Nothing is sacred indeed. The plague is spreading. We know the diagnosis. What’s the prognosis?
Buying thousands of dollars worth of large size Dell monitors built for conference and board rooms to use that with Apple TV or your media player of choice?
I personally want the smart technical developers to ‘jailbreak’ the TV’s to shut this down to atleast show us how to never connect your TV to the internet even by mistake? Any way to take out the WiFi chip in these devices directly?
Isn’t there any OEM with decent tech left in the world that realizes that some people are willing to pay more for TVs with equivalent tech without it being a smart TV of any kind?
“Smart” TVs have been carrying spyware for more than a decade, nothing new. Never connect a “smart” TV to the Internet, use it as a dumb monitor connected to a streaming box (ideally one that runs free software such a Linux HTPC).
Why do you need firmware update if you don’t use “smart” features? Only functions I need on my TV are changing inputs and volume ±. And maybe picture/colour setttings
If a TV is not connected to the internet, then as a general rule, it doesn’t need security patches. Because, security patches is only for preventing security breaches to the internet. If your device never connects to the internet, it is effectively air-gapped.
You cannot have privacy with a smart TV if you connect to the internet. So, buy a TV, never connect to internet, and connect it to a media center stick or box. That’s how to properly use it.
That said, if you use a browser on the LAN…. I mean, in theory its probably safe, but….
I’ll be frank, best solution would be the media center box I mentioned