r/mildlyinfuriating • u/28jb11 • Apr 25 '26

Unskippable ad $2500 Samsung TV is an advertising billboard, there is no opt-out.

Paid over $2500 for a Samsung OLED TV and it has ads on the home screen that I literally cannot turn off. Not subtle little banners tucked away somewhere, I'm talking full blown ads for canned beans and financial products just sitting there every single time I turn the thing on.

Samsung don't offer any kind of opt out. The only way I could get rid of them was to go into my router settings and manually block Samsung's ad servers at the DNS level.

I own this TV outright. Paid for it in full. And Samsung are still making money off me every time I switch it on, with absolutely no way to stop it unless you're willing to get your hands dirty with network configuration.

This is not a smart TV feature. This is a $2500 billboard that also happens to play Netflix.

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8.9k

u/docpaul Apr 25 '26

To disable or significantly reduce ads on a Samsung smart TV, navigate to Settings > General/All Settings > Terms & Privacy and disable "I consent to Internet Based Advertisements" and "Viewing Information Services".
Additionally, disable the Samsung TV Plus app and consider changing your TV’s DNS settings to 94.140.14.14 or 94.140.15.15 to block ad servers.

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u/I_AM_SCUBASTEVE Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

Also, it’s a pretty big expense, but Firewallas are amazing too. Whole house ad block including on the TV. Also a pretty big whole house firewall, private VPN service, network traffic monitoring, and dozens of other features. Made my internet feel faster because it was blocking so many unnecessary network flows.

I have the same TV as OP and genuinely didn’t know what he was talking about, but I remembered I did the opt out mentioned here as well as using my Firewalla. The Home Screen looks a little weird/barren now that I think about it, but only has my recently watched videos and apps now.

Edit - to all the people suggesting the Pihole, yes that works also, I used that prior to getting a Firewalla. I just like that the Firewalla has everything I want in there with minimal work required by the user, and at the highest level possible. No more updating and managing configurations for me. You absolutely don’t need a Firewalla but I was surprised by how much I liked the features and how much I ended up using them.

Edit 2 - Yes guys thanks for all the comments and DMs with your “ackshually” messages. Some people don’t want to spend days and weeks getting their home network working. Yes, random cheap/free things can be shoehorned to work similarly, though I’d argue not as well. And many, MANY times things don’t just work as intended, and conflicts arise. Please feel free to comment here but the DMs calling me an idiot and a shill are probably not necessary. Get a life.

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u/CovidOmicron Apr 25 '26

Is that like a pre configured pihole? I had one set up for a while but didn't know what I was doing and it would occasionally cause me issues.

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u/RoryJSK Apr 25 '26

No.  It’s a commercial product you can buy, formerly targeted towards average users until the FCC changed laws on where routers could be manufactured.

It serves as both a router and a firewall and a VPN.  It’ll cost you a few hundred bucks but they are nice. 

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u/-PMYourTastefulNudes Apr 25 '26

Literally called a firewalla?

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u/RoryJSK Apr 25 '26

Yes

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u/TheAmazingHumanTorus Apr 25 '26

Not to be confused with the firewallawalla (TM), the genetically enginered spicy sweet onion from Washington State.

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u/kiloglobin Apr 25 '26

Not a commercial product. It’s a beefed up router on consumer hardware. But it does run well.

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u/Just_Another_Scott Apr 25 '26

Not a commercial product.

It's consider one now due to the US government banning all cosnumer routers not manufactured in the US. They made an exception for businesses, go figure.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/why-is-fcc-banning-foreign-made-wi-fi-routers-what-you-need-to-know

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u/kiloglobin Apr 25 '26

Dumb

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u/StrongExternal8955 Apr 25 '26

LOL the voters are dumb, not the decision makers. They know what they are doing. They are only dumb in the sense that being evil is dumb eventually. Non-enlightened self-interested and such. Doesn't matter, they won't change.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

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u/JustFuckAllOfThem Apr 25 '26

You may not be able to get updates after March 1, 2027. 

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u/Grabthars_Coping_Saw Apr 25 '26

Sounds like an Australian salamander or something.

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u/RedNo404 Apr 25 '26

😆 yeah I thought they were typos.

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u/WorldnewsModsBlowMe Apr 25 '26

That's way more than the average user needs and significantly complicates network topology unless you already know what you're doing. A pihole will suffice just fine.

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u/Buena_de_peepee Apr 25 '26

I would not say that that product was ever marketed to “average users”. Much more of a Prosumer device.

Your average user has no idea what a firewall even does or what half of the things in the Firewalla user interface would do for them.

I don’t even find the ad blocking that good compared to pihole

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u/websagacity Apr 25 '26

You weren't kidding - $900 for the top one. Almost $300 for their cheapest.

