything. Possibly even create PR for work from my LG smart TV, my boss will be pleased. Just like I wanted!
- jitl 9mo agoWe need a Framework-style company making TVs. Get the OLED panels from whoever makes them wholesale, spend on a beautiful enclosure / design, add just enough software to calibrate the image and switch between HDMI inputs with HDMI-CEC. Sell a premium soundbar as an add-on instead of including speakers in the base device. I think a brand like Sonos could make a killing in this market selling a premium dumb tv to high end customers. Look at how much markup Samsung adds to their standard LCD panel for a decent enclosure - it’s like $600-$1000 markup to get the Frame tv, which has a mid panel, JUST because the enclosure is actually nice/inoffensive.
- boredatoms 9mo agoMaybe framework will pivot given RAM prices these days
- 3RTB297 9mo agoThe hitch is that it would be more expensive, making it a "premium" product and limiting the market. Smart TV pricing typically includes subsidies based on the assumed data sales from each user over the lifetime of the device.
- strstr 9mo agoHow much are my eyeballs worth over the lifetime of a TV? In the race to the bottom, ads will outcompete others by pushing price lower. But how much lower?
- 542458 9mo agoI really doubt the user data for a smart tv user is all that valuable. Meta has infinitely more rich data and an entire tightly optimized ad system and is on a platform where people commonly make large purchases and makes around $10 per user per year.
- DaiPlusPlus 9mo ago> I really doubt the user data for a smart tv user is all that valuable. According to a 2021 article about Vizio's user-hostile advert display devices, they boast of an average revenue of $13/yr - up from $7.30/yr, though consider this was 2020 when more people were at-home watching TV instead of going outside, meeting people, touching grass, the usual. https://deadline.com/2021/03/vizio-smart-tv-streaming-ipo-1234720964/ https://deadline.com/2021/03/vizio-smart-tv-streaming-ipo-12... > A range of advertising opportunities drive revenue, including revenue sharing with programmers and distribution partners as well as activations on the device home screen. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the company said average revenue per user on SmartCast was $12.99, up from $7.31 in the same period of 2019. ------------- If you'll allow me to make an arbitrary assumption that a new TV set bought today will last about 10 years, then $13/yr means the advertising revenue implies Vizio has reduced the sale-price of their TVs by $130 compared to before we had no-opt-out advertising displayed on our own property as a condition for the privilege of using said device.
- haunter 9mo agoWhen it comes to technology Korean brands are really the worst. I'd never buy anything from Samsung or LG, not even a bread toaster.
- Lio 9mo agoYeah I would have switched from Apple to Samsung years ago but Samsung are agregious when it comes to control and privacy I don't want to have anything from them in the house. The Korean car brands, Hyundai and Kia also have a terrible privacy story. They really do regard their customers as the product.
- shinycode 9mo agoAwful software, I use an Apple TV or firestick to replace it
- xfil 9mo agoTV industry's in a pathetic state when customers reasonably consider Apple TVs to be required included costs. In other news, my new 'smart' GE oven crashes roughly once each month into unresponsiveness for several hours. Where's an Apple Oven to save the day?
- slumberlust 9mo agoAppleTV makes sense, but Amazon's garbage is just as bad.
- shinycode 9mo agoI switched to Apple TV after having tried the firestick indeed
- fishbacon 9mo agoThinking about how my television was only ever on the internet for 5 minutes in 2016. It must think the world is tiny.
- pmontra 9mo agoI use a tablet as smart TV. As a bonus it's portable around my house. I'll look into Linux tablets when Android will get too obnoxious to bear. Are they a thing? Basically I need VLC and not much more.
- ur-whale 9mo agoWho the fuck still watches content on an effing TV in 2025?
- recursive 9mo agoMe. It seems like the best kind of display for a game console.
- boredatoms 9mo agoProbably half the planet
- haunter 9mo agoI only watch films on a 6" phone display as God intended
- redwall_hp 9mo agoEveryone except weird nerds. 97% of US households have a TV, usually a smart one they watch streaming apps through nowadays. Fewer even own a desktop or laptop computer. Using one as a media center is comparably fringe.
- morning-coffee 9mo agoAll the people who weren't raised on a phone or tablet shoved in front of them since they were a toddler...
- the_plus_one 9mo agoHow else would you watch things with other people at home? Are you going to huddle around your desktop, laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc.?
- snvzz 9mo agoI'm not giving up my CRT.
- hughes 9mo agoWhy anyone would allow their TV to connect to the internet is beyond me.
- jwr 9mo agoAs a reminder, turn off the "Live Plus" thing on your LG TV. This "option" makes your LG TV spy on you, tracking and reporting what you watch based on the image that is shown on the TV. You need to go to Settings -> All Settings -> General -> System -> Additional Settings to make sure the "Live Plus" option is OFF. Check it periodically, as it sometimes turns itself back on again after updates. The enshittification of our world is beyond words.
