I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.
What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?
Every smart TV is like that now. Every single one has ads of some kind, at least that I’ve tried. I mean there might be one weird knockoff brand that doesn’t but chances are it’s got even larger problems, and forget about finding apps for it.
But yeah, I have my TV connected to the internet. One of the things I had plugged in to my old “dumb” TV was a Chromecast, and the Android TV has one built in… but that requires it be on the internet for it to work. It is running Android so you bet your ass I loaded it up with all sorts of sideloaded goodness (Revanced, SmartTube, Retroarch to name a few). I just haven’t gotten around to replacing the launcher to get rid of the ads, since it’s a bit involved.
Oh, also it didn’t originally have ads, that came in an update about a year later. I’d care more if I spent much time on the home screen, but most of the time the TV’s just displaying the output of the Roku.