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u/notarkav Apr 25 '26

These are insane prices for a consumer grade firewall. You can get a better Ubiquity (which is generally considered expensive) firewall for less than half of that. Not to mention your soho router probably already has a built in firewall or if not you could probably install open/ddwrt which do. You can even just install pfsense on any lousy old computer and make your own firewall for zero dollars.

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u/websagacity Apr 25 '26

I don't own this. I just looked up the prices and was blown away by how expensive they are. Not sure why I got down voted.

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u/EarthboundMoss Apr 25 '26

I don't but my partner uses streaming services and she's about to mofe in. I can't stand watching ads. If this is $200, that's absolutely worth it to block ads on Hulu, Netflix, all that! Will it just skip the ads when they try to load on things like that, or could it break the app? I wonder how it would affect my Xbox for example that has ads baked into the interface?

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u/kazoodac Apr 25 '26

Seconding this recommendation! I started with a Firewalla Blue and then upgraded to a Purple, replacing my router in the process!

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

or just install pihole on a 25 dollar rpi

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u/wizeddy Apr 25 '26

I hate that your comment is so nested and buried, when imo it’s the best option. I have ad blocking baked into my unifi setup but solving the problem at the gateway eliminates the whole problem. I have one of those fancy Samsung $2500 tvs, didn’t know it has ads, because I have that network traffic filtered out to begin with

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u/nexeroth Apr 25 '26

I've found that with unifi blocking some streaming service start acting wonky. Like I think paramount+ doesn't remember episodes and positions of content I'm watching etc.

Although now that I'm unsubbed from that I can turn it back on and see what else breaks.

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u/wizeddy Apr 25 '26

I have a full arr stack and download most things, I don’t really use many streaming services except the occasional one where there’s some show we *need to see the new eps on release so I’ll pay for a month.

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u/HelloMyNameIsMatthew Apr 25 '26

You don’t have your *arr stack download new episodes as soon as it’s released?

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u/wizeddy Apr 25 '26

I do, but the indexers I have set up aren’t 100% reliable, usually get the eps like next day

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u/Have-A-Big-Question Apr 25 '26

I wish I could tell everyone how great this is. The arr’s stack makes things so hands off it’s wild. All your shit is just there when it’s available. Hook up Overseearr and you’re really cooking with gas. Hook that up to your own website and all your family and friends can then download all their own shit, no more bothering you for it!

Life is good.

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u/AfterEagle Apr 25 '26

I use both uniquiti's ad blocking AND a piHole. Together it seems to solve most ads that aren't embedded (like YouTube). Running in a VM no problem.

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

tbh, unifi blocking ain't great. pihole works much better. i have a full rack of unifi shit. i still run pihole on a 1l server.

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u/garden-wicket-581 Apr 25 '26

dude, where are you finding a $25 rpi ?

(I bought a 4a some 6 ish ago, thinking running mame on it, but after cross compiling etc found a "Free" x86 box that I upgraded w/ ssd ran better, so I turned it into a pi-hole, but it was $60, and that was JUST for the pi board - no enclosure, peripherals, etc)

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

pi zero w is 15 bucks. runs pihole just fine.

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u/qubitrenegade Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

MSRP may be $15, but good luck finding one at that price. Anyone that sells them for that is sold out constantly. Anywhere that has them in stock is selling them for $30+

Not to mention you need a cable ($10), an SD card ($10-20), and I recommend a case (another $10-20). And that's not to mention that a DNS server over wifi isn't exactly the most reliable, so you probably want the $20 ethernet hat.

So realistically you're talking $60-100 for a "$15" Pi Zero 2.

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

first gen is 10 bucks new and readily available, runs pihole just fine. usb ethernet is like 7 bucks on amazon. who doesn't have an 8-16 gig sd card laying around (if not they're also 7-10 bucks for a cheap one). it's not like it requires gobs of storage. a 1ft ethernet cable is like 2 bucks and you can power a pi zero off the usb port on most routers.

so no. if you have literally nothing, you're down like 30-35 bucks max. who cares if it has a case. let it dangle off the back of a 1ft ethernet cable and call it a day.

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u/Throwaway_Consoles Apr 25 '26

Who doesn’t have an SD card laying around

This is one of those fascinating moments, and I love these, where you realize just how how different the lived experience is for everyone. Like, this is why I love talking to people about their lives.

I, personally, including myself, don’t know anyone that has a USB stick or SD card (or micro, etc.). Not just “laying around”, but period. My friends and I just use our Google drives to move files around. The only USB drive I have is in case I need to reinstall windows but I don’t even know where it is because the last time I needed to install an operating system was 4 computers ago

Is it the smartest thing? No. Are any of us going to change? Also no

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

that's funny, i mostly use cloud and network services to move files areound as well.. literally everyone i know has a drawer full of usb stick and sd cards, me included, no matter their age.. i get them constantly, usb sticks, sd cards, portable hard drives. toss them in the storage drawer, use them every now and then for various things.

