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Posted by LecroJS 2 days ago

Ask HN: Which TV do you recommend for privacy?

I haven’t owned a TV in years and would like one that respects my privacy. Are there any TV’s which do this well? I am looking for something in the 60”to 80”range and would like a 4k display with at least 60hz display. I don’t mind paying a premium.

I have heard good things about Apple TV as a better alternative to most smart TV native apps. Would some TV’s pair better with this than others for privacy? I don’t want the TV doing anything other than being the display for Apple TV.

I am curious what success others have had.

721 points | 863 commentspage 17
jcul 2 days ago|
You could just use something like adguard to block DNS requests for telemetry endpoints.
TingPing 2 days ago|
DNS layer blocking is very coarse and easily bypassed.
LaurensBER 1 day ago||
Agreed, some LG TVs even hardcode the DNS these days. A simple cron job that resolves the hostnames and blocks the IP on a firewall level is very hard to bypass though ;)
andunie 1 day ago||
Just use a desktop computer.
a3w 2 days ago||
Digital signage displays are dumb PC screens in giant sizes, like you are looking for.
sneak 2 days ago||
Just get any old TV and use the HDMI input and don’t connect it to the internet. The fears of it phoning home anyway even when you don’t configure wifi are overblown (almost no TVs can do this), as are the privacy implications. Nobody cares that you watch Severance and MCU movies. It’s sort of like people who tape over their laptop camera but leave the mic alone, as if 86400 photos of your face are somehow private and sensitive but all of the conversations in the room are not.
Lio 10 hours ago|
If no body cares why do so many manufacturers insist on logging what we watch?

This happens to the point that Vizio is even willing to lie[1] about not doing it.

If it didn't mater you would be able to actually buy products that didn't spy on you or your family. That behaviour caries a financial risk that they're willing to carry for the potential benefits.

1. https://www.techdirt.com/2026/11/02/study-claims-vizio-simpl...

maxdo 1 day ago||
buy projector, laser one are good, some of them are quite dumb in a good way. mostly US owned, or Japanese. Any chinese one are full of "android tv with their own flavors of spyware"
Outermeasure_A 1 day ago||
Any TV if you disconnect from the network and stream via HDMI instead.
rationalist 1 day ago|
Better hope that no guest connects the TV to their phone hotspot to watch their Netflix like one user in a previous post reported happened to them.
tomaskafka 1 day ago||
I was going to write buy Apple TV and never ever connect the actual TV to the internet, but:

- I am unsure whether modern TVs utilize ethernet over HDMI to connect to internet through Apple TV (I have no idea why Apple TV should allow this, but I don't trust Apple to not accidentally enable this)?

- I can only imagine nefarious five eyes reasons for why Apple released Apple TV that plays 4k60 exactly like the previous models, but now has 8 GB RAM, powerful machine learning CPU, and built-in microphones that are impossible to disable

So, apart from getting used prev gen Apple TV (and still having to trust company whose leader has to accept Trumps's lunch invite), I have no good advice.

jen20 1 day ago|
- Almost nothing supports Ethernet over HDMI (this was already discussed in this thread).

- I can imagine several reasons for upgrading the CPU. Supply chain related, mostly.

That said, I am perfectly happy with previous generation Apple TVs and won’t be replacing them any time soon.

pianopatrick 2 days ago||
That old kind that just had a VCR slot on the front.

Or a projector against a wall.

reactordev 2 days ago||
Find an old projector TV
pluc 2 days ago|
I'd recommend a search, this gets asked at least once a year
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