I only witness it whenever any of my work colleagues anyone with a phone wants to show me a video. Always have to sit through ads before & during the video. Absolutely horrific. Mind you they also have to close multiple pop up ads in every app they ever use on their phone. I couldn’t live with it & not learn how to deal with it

People allow their TV to connect to the interpipes? Tut tut, I thought y’all were better than that!

OmsAnd can seem daunting for new users. I persevered because the map info is so detailed & it works offline. On a couple of occasions my family found ourselves in a new city in a foreign country in need of food etc & OsmAnd has had the info telling us exactly what we needed & where to go thanks to the dedicated community. It encouraged me to map my own city suburb in detail to help fellow travelers.

I also love its offline Wikipedia function.

If anyone is interested, even adding a park bench or litter bin helps & is quite simple with something like StreetComplete

For YouTube I hate the algorithm so i disabled YouTube app & only watch through browser. Of course mobile & desktop browsers are running uBlock Origin, Sponsorblock & DeArrow.

I never sign in. Instead of subscribing to channels or “watch later” I’m an avid user of Joplin notes so i have a specific note for YouTube for subscriptions & for any interesting looking videos I stumble across. The note is broken into video time length so i can watch something depending on available time, which helps if mindlessly watching stuff. Joplin syncs to all devices.

Its an extra few seconds for me to add a url & title to the note but its second nature now. The beauty is I only see stuff I’m interested in not crap they think I want to see. Plus this way its easy to save links for any video site.

Another thing I do is for audio style videos I’ve enabled background play so i can listen at night with a timer when going to sleep rather than having to sit & watch a video.

Go into this completely blind - do not watch the trailer, do not read about it first, just take a deep breath & enjoy the ride

Simplest option is probably speak to sales staff & specifically ask about the set up process. It might be worth phoning a couple of reputable TV vendors as they may have more understanding than the spotty herberts in the sheds at the local retail park.

I last bought a TV outside of your preferred time frame but back then Panasonic made, what for my needs, was the best panel for the price & didnt insist on having internet in order to set it up (no idea whether this has changed with current generation models)

It doesnt help with your hdmi concerns, but what about blocking the TV at router level or restrict it by putting it on VLAN/guest network then disconnecting it from the internet forever once set up.is complete?

For images, on Android you could use Imagepipe.

Once you’ve set it up, simply “share” the image to Imagepipe, it does its thing then automatically passes it on to whatever app you want - for example a messaging app for you to send on to others (it stores a copy of the image minus its metadata in an Imagepipe folder in your gallery for ease of access should you need it again).

For video, from memory I think mp3tag for Windows/Mac can remove metadata from some video formats

mobile Chromium doesn’t have ublock anyway…

Kiwi browser on Android is Chromium based & has had the ability to add extensions such as uBlock for years

Everyone knows the popular ones so here’s a shout out to a few that are perhaps not so commonly known:

• whoBIRD - Shazam for birds
• Subz - Subscription manager
• zCard - Loyalty/membership/store card wallet

My most used can no longer live without app:

• Joplin - Note taking. Various sync options. Brilliant app, helpful community & very regular updates (especially desktop)

Late to the party but just another vote for Nextcloud. I used a paid subscription initially but then took the plunge, bought a Pi 4 & SSD for storage then read up & figured out how to self host.

It was my first experience with Linux, I fell over many times but dont give in as after all the hair pulling & teeth grinding it becomes rewarding & even a little “fun” when you get there & then become confident enough to take on & complete further Pi projects.

The Pi can handle Libre Office (synced through Nextcloud, handled on mobile by Collabora Office).

Whilst you’re at it, why not sync the notes you’ll inevitability make on your self hosting journey through your Nextcloud instance? Try Joplin & do away with Google Docs, Evernote etc into the bargain

I really like it. Tech comminities & some others are very bouyant & interesting but niche communities really struggle. Even direct replacements of big subreddits struggle. Hopefully this improves.