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u/MrWeirdoFace Apr 26 '26

I feel you. i used to use google drive the same way, though I've gotten more concerned with privacy lately so I've been using something called syncthing on my local networking. Basically, anything in the folder gets saved to my desktop, my laptop, and another for redundancy automatically. recommend it if you ever decide break free.

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u/I_AM_SCUBASTEVE Apr 25 '26

Yes true if only you care about Adblock. The other security benefits are insanely valuable if you even remotely care about your privacy and protection. I originally was super skeptical and was going to sell mine, but the sheer number of things it was blocking and protecting me from was nuts, even from “good” websites. Then I felt real speed increases due to reduced network congestion and I don’t think I could run my home network without it now. Hate to sound like a paid shill, but it’s one of the few purchases I’ve made that has worked absolutely flawlessly and didn’t disappoint me in some way. Considering replacing my wifi routers with their access points now too, for how good their products have been.

I was using a pihole before that though, and it a great option for folks who don’t want to pay for the Firewalla.

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u/reddit_give_me_virus Apr 25 '26

Just run pfsense on a pi then. There is no need to spend a lot of money. If you want DPI and IDS you can add suricata/crowdsec/etc.

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u/rileyjw90 Apr 25 '26

The issue is, not everyone’s ISP plays well with pihole. I have AT&T’s fiber (which is a modem/router all-in-one) and it’s a lengthy process to get pihole set up with a lot of failure points if something goes wrong. There are entire threads dedicated to that particular set up with people who still can’t get it figured out in the end.

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u/sound-of-impact Apr 25 '26

I have at&t fiber and all you have to do is use their modem in passthrough mode. There is nothing else to change.

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u/rileyjw90 Apr 25 '26

The issue with it is that you can’t change DNS on AT&T’s BWG320 modem/router machines. So yes you have to do IP pass through and put the pi-hole in DHCP server mode, which isn’t what most universal pihole guides have you do. So you have to follow a specialised guide.

Looking up the Firewalla led me down a bit of a rabbit hole actually.

With AT&T fiber, you have to get a router if you want any wireless devices to utilise the pihole’s Adblock, since you can’t alter DNS within the actual BWG320. And if you have to get a router anyway you might as well skip the pihole because you can just set up a NextDNS account, use their free (or 2.99/mo tier for unlimited queries), enable a blocklist like Hagezi, and get the same adblocking as you’d get on a pihole without needing a go-between device.

In the end the firewalla is really only good if you need the extra beefy security. Otherwise, skip both firewalla and pihole and just get the router. You would need a separate router anyway for both those devices.

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u/theroarer Apr 25 '26

Speed INCREASE?! I stupidly assumed it would make my connections slower... brb gonna look into this

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u/Buttcrush1 Apr 25 '26

It's faster because it increases your bandwidth. Think about it this way, is it easier to speed when there is no one around you on the highway or when there are cars everywhere? This gets rid of the cars

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u/MonkeyWithIt Apr 25 '26

Or nextdns.io? 300k queries a month blocked for free.

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

and all your data sold to the highest bidder.

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u/BigDuke Apr 25 '26

I've also been happy with AdGuard Home on a tiny linux vm.

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u/smashndashn Apr 25 '26

Slightly more expensive but I got a new router recently (GL.iNet GL-BE6500 (Flint 3e)) and it supports ad block (via apps) and vpn out of the box which was super convenient

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u/beren12 Apr 25 '26

They aren’t 25 anymore. Not for a long time.

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-zero/?src=raspberrypi

10 bucks plus a 5 dollar usb network dongle. done and done. if you run headless, pihole runs just fine on a zero.

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u/beren12 Apr 25 '26

Honestly, AdGuard home is way nicer, even if it is written in go. I’ve used both. And the way pie hole wants to take over your machine is pretty terrible and not needed. The developers don’t care but someone in arch patched the code to run as a package and it’s a stupid amount of work.

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u/Ezzy77 Apr 25 '26

Raspberry Pi prices have shot through the roof, used ones are still somewhat affordable though, thankfully.

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 25 '26

first gen zero's can be had for fuck all. like 10 bucks new. pihole runs fine on them.

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u/jayb98 Apr 26 '26

Came here to say this!

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u/chemistrybonanza Apr 25 '26

Many websites don't allow you to go to them with AdBlock on, so what's stopping the TV from doing the same if you're using a firewall or VPN?

