Make sure you’re also blocking all other outbound DNS at your firewall. Many “smart” devices (and presumably some apps, though I have no way to check this) are hard coded to use 8.8.8.8 regardless of what DCHP says to use.

You think I’m jumping through mental hoops for telling people to use an ad blocker?

I’m tempted to do a master reset on mine to see if I got that option. I have the Roku edition and I know that I can specify what source it defaults to on power on. I can also turn off content recognition, which is what’s going on in OP’s case. But using it as just a dumb TV would be awesome.

The TVs I’ve seen that do this have been smart enough to not get naggy about a lack of Internet until 30+ days after first power on. Then you get popups or autoplay videos begging you to connect it.

My Hisense has been pretty decent, surprisingly. But for my next TV I’m honestly thinking of going with a commercial display.

You can, but don’t forget to also block other outbound DNS connections in your firewall. Lots of “smart” devices are hard coded to use 8.8.8.8 regardless of what DHCP says. Pihole won’t stop those, so you have to block it at the firewall.

I love this.

I am all for purchasing or licensing content that I enjoy. 100%. But that assumes the content owner is willing to take my money. I have no sympathy for people who refuse to let me give them my money who then turn around and cry “noooooooo, piracy is ruining us!!!”.

The Internet was originally designed to fail gracefully. As routes and servers fail, the Internet was designed to work without them (to a point). Sadly the proliferation of giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft has put most of the Internet in the hands of a few companies.

You can technically use the Internet with every Google service blocked and all AWS / Microsoft IP ranges null routed, but it’s going to be very different and most major sites simply will not work.

Yeah I just want to be clear – Linux has come a LONG way with gaming. If anyone tried it a few years ago and just gave up in frustration, give it another try now. It is MASSIVELY better.

That’s a really good idea!

Wait … I can remove Edge?

That bloated pile of trash needs to die.

It amazes me that print management continues to be so spectacularly bad in Windows. It’s been terrible since my first days using Win 3.1 and it has never gotten better.

I use Linux for my daily driver. It has really come a long way even in the last five years, but especially compared to 10-15 years ago. For the most part, stuff just works out of the box.

My ONLY beef is that many of the games I play (Civ 5, Banished, Sins of a Solar Empire, Frostpunk) are not stable and/or have performance issues under Linux, so I occasionally need to boot into Windows. For example Civ 5 works great until around 20 turns in when the lag between turns grows unbearable. That really sucks in multiplayer.

I’m sure some do, but I also don’t hang out to watch “10 most fatal crashes (#2 will amaze you)” and “here’s a 10-minute SEO-optimized video to tell you something that would otherwise take 20 seconds to read” videos, which are probably typical “creators”.

The pessimist in me says to look out for a bill authored by Google to make adblocking illegal.

“These brave content creators, who produce such culturally significant shows as ‘Ow my balls’ and ‘Matrix 1999 [full rip]’, are being literally murdered by hackers who use adblockers. These pirates use their hacking technology to steal this content and threaten our very way of life. While we regret resorting to legislation, we are left with no choice but to show these thieves the harsh reality of the criminal justice system.”

I see a lot of people saying “but that’s how creators get paid”.

Listen: I didn’t put ads on my video. YouTube did. I can’t take them off and I don’t see a cent from them. Block away.

I miss the day when you could search YouTube for something like “JFK skyclub” and actually get video of the Skyclub at JFK. Today you’ll get 15-minute videos that are 90% a guy talking about his thoughts on JFK, or Skyclub, or airlines, or whatever. If you’re really lucky, some of them may feature a few seconds of actual footage of Skyclub.

It’s not just Skyclub or travel videos. If I search for “repair mr coffee” I want to see a howto, not someone’s SEO-optimized long winded lecture about whatever coffeemakers they’re selling.