5 Ways To Dumb Down Your Smart TV

gamespot.com:

You just want to turn on your TV and play a video game or use your Apple TV or Roku to watch a favorite show, but any time you have to tinker with your TV's interface, there are ads everywhere. Ads in the bar that shows the inputs, ads on the screen where you have apps installed--it feels like they're everywhere. It's almost impossible to get a «dumb» TV these days and still have anything like modern features. There are, however, ways to interfere with the constant assault of ads on your devices, and we have five on offer, organized by increasing complexity and cost.

Some of these are as simple as being your lazy self, while one involves setting up Linux on a Raspberry Pi. There's an option for every skill and commitment level, and you can pair more than one of these options together for the most effective scenario. The ultimate goal, though, is to let you make the most of your TV without letting its smart features get in the way.

The simplest and easiest way to keep your television from throwing ads at you is to just not connect it to the internet. If you never plug it into Ethernet or type in your Wi-Fi credentials, the TV can't get online. That means no updates, but it also means no ads. You can always plug in temporarily to download an update if your TV's manufacturer releases a firmware update that enables a significant feature, as both LG and Sony have done with recent televisions. This is especially worth considering if your television comes equipped with microphones and a camera, as an increasing number do.

If you do have to connect your TV to the internet, check to see if your smart TV has a feature called Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR. When enabled, ACR will attempt to identify everything you put on