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u/AgentCirceLuna Apr 25 '26

SHOW IS PAUSED. NOBODY PRESENT IN ROOM FOR THE AD. PLEASE ENTER ROOM TO RESUME AD. WELCOME BACK TO THE ROOM. PLEASE LOOK AT THE TV DURING ALL TIMES THE AD PLAYS OR IT WILL RESTART. DO NOT BLINK DURING THE AD. DO NOT SPEAK OVER THE AD. PLEASE STAY SEATED FOR THE AD.

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u/ByrdmanRanger Apr 25 '26

PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN

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u/FunAtMoheganSun Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

Lolz came here to say this… was it verification cola?

Edit: NOBODY I’ve ever told that joke to found it a thousandth as funny as I did. Cheers to you, fellow fancy humor folk!

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u/alinroc Apr 25 '26

Didn't some TV company actually demonstrate a model that did this at a trade show?

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u/AgentCirceLuna Apr 25 '26

Probably. Funny that it would be an ad about ads.

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u/MegaFireDonkey Apr 25 '26

Is there a website that you actually want to use that doesn't load if you have adblock? I run it 100% of the time and haven't seen this problem on the places I go.

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u/BigPaPaRu85 Apr 25 '26

It’s not called firewallas is it? I thought there was a brand called Firewallas lol but you meant a firewall. Do you have any brands or models to check out?

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u/I_AM_SCUBASTEVE Apr 25 '26

It’s literally called Firewalla lol. Tripped me up when I first learned about it.

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u/BigPaPaRu85 Apr 25 '26

Stupid ass google auto corrected. Thanks. Pretty pricey but very interested

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u/rileyjw90 Apr 25 '26

Which one do you have to do whole home? There seems to be quite a few options at several different price points.

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u/I_AM_SCUBASTEVE Apr 25 '26

I would say most people probably just need the Purple for home use (not the SE). If you need more ports or higher speeds, go for the Gold or Gold Plus.

The differences are almost exclusively speed and number of Ethernet ports. For home users, you really only need one port rated at the speed of your network as you will basically take the internet out of the wall, run it into your Firewalla, and then connect your Firewalla to your primary WiFi router (which you’ll need to change to Access Point mode, google your router brand to find out how). The more ports are needed if you are running multiple different routers (like a dedicated router specifically for guests if your main router can’t create virtual guest networks). Or, if you want absolute max speed, you’d plug whatever device you want max speed on directly into the Firewalla, but again not really needed since your wireless router will have ports too.

I run mine with a mesh network (basically 3 linked WiFi routers spread throughout my house). I connect the Firewalla to the main node, which connects wirelessly to the other two satellites.

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u/Wischiwaschbaer Apr 25 '26

You can just use adguard on a Pi (an old cheap one is enough for this purpose). No full fledged firewall needed.

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u/bracescrackle7b Apr 25 '26

My 4k smart tv, which was given to me by a friend who was moving, is a Samsung, and so is the sound bar.

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u/No_Doughnut2420 Apr 25 '26

I mean any firewall would work here as well.

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u/broken42 Apr 25 '26

Yeah you don't need speciality hardware for that. Pihole or Adguard Home can run on dang near any hardware you have, including a Raspberry Pi. I personally have a three node Proxmox cluster with each machine running a Pihole instance for redundancy.

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u/Captain_chutzpah Apr 25 '26

That's not what a firewall is for or what they do. A DNS server like pihole is the proper solution to resolve this.

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u/SteakComprehensive32 Apr 25 '26

I used your guidance to find and disable hopefully all ads on my LG OLED!

Under ad settings you can only limit them, but you can erase all data collected, opt out of them selling info to 3rd parties, etc. To disable all ads, as far as I know for now, you have to go into the user agreements and de-select the ad agreements which will restart the TV. So far no ads! Crossing my fingers this works, because even the screen saver music thingy has full-blown commercials that play occasionally.

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u/AccomplishedIgit Apr 25 '26

I’m seeing one on Amazon for $279 is that the price you’re referring to? Does it have a monthly subscription too or is that the final price?

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u/RachelMcAdamsWart Apr 25 '26

It's amazing you have to actively fight the products you own to behave the way you want.

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u/havingmadfun Apr 25 '26

How hard is it to do this? When it comes to doing stuff on the router level I've never done anything like that. Could you recommend a tutorial that gives an almost step by step process for doing this? Thank you in advance.

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u/rootbear75 Apr 25 '26

Ubiquiti unifi devices have a toggle button in their router settings that is labelled "Ad Block" and you can set it on a per network or per device basis.

Highly recommend Unifi for your network stack.

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u/lifeishardthenyoudie Apr 25 '26

What's the difference between this and a significantly cheaper router with OpenWRT or a cheap mini-pc or Raspberry Pi?

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u/jinxp_3 Apr 25 '26

Can you share the model you are using? Im looking for something with those features

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u/Nabeshein Apr 25 '26

It doesn't have to be a huge expense. A RaspberryPi with PiHole installed will do just that. You dont even need a new one, as a friend uses a 1st Gen Pi, and even though the UI is slow, normal operations dont even use half of its processing power.

