Smart TV disable internet connectivity

PRAISETHESUN

Personally I'd be more worried by the manufacturer forcing through a future update which changes the functionality of the TV down the road. If you disconnect the TV from the internet (either unplug any ethernet cables and/or disconnect from your wifi network) then nothing can connect to it to either force updates, or otherwise make your device vulnerable to being hacked. From there if you only connect to the internet through the firestick then that's the only device you need to worry about keeping up-to-date

Jabbah

PRAISETHESUN said:

Personally I'd be more worried by the manufacturer forcing through a future update which changes the functionality of the TV down the road. If you disconnect the TV from the internet (either unplug any ethernet cables and/or disconnect from your wifi network) then nothing can connect to it to either force updates, or otherwise make your device vulnerable to being hacked. From there if you only connect to the internet through the firestick then that's the only device you need to worry about keeping up-to-date

Thank you - that is very clear - even to me!

Neil_Jones

before Smart TV and prevalence of network connectivity it was possible to update TVs (and boxes) through the aerial but it would be a case of if your equipment was on at the right time to get it and if it noticed.  Which it didn't always.

Now the internet is a thing its more reliable to update through that.

debitcardmayhem

Has anyone had experience of a TV being hacked ?

DullGreyGuy

debitcardmayhem said:

Has anyone had experience of a TV being hacked ?

Personally? No but then mine isnt connected to the internet because Smart TVs are terrible whereas as FireStick, AppleTV etc are all vastly more reliable. 

Certainly there have been press stories and such, particularly given the growing popularity of using the Android system on TVs across multiple brands meaning a single piece of malware can infect a very large number of devices. See https://news.drweb.com/show/?i=14900 for example which claimed 1.3m TVs infected by a specific piece of malware thats able to be used to download and execute other code.

RumRat

My TV's work perfectly with all the streaming apps and I've never encountered any other problems. Not had a problem with the Firestick either.
1.3 million people infected in 197 countries.....The affected boxes are knock off cheap ones that are left open to infection. They had downloaded apps from third party app stores and had outdated, unsupported versions of Android on them. Using Play protect apps from the correct store wouldn't incur the wrath of the virus.
I guess you can get paranoid about anything if you let the worms eat away at your confidence.

DullGreyGuy

RumRat said:

My TV's work perfectly with all the streaming apps and I've never encountered any other problems. Not had a problem with the Firestick either.

Then you are very lucky, have had Samsung, LG and Sony, all at the upper end of their ranges and when brand new all buffered much longer than both a FireStick and AppleTV on starting 4K content and all would buffer whilst playing content which neither of the other two ever does. As time went on they tended to get worse rather than better.

Add to that a few years in and all had at least 1 app that had stopped getting updates and ceased working; the Samsung was the worst for this. 

They're great TVs, seriously considering replacing the LG with this years model later in the year but have little doubt it will be showing the content from the steaming devices. 

Maybe those running AndroidTV are in a better place with updates at least? Maybe not given that most TVs from 2023 are still running Andoid10 

Neil_Jones

Much like Android on smartphones, you're still dependent on the manufacturer to release updates for AndroidTV.

Common trend with pretty much anything that runs Android of some sort (even some of the Amazon products that use butchered Android don't go any higher than Android 11 as their base)