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by dbloom 4234 days ago
Samsung actually has a bug bounty program for their Smart TVs: https://samsungtvbounty.com/Home.aspx

I would not have been willing to connect my Samsung TV to the internet if their bug bounty program didn't exist. (But, just to be safe, I always keep the TV's camera retracted :-))
1 comments
darklajid 4234 days ago
I stated somewhere else that I did a factory reset and pulled the cable after connecting my Samsung 'Smart' (it's not) TV to the internet the first time.

It installed some updates and gazillion apps. Crappy apps. Oh are these apps awful. Think 'shiny laptop, plain Windows' and after connecting to the internet for the first time you see mandatory mal- and crapware installations, and the applications are unmovable on your desktop all the time. Customer supports says that these aren't optional/cannot be removed.

Please. Samsung is not a decent example for how to run a so-called 'smart' TV.

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dbloom 4234 days ago
At least on the 2013+ models, you can choose to make the TV not show the "smart" interface every time it boots. And you can disable the "Smart TV" boot-up splash screen, too.

I only bought the "smart" TV because Samsung's best plasma panel is not offered in a dumb TV (http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-tv/#apps ). But, since I had to buy it anyway, it does make a decent Netflix/Amazon Prime/Hulu player, which saves me an HDMI input and also means one less remote control.

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