this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

I have a nearly-dumb TV (chosen for that and never connected to the Internet) and a separate little Android TV box I got from AliExpress for 25 bucks were I only use Kodi.

The TV is maybe 4 years old, the little box maybe 1 year (I had a 10 year old similar thing before but it can't handle newer video formats so I switched).

Have yet to see a single Ad.

Mind you my setup is as is because I've long ago learned that you want your fast-changing-cheap-tech bits separate from your expensive-long-life stuff, so in this case I want my digital video file decoding hardware separate from the much more expensive large digital TV screen so that I can switch the former without paying a new of the - much more expensive - latter.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (1 children)

and a separate little Android TV box I got from AliExpress for 25 bucks were I only use Kodi.

Yeah, so you may not be seeing ads, but there's a non-zero chance you have a botnet infested device on your network instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is there a way to check if the little Android box you already have is one of these infected devices?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Here's the GitHub repo of a software developer that was one of the first to find this, and I think the first to make it really public. It has some info on how to tell and possible steps to do some cleanup.

https://github.com/DesktopECHO/T95-H616-Malware

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's been a lot of articles recently about those cheapo boxes being filled with spyware straight out the factory. Might wanna check that out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I did.

It's not on the list.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. But you’re correct—some TVs have been found to automatically connect to open wifi networks to phone home.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Yeah. I have a Vizio smart TV but each time you turn it on it acts 100% like a dumb tv until you press the smart button.

I have a seperate shitty little HTPC that's used for all the media and my brother uses his xbox.