topic Re: Calling Home in Android TV

Calling Home

angelacr — Sat, 15 Jan 2022 10:39:08 GMT

Home adblocking DNS

Do you think that Sony could take note? I choose to block adverts from the net. My ad-blockers are refusing thousands of requests (the grey bands are blocked advert or viewing-data). It would be better for the World if Sony didn't do this but it would be slightly better if the software could learn to stop, for ever, asking for DNS lookups after a few refusals. Come on Sony DON'T BE EVIL.

Re: Calling Home

HannahEd01 — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 12:53:53 GMT

Hey angelacr, what's the model number of your device?

Re: Calling Home

angelacr — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 13:28:20 GMT

XR-A80J

Re: Calling Home

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 17:04:36 GMT

Can you really setup or add an add-block on a TV? If it's possible, how can you do it without messing the TV software?

Maybe the only way for now is to use a VPN?

Re: Calling Home

CinnamonJalapeno — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 19:57:04 GMT

It's Pi-hole, which is a DNS sinkhole rather than an add blocker that you install on individual devices. You run it on your local network and set your DHCP server (normally the one build into your router) to provide clients with that DNS server when they connect to the network. When the device then wants to look up a service, e.g. www.sony.com the Pi-hole first checks if that DNS name is on its block list. If not, it either answers with the IP address if it's cached, or forwards it to another DNS service to answer it. If the DNS name is blocked on the Pi-hole, e.g ads.annoyingservice.com, the Pi-hole refuses to resolve it and tells the device the domain can't be found, and so it can't request the ads.

Re: Calling Home

Eskimosony — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 13:20:09 GMT

Where are the Adverts on my Sony TV? I never see any...so it's seems pretty worthless...or am I missing something?

Re: Calling Home

HannahEd01 — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 18:06:30 GMT

Hey XR-A80J, do you mean the google suggestions? that cannot be removed, but you can rather turn the TV to BASIC TV instead.

Re: Calling Home

angelacr — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 21:33:57 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/29/what-your-smart-tv-knows-about-you-and-how-to-stop-it-harvesting-data

This is the reason I block many many Sony urls. I did post some of their URLs here, but they appear to have been removed.