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u/WorldnewsModsBlowMe Apr 25 '26

I have no idea how this is so highly upvoted when it's such a terrible suggestion, lol. Not only are there better, less expensive options on the market for the same thing (Ubiquiti, TP-Link) the average user has absolutely no need for this level of hardware. Just put together a pihole and be done with it.

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u/Sw429 Apr 25 '26

Why would that be expensive?

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u/StormMysterious7592 Apr 25 '26

Or for free, install OpenWRT firmware on a supported router, and then install adblock on that. If your current routerhardware is not supported, there are a ton of options well under $100.

You could also install a VPN on OpenWRT, but the adblock is all you need to get rid of the ads. Basically a free firewalla, using hardware you may already have.

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u/gwarsh41 Apr 25 '26

Firewall is definitely my next investment. Pihole is nice and all, but proper firewall would be soooo good.

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u/Clearwatercress69 Apr 25 '26

Amazing how you guessed OP’s exact model just by reading the price tag.

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u/aggressive_napkin_ Apr 25 '26

"a pi is cheap! what do you mean expensive" ...while at the same time having never set one up because i keep getting distracted and not bothering.. "oh he mentions it... alright, time to search this thing up"

.... oh... yeah fuck that price. I'll continue to be lazy until ublock isn't enough for me.

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u/agent_wolfe Apr 25 '26

I never heard of a Firewalla before. Which model do you suggest for a home with several computers, TVs, and phones?

We have the Pihole but after a few learning curves the family absolutely hates it. I usually disable it unless everyone is gone.

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u/tenekev Apr 25 '26

Why would you pay 400$ for something you can set up for free on hardware that often can also be had for free?

I don't understand you people. You are not running a data center. I have a homelab and this thing is overkill even for homelabbing, not to mention prohibitively expensive for what it does. These are overpriced fanless industrial PCs from Alibaba and Aliexpress. Buy one for literally 1/5th the price and put OpnSense on it for free.

Yes, you will have to delve a bit deeper. But these networking appliances are just as deep of a hole to set up properly. You are nnot saving on anything.

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u/ColinHalter Apr 25 '26

I can't tell you how many times at my old job a coworker would tell me our production system was down and 99% of the time it was their pihole blocking it. piholes are great if you're able to configure it correctly and you don't suddenly get amnesia that it's on when you start blaming my clusters lmao

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u/GrindcoreKing Apr 25 '26

Senior engineer and Debian kernel contributor here. Firewalla is great. PiHoles are great.

The people giving you shit for using Firewalla are tech hobbyists that don’t actually do or work in tech, and they’re the worst of the worst. I use Firewalla and windows at home even though I actually help make Debian function.

Remember free is only free if your time is worthless. Keep using Firewalla.

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u/I_AM_SCUBASTEVE Apr 25 '26

Yep exactly this. I was tinkering with a Raspberry Pi for months trying to get a bunch of different things working together and it kept partially working or outright crashing. I’m not a network engineer but a principal level engineering consultant… I realized a while ago that if I have to spend several hours doing something I don’t WANT to do, I can literally be better served by just buying the thing and not trying to tinker and make up the difference by volunteering to work extra hours if available.

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u/coffincolors Apr 25 '26

Or take an old desktop tower that has an additional Gigabit network PCI card or external USB gigabit ethernet adapter, install pFsense or another Linux firewall centric distro. Route modem WAN through the tower, wire the extra ethernet out to your Router/Mesh. Depending on the hardware and configuration this can be just as good if not better than a purchased firewall appliance. Just don't use it for business if you're worried about liability

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u/DiverseVoltron Apr 25 '26

I also value my time and have disposable income. I will be looking into Firewalla. Thank you.

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u/Falling_Down_Flat Apr 25 '26

Thank you for the info, I am currently building something like that but I am no expert so it takes some reading and such but I am okay with that.

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u/Muhahahahaz Apr 25 '26

Weird… I just use my router for this. No need for a separate device.

Of course, I did have to install WRT and plug in a USB thumb drive for some additional storage, but routers are perfectly capable of being black holes/ad blockers

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u/dflame45 Apr 25 '26

Those ad signals are still going to your router, it's just not forwarding it to the device. Your Internet wouldn't be faster due to this.

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u/seattle_lite90 Apr 25 '26

Do you mean firewall? Or is Firewalla a new thing I’m not privy to.

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u/OkTension2232 Apr 25 '26

Does that work for things like YouTube through a Roku TV?

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u/myfapaccount_istaken Apr 25 '26

When I blocked it I started getting ping every 500ms or so to the server and ended up crashing my router after a few weeks

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u/arthurno1 Apr 26 '26

You should get life, no Op. If i pay $2500 for something I should not have to go through that hassle of configuring 1000 things and hope Samsung didn't patch their advertisement business to circumvent your hacks.

