Category: 4. Technology

Running DOOM on ARM? Old hat. Running Doom (2016) on an ARM SBC? Well, that’s a bit more interesting, and [Interfacing Linux] shows us how with this handy guide, and in a video embedded below.

The ARM SBC in question is the Radxa Orion O6, which claims to be the world’s first open source ARMv9 motherboard. It has a 12-core ARM9.2 SoC from Cix, and crucially for gaming, a PCIe x16 slot to fit a graphics card. There’s onboard graphics in the SoC, of course, but that’s only going to cut it for old DOOM, not Doom (2016).

Obviously there is no ARMv9 build of this nine-year-old classic. Thus, a certain degree of hacking is required. An x86 emulation layer called FEX is used to run Steam, which includes the Proton compatibility layer to sit between the Linux system and the Windows system calls the games are making.

So, again: Windows games, running via a compatibility layer on a Linux system running on an x86 emulator, running on another Linux system, running on ARM hardware. Yeah, we’d call that a hack, and just possibly cursed. The amazing thing is that it works. As long as you use a PCI 3.0 graphics card, anyway; apparently newer ones don’t work, or at least not the one [Interfacing Linux] had to try. (Some report better luck with newer NVIDIA cards.) Which is a pity, because every game tested is GPU-throttled on this system. Considering the CPU should be handling all the emulation, that just goes to show how GPU-heavy even 10-year-old games are.

[Interfacing Linux] seems to enjoy running things where they should not; we just wrote up their SteamOS console.

This isn’t the first time a Radxa board has shown up on Hackaday either, but they don’t seem to be nearly as popular as the fruit-flavoured competition for the sort of projects we usually see. If you’ve got a good project using one of these powerful ARM boards– or anything else, don’t hesitate to send us a tip!

A robotic machine to test repeated insertion and removal of a USB-C cord. Image credit: Jonathan Bell

Apple continues to open up its product durability testing to outsiders in an effort to let customers know how the company continues to balance design, durability, and repairability for the iPhone and other products.

In an effort to counter some video producers who deliberately damage and destroy iPhones and other Apple devices for clicks, the company invited some popular YouTubers who don’t engage in that practice, along with some industry research firms, to tour one of its testing facilities.

Counterpoint Research was one of the organizations invited to attend the most recent tour. While there are many factors behind the popularity of products like the iPhone, buyers who take care of their devices are often able to hand them down to other users when they upgrade.

The facilities Apple uses for testing recreates worst-case scenarios. including environmental factors, liquid/water, and drop testing. While it would be possible to design products that are even more resistant to damage, Apple and its competitors have to balance protection against weight, material cost, and many other factors.

“We witnessed salt exposure tests running for as long as 100 hours, high light intensity exposure, and exposure to dust from the Arizona desert to analyze what happens when fine sand particles enter the iPhone’s speakers or the charging port,” Counterpoint noted. Some tests in the case of AirPods also involved producing artificial versions of sweat and earwax.

Dropping, however, is one of the top three reasons why smartphones end up needing repairs. Protecting your mobile device with a case is one of the best ways to protect both the back and front glass, since most cases have a “lip” that helps prevents the front glass from being hit directly when dropped.

In order to further refine its testing procedures, Apple has developed a robot “that drops devices at different angles and even on different surfaces, including particle, granite and asphalt boards,” the company said. The company also subjects its products to vibration testing, and the results of all the tests are studied by Apple engineers.

Back in 2023, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners did a study on the “survivability” of both iPhone and Android devices. Over time,about 60 percent of both groups of owners reported their products were performing normally with no issues.

Another 21 percent reported some scratching, but the device was still usable. Thirteen percent reported cracks in the glass but were able to use them, while just six percent said their device was so damaged it was unusable.

CIRP averages for iPhone and Android durability. Image credit: CIRP

Counterpoint Research found that Apple was putting “a lot of effort behind the scenes” to improve iPhone and other product durability. “The end result is that iPhones retain 40 percent more value than Android devices in the refurbished smartphone market,” the company found, “and when this is married with at least five years of software and security upgrades, it leads to Apple products entering a second, or even third, life quite effortlessly.”

Apple’s other hardware offerings, Counterpoint found, showed similar performance and endurance metrics. The company said that this was one of the reasons iPhones command over 56 percent share in the global refurbished smartphone market.

Counterpoint said in its report that it was insightful to learn that durability and repairability factors can sometimes work against each other. Highly durable products may not necessarily be easier to repair, and easily-repairable devices can prove less durable.

“The sheer scale of the testing, with at least 10,000 iPhones rigorously tested before launch, speaks volumes about the depth and breadth of Apple’s quality assurance efforts,” Counterpoint noted.

Apple operates over 200 testing facilities for its products.

DXVK 2.7, a Vulkan-based implementation of D3D9, D3D10, and D3D11 for Linux / Wine, is now available for download with new features and other improvements for various games.

Coming about three weeks after DXVK 2.6.2, the DXVK 2.7 release adds support for the VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer Vulkan extension by default on newer AMD and NVIDIA GPUs to significantly reduce CPU overhead in games like Final Fantasy XIV, God of War, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Watch Dogs 2, and others.

DXVK 2.7 also enables memory defragmentation by default on Intel Battlemage and Lunar Lake GPUs, removes the state cache legacy feature, adds support for planar video output views, and adds support to zero-initialize all variables and groupshared memory by default for D3D11 shaders.

On top of that, this release implements support for the ID3DDestructionNotifier interface, no longer lists Vulkan devices that lack the required feature support to run DXVK as DXGI / D3D9 adapters, fixes an instance of invalid Vulkan usage in the Modulus game, and optimizes D3D9 StretchRect in certain multisample Source Engine resolve cases.

Among other noteworthy changes, DXVK now requires the VK_KHR_maintenance5 Vulkan extension for Windows users on AMD Polaris and Vega GPUs, and will now enforce the driver-reported VRAM budget as much as possible on discrete GPUs to improve performance in many Unity Engine titles on VRAM-constrained systems.

As expected, the new DXVK release also improves support for various game titles, including Astebreed, GTR – FIA GT Racing Game, LEGO City Undercover, Star Trek: Starfleet Command III, Test Drive Unlimited 2, and Wargame: European Escalation.

Check out the release notes on