I know Smart TV privacy concerns are a big conversation here, largely because there’s practically no good way to jailbreak a Smart TV, but I wanted to ask about a specific use case.

How much better is it to disable all network connectivity on a smart tv (running Roku as its core OS) and hook an Apple TV box up to it?

More or less, I suppose what I’m asking is whether or not using an Apple TV is as private as it can get with easy-to-use streaming devices?

  • Majestic
    6·
    2 days ago

    Putting this here as another comment so as to not get too lengthy in my original reply:

    The only other things I can recommend in the streaming space would be Dune-HD’s products which are more expensive than Apple TV (though not more than Nvidia shield pro) and are not quite as simple and easy to use but do offer customization and a nice virtualized linux+androidtv system on some of their models AND maybe the Nvidia Shield Pro with caveats. But I have a bit of a bone to pick with the Shield for a number of reasons:

    1. Price. They haven’t updated the hardware in 5 years and have changed it from a premium product without ads to standard AndroidTV with ads on the homescreen yet charge the same $200 price, meanwhile Apple dropped the price on their AppleTV and is eating their lunch with annual hardware updates and regular software updates that bring new functionality
    2. Features. The shield still has bugs around things like framerate switching while AppleTV does not nor does Dune-HD’s products
    3. The lack of updates, the move from a premium android experience without homescreen ads to one with ads. I feel it could be killed off any moment, they’re just lazily milking the product which is probably the only reason they haven’t. You /can/ with some effort alter the launcher to a 3rd party launcher to lose the ads but it’s not easy, it usually requires revisiting and you can do the same thing with the Dune-HD products and they care a lot more and offer a lot more IMO.

    The only reason you might really prefer Dune-HD over an Apple TV is the ability to side-load a modded youtube app if you use that a ton but even that feels up in the air with how hard Google is going in their war on anyone using things like that and how successful they’ve been against it. You can’t block ads in ad-supported major streaming services (Netflix, Max, Hulu, Disney+, etc), neither with pihole nor any other way I’m aware of.