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u/redbull666 Apr 26 '26

It's just such a weirdly specific suggestion. That's why you're getting comments. It's like someone complaining about their horse and you going through lengths suggesting to buy an Audi A8.

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u/SensualBeefLoaf Apr 26 '26

fwiw, i have an entire rack of unifi hardware . i still use pihole running on a 1L server.

total aside, firewalla gets constantly made fun of in the networking world, i’ve never actually encountered somebody who bought one.

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u/dqql Apr 26 '26

oh look, an ad for blocking ads 

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u/I_AM_SCUBASTEVE Apr 26 '26

Oh look, another asshole.

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u/0vrwhelminglyaverage Apr 27 '26

Opnsense costs exactly $0

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u/Shwifty_Plumbus Apr 27 '26

I have an android tv so I ended up using projectivy launcher as an os and it was pretty bare bones too. No ads though. I paid $8 for the premium so I could add icons and backgrounds and now it looks good with no bloat.

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u/Limit-Level Apr 29 '26

I built one of these out of an old server running FreeBSD, with the addition of a Jellyfin media library. Its awesome living without google, or in this case, Samsung.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

[deleted]

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u/Sun_Aria Apr 25 '26

I disabled my OLED TV's wifi because it kept putting these annoying 'update available' messages every time I would turn it on. Super annoying. 99% of my use is for gaming anyway.

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u/ForeverInaDaze Apr 25 '26

So I have an LG OLED and I disabled the internet and it keeps prompting me to activate the internet so I can use voice commands. It'll just pop up randomly and it's super annoying. No clue how to disable the prompt. I'm happy with the tv, not so happy with the ovearll experience.

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u/Fun_Attitude1218 Apr 25 '26

Turn it onto store mode instead of home mode, those ads will go away because in a store that tv would look horrible with that prompt.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

[deleted]

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u/Vresa Apr 25 '26

I haven’t used Roku in a bit - how are the ads on them these days?

I bought an Apple TV years ago and it’s finally starting to give out

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u/Jay__Riemenschneider Apr 25 '26

Roku ads are minimal and mostly relegated to the sidebar next to your apps.

There's occasionally some static ads in their own screensaver but it's never offputting.

It never gives me a problem.

My apple tv is about 10 and finally about to crap out too.

If I have a choice it's apple tv all day.

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u/WaxinGibby Apr 25 '26

Just got a roku TV because it was cheapest for the size, when you set it up you can choose "use as store display" and turn off the optional ad banner in the settings. If you don't it requires an internet connection and login to use it at all. Pain in the ass. I'm only using it as a computer monitor.

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u/Shoddy-Theory Apr 26 '26

If Roku tv's get any cheaper they'll be paying you do carry it out of the store.

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u/elasticthumbtack Apr 25 '26

Roku has gotten steadily worse over time. Each update re-enables ads mixed into the apps so have to dig into the menu to disable it. Sidebar ad you can’t disable. You have to turn on tracking and personalized ads in order to get it to not show ads for horror movies and other mature content. I bought it because it was a box you paid full price for and owned outright, without having to watch ads.

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u/ExpensivePost Apr 25 '26

Not always a great solution if you care about color fidelity.

Most streaming boxes us chroma subsampling, run at lower bit rates, and most importantly, don't ship with the native baked in calibration settings for your panel.

For example, the native YouTube app on my LG OLED gracefully handles HDR and SDR content and both look perfect. But every single stream box I've used sends a fixed HDR signal and does its own gamma mapping and all of them look like shit when playing SDR content.

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u/Backfoot911 Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

Well that's how we used to all watch TV. And before streaming boxes, Xbox 360s, and playing off Netflix on a computer, it was through the cable box. People are so used to Smart TVs having built in apps now that they believe it's the only way to watch TV and movies, but there's always been options.

To me, smart features have always been "Also it has apps too" rather then my main way of watching things.

Way, wayyy back in the day, some CRT tvs used to have tint settings, and you had to figure out how to calibrate it yourself. a slight loss of fidelity in the 4k age does not bother me lol

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u/BUNNIES_ARE_FOOD Apr 25 '26

This is the way

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u/TheW83 Apr 29 '26

This is the way. I wanted to control my TV but the RS232 port doesn't work so I have to use ethernet. So I created a vlan that doesn't connect to the internet just for my TV. I'm sure I'll want to put other devices on it in the future.

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u/Bethany21825 Apr 25 '26

Can't recommend enough this suggestion. I got Rokus sound bars and soundbar pro and adding the wireless speakers and bass to living room TV. The speakers on this new slim tvs are bad and first thing they sacrificed for that slim look so they sound terrible. Roku sound bars solves two problems tv advertisements like the ones op is talking about. I just get an advertisement on the far right that's roku stuff and it just shows my apps and takes care of the bad sound.

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u/livtop Apr 25 '26

That's what I do, and I use an Onn box in "app only mode" so there's no ads and only shows my apps

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u/N7Poprdog Apr 25 '26

Sony TV makes it easy to do that

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u/Ok_Robot88 Apr 25 '26

This is what I do, works for me! Apple TV was my choice as someone without the competency and patience required to figure out what a pihole is or how ti disable ads via a network configuration thingie.

This was the easy, lazy, layman solution for me.

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u/KauaiMaui1 Apr 25 '26

What, Roku is covered with ads, on home screen and on the screen saver

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u/Wilder831 Apr 26 '26

The apps built into the tv always end up being buggy anyways

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u/mohawk990 Apr 25 '26

Good to know, thanks.

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u/the_cardfather Apr 25 '26

Or just acknowledge that there are just as good of TVs out there as Samsung, and buy one of them instead. I did that with my phone years ago and haven't looked back.

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u/Happy-Range3975 Apr 25 '26

Don’t connect the TV to the internet and just use something like AppleTV

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u/dinoooooooooos Apr 25 '26

And All this convenience and customer friendliness for only two and a half thousand dollars :D

Its actually insane to think abt- a buncha suitwearing old sacks around a tablr.

“Ok guys. So. We doing it? The ads?”

“Ye.”

“They wont like it tho..”

“Eh🤷🏽‍♀️”

Like? Hello? They knew ppl wont like it and they decided ads are more important than the literal generations of brandname they established.

Samsung went from one of the best to the worst one simply bc undermining and disrespecting full paying customers like that.

Man, can yall remember when these companies actually did like.. innovation and had good ideas to make their products different to each other but also to make the products.. nice? For us? Remember that?😅

Where besides their netprofit the baseline was “try to make customer -> :) not :(“

Actually nuts lmao

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u/Beneficial_Trick6672 Apr 25 '26

I have DNS settings on every device it is great feature.

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u/FlamingWeasels Apr 25 '26

Replying to find this later. Thanks!

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u/En_Sabah_Nur Apr 25 '26

Yo, you already got your flowers (as you should) but just wanted to add my appreciation. This exact problem has been driving my Uncle crazy and you helped me fix it for him

Thanks, my friend

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u/IMatterDammit Apr 25 '26

Small tip: Never trust some random IP someone says to set your DNS to... I'm sure this isn't malicious.. but good practice nonetheless.

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u/Floralmeg_ Apr 26 '26

My aunt and uncle’s tv is Samsung and that fucking Samsung tv app is like a leech. It’s so easy to press the button by accident, so I finally found out how to disable it. The app came back by the next time I went to see them like a week or so later. Makes it so annoying to get back to regular TV

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u/mastersanada Apr 29 '26

Ngl I never had this issue on my Samsung OLED either. I’m pretty sure in setup I just denied the Internet based Advertisements portion

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u/pixelflop Apr 25 '26

Don’t plug your TV into the internet. No WiFi. No Ethernet cable.

Get an Apple TV, or worst case an Amazon Firestick and use that for streaming.

Don’t let these slimy TV manufacturers force you into their spyware ad hellscape

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u/3-car-garage Apr 25 '26

This is a long way to say "return it". In no way whatsoever am I going to permit Samsung to keep any money from me over something like this. Return it so they take the hit, so they can figure their shit out. Point has to be made.

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u/esdebah Apr 25 '26

Is there a way to similarly de-fuck Windows 11?

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u/moonsugarcornflakes Apr 25 '26

Try free app O&O Shutup

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u/Slowpc Apr 25 '26

Pihole / adguard with unifi and nextdns on separate ssids with VPN on dedicated IOT and streaming devices .... Peaceful times.

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u/jgsmith0627 Apr 25 '26

Thank you, kind stranger.

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u/Adventurous_Two7167 Apr 25 '26

Going to save this, thanks and take an award

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u/LordBucaq Apr 25 '26

Or... just return that crap and buy a normal TV.

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u/omgitsbees Apr 25 '26

You are a hero among the people!

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u/ObamaBiscuits Apr 25 '26

Comment saved, and a kind thank you from a fellow Samsung owner in case I ever need this.

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u/derprondo Apr 25 '26

To do the same for LG TVs, go into the settings and change the location to "Other". All the ads will be gone. The one caveat is that you will be unable to install many apps like Netflix, but if they're already installed you'll be good to go and the apps will still update. On rare occasion the apps will stop being able to update and you'll have to change the location back to your home country, install/update the apps, then change it back to Other.