- beaugunderson 9mo agoThanks for the menu tree, just turned it off on our LG G5 (the flagship model) where it had defaulted to on. Gross.
- Mountain_Skies 9mo agoThese are domain block rules I got from a previous HN thread about LG shenanigans. No idea if it is still up to date. ngfts.lge.com us.ad.lgsmartad.com lgad.cjpowercast.com us.info.lgsmartad.com aic.recommend.lgtvcommon.com aic.homeprv.lgtvcommon.com aid.rdl.lgtvcommon.com aic.lgshopsvc.lgappstv.com ^aic.*lg.* us.emp.lgsmartplatform.com snu.lge.com us.lgrecommends.lgappstv.com api.thetake.com us.lgtvsdp.com aic.service.lgtvcommon.com lgtvonline.lge.com (\.|^)gracenote\.com$ (\.|^)prehook\.com$ raw.vidyard.com (\.|^)vidyard\.com$ (\.|^)wistia\.com$
- pier25 9mo agoJust don't connect your tv to the internet. Get an Apple TV or an Nvidia Shield.
- nothercastle 9mo agoMy decision to never allow lg devices to connect to the internet never felt smarter than today.
- timbit42 9mo agoThat's how you outsmart your smart TV.
- bachmeier 9mo agoNow I know why my wife needed the account login information this morning.
- varispeed 9mo agoYet again regulators are caught lacking. This is so predictable and yet not illegal. I guess they just wait for bribes to come in.
- a2128 9mo agoWhat is legitimately the expected use case for Copilot on a TV? TVs are for consuming video. As far as I know, Copilot doesn't generate videos yet, and it certainly won't be possible or cheap enough to generate anything on the level of TV shows or movies any time soon. So are they expecting people will sit in their living room home theater to... chat with Copilot... instead of doing it on their phone? I genuinely can't come up with any realistic use case where it would be convenient or useful to use Copilot on a TV. It feels utterly deranged that they would put it there.
- sheepscreek 9mo agoWhy does a TV need Microsoft Copilot? While I think AI on the whole is a long-term net positive, but I just cannot understand Microsoft's insistence on putting Copilot everywhere. Even in places where it has no business being and against the user's wishes. I cannot remember the last time a company was this tone deaf. Why isn't Satya Nadella personally getting involved already? Seriously inexcusable.
- anal_reactor 9mo agoIn general you should turn off software updates
- bane 9mo agoI don't know why my sense of ethical outrage over the cancerous spread of this worthless garbage technology doesn't extend so hard to LG in this. But I've finally just hit the wall with Microsoft. Between all the forced account sign-ins, ads, random reboots and updates that aren't for the purpose of securing the OS...I'm done. I haven't seen this level of anti-consumer nonsense from Microsoft since the late 90s when lots of circles called them Micro$oft. It's a shame since Satya Nadella came in and made a lot of right moves. Support for Linux, open source, etc. I could stretch myself to forgive the other stuff as some kind of wrong headed thinking about a cloud-first strategy. But in the last few years that productive pivot stopped and the company moved back into high-risk money grab steps. My current daily driver is a Windows machine, but my last few builds around the house have all been some kind of Linux. Last year I moved my home server infrastructure over. I kept a windows VM around for a few things but it ultimately corrupted itself and was replaced by a Linux VM that's been chugging along just fine. I think when I rebuild my home desktop sometime next year Windows gets relegated to a "run when needed" VM. I've really only kept it around for games and a few other Windows only software but those days are fast fading thanks to numerous efforts by Valve and others and a fallback VM for other stuff works fine in my experience elsewhere. I think I don't have the same concerns about LG because the relationship with me as the consumer seems different somehow, and I simply expect less from them?
- tzs 9mo agoSo...? I only read the reddit comments down to the point where the slanted lines became mildly infuriating and switched new reddit to continue, and there only down to the "view more comments" button, and didn't see anyone saying what Copilot actually does on the TV. The comments seemed to all be about the nefarious things people were speculating it could be doing, how to block smart TVs from updating, etc., and that's also how the comments here are going. A bit of research suggests that it is just another app. If you don't open it it won't be doing anything. If you open it you can use it as a virtual assistant to do things like check the weather, search streaming service for content, and that sort of thing. Is there any indication it does more?
- rsynnott 9mo agoOh, ffs. I’ve got one of those. This bubble cannot burst soon enough.
- mindcrash 9mo agoBut the symbol above the tile tells me you could hide it from the UI. Which is often the case with... uhm... "sponsored" and thus unremovable software on these kind of devices.