One tip from my own experience. I use Voyager & blocked a load of US politics keywords.

And another, I subscribed to as many interesting Lemmy communities as i could then browse Home feed in the main & occasionally All to see if any other interesting communities crop up that could be worth joining.

Welcome & enjoy.

Like others I used Liftoff but had to move on when API broke it & dev is getting on with real life stuff.

Moved to Voyager. It’s good but as an android I still find it a bit strange using what looks like iOS interface. I still get a bit lost when uploading a post & usually have to edit it a few times. No biggie, maybe I should post more & get used it it 😃

I still miss the Joey app from the other place.

I tend to go with Panasonic because they make excellent panels. Mine doesnt have ads anywhere in the UI & doesnt have a camera or mic. Our set was originally released in 2021 & still looks great. The menus aren’t great but once its set up we never use them, its turned on/off & thats it. Never connect it to the net. Ours is connected to HTPC & amp

An alternative would be to get a monitor & connect USB TV tuner to your media PC/HTPC

Nothing sophisticated, I just have a note for videos. The note has headings (use the [toc] trick at the top of the note to jump directly to the headings without having to scroll through everything)

You could categorise video links by genre or whatever your preference. I chose to categorise by length, say up 10 minutes, 11 to 20 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes & so on. So i set up appropriate headings.

Thats it. I also set up a heading for “Audio” as some videos are essentially podcasts, audio based talks etc & Kiwi browser allows background play.

Its a few extra steps over tapping “save for later” in YouTube app but it takes seconds to copy title, copy url & paste into a note & it caters for videos from any source. To remove myself from the shitty algorithm it works for me

deleted by creator

My method for android & desktop. I never sign in to YouTube & never use the app. Using Joplin synced through Nextcloud (any syncable note taking app would do the trick) I keep a list of channels (“subscriptions”) & interesting looking videos (“watch later”) which I group by length. Obviously, this way the links can be via Piped, YouTube whatever.

I only ever interract through browser which is never signed in. Kiwi browser on Android, Firefox or Brave on desktop. All of them run uBlock + SponsorBlock + DeArrow.

DeArrow is by the same dev/s as SponsorBlock & gives anti clickbait crowd sourced titles & thumbs. Its become an invaluable tool so I’m glad to have paid to offer some support.

All of the browsers have history/cookies etc cleared once closed.

Voyager searches posts & communities. Looks like an iOS app (not surprising given its lineage) which a few months in is still taking some getting used to but its been a good replacement for the no longer developed Liftoff. Definitely worth trying

Voyager (F-Droid)

Voyager - Github

Gilbert O’Sullivan - Alone Again must rank amongst the saddest & also most beautiful

I dunno, we have a decent Dolby Atmos system I’ve assembled over the years which sounds immense & has a setting to accentuate speech, yet I always use subs for TV & movies. My brain is hopeless putting names to faces, the subs help me with this (plus slang & accents).

I think it’s something to do with how my brain processes sound as I have the same issue with songs - my brain doesnt comprehend lyrics, I don’t know the words to songs I’ve heard thousands of times no matter how well known the song is, maybe a few lines from a chorus but that’s about it

I dunno if TV is dead per se as we all enjoy watching shows/movies. Not really interested in gimmicks - we only have 4K as all new TV’s are 4K & we only got it because our previous TV failed & they can no longer be repaired.

All i want is a good quality dumb screen. You can stick all your smart features where the sun dont shine, I’ll handle everything via a separate box that I control thank you. I’ll not be at the mercy of your shitty EULA, you won’t monitor my viewing habits or force ads into the UI or remove your dogshit apps without warning. Our TV has never been online, HTPC with a couple of USB TV tuners, uBlock Origin, an interface of my choosing, remote control & lots of storage handles everything. Still perfectly happy watching SD stuff, the only 4K we watch is YouTube.