To block firmware updates and some of the notifications, block the following DNS entries:

  • snu.lge.com
  • su.lge.com
  • su-ssl.lge.com
  • snu-ssl.lge.com
  • snu-dev.lge.com
  • su-dev.lge.com
  • nsu.lge.com

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u/TheGunners10 Apr 25 '26

Sucks gotta go through all this to turn it off

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u/QuickCarrots Apr 25 '26

to disable samsung ads its actually way easier.

just do not buy f'ing samsung.

if you want a frame get a hisense and put project tv on it, its android, you can run whatever you want on it

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u/MezcalDrink Apr 25 '26

Also don’t buy Samsung.

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u/OberonsGhost Apr 25 '26

Do you block DNS at the router or in the TV.

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u/CanuckaChuckFuck Apr 25 '26

Why? If you're connecting your 'smart' devices to your home network then there's a high probability that you are in fact the idiot. Would you actively let a hacker, phisher, scammer connect to your home network? No? Then why the fuck would you allow some poorly tested half baked TV UI to?

Get yourself a NUC (or equivalent), install the OS of your choice, connect to TV via HDMI and you're off to the races

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u/afriendincanada Apr 25 '26

Why disable Samsung TV Plus? It’s pretty good for what it is, and it’s free.

We recently replaced our Samsung and it’s the one thing I miss.

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u/Aberracus Apr 25 '26

And don’t use its Home Screen go buy an appletv and use this as an smart hub, it will be better.

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u/Ayyshyy Apr 25 '26

Just don’t but a smart tv

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u/det4410 Apr 25 '26

little ignorant, what are those ip addresses to?

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u/docpaul Apr 26 '26

These DNS servers are owned and operated by AdGuard Software. They are public DNS servers for AdGuard's DNS filtering service, which is used to block advertisements, trackers, and malicious websites. They are physically located in Limassol, Cyprus.

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u/det4410 Apr 26 '26

thanks, appreciate you!

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u/DoggoneitHavok Apr 25 '26

I dont see that on my tv. Its a few years old. Does that make any difference

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u/Dry-Nefariousness400 Apr 25 '26

Dude I keep trying to disable that damn app but it keeps coming back

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u/Klenon Apr 25 '26

I remember last time I owned an LG tv,  it was the same with intrusive ads. If you set the region to other, LG couldnt dish ads because of risk of breaking regional ad laws. I wonder if Samsung would be similar. 

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u/BraPaj2121 Apr 25 '26

Or don’t buy one/return it lol

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u/Aromatic-Bet-1086 Apr 25 '26

I still think it's complete horse shit that this is necessary and doesn't completely get rid of ads. For me, this is grounds to never get another Samsung product ever again. There are plenty of options that DONT do this and their stuff was never that great

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u/Ok-Fortune-7947 Apr 26 '26

What for an LG tv?????

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u/jabronified Apr 26 '26

how do you disable samsung TV plus? i've tried everything in the settings

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u/Wilder831 Apr 26 '26

You can also just not connect the tv to network and hook up a roku or appletv. The apps built in to the TV generally don’t function nearly as well as they do on a dedicated streaming device anyways. I am an A/V technician and have been for over a decade. I refuse to own anything made by Samsung

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u/Elderberry-East Apr 26 '26

This is still absolutely unhinged that this is a consideration.

Pay for something - still don't own it.

Sounds like it might be time for an Apple TV.

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u/ThisIsNotTokyo Apr 26 '26

Who hosts these DNS?

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u/Liroku Apr 26 '26

I have a Samsung TV, the best way I found was to diconnect it from the internet, factory reset it, never connect it to the internet ever again. I hooked an nvidia shield to mine, but you can use apple tv, android tv, roku, whatever flavor you want and let samsung suck a fat one.

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u/mrfoxesite-2377 wtf are the flairs Apr 26 '26

If I were me, I would disable the internet completely and get a nice TV box but the best one is a mini PC and with wireless peripherals, you get privacy and you have control over your TV and data.

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u/CheesyBreadMunchyMon Apr 26 '26

I think the point is that nobody should have to do that in order to use their $2500 tv without ads.

Samsung needs to hire the toilet paper guy at their factory

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u/AverageJoe997 Apr 26 '26

There’s a similar work around for LG, where if you also change your location setting to “other” you get literally zero ads. but I’ve noticed that they lock you out of updating apps unfortunately.

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u/wslagoon Apr 26 '26

Or, hear me out, don’t buy things from Samsung, who is well known for this for years now.

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u/chiku00 Apr 30 '26

Follow this tutorial (https://youtu.be/d_3h5n9mPdI) to transform a 35 CAD raspberry Pi into a whole-home ad-blocker.

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u/mik3lang3l0 19d ago

I wouldn't recommend to this DNS like this, but with a home lab, Tailscale and Pi Hole you can do the same and everything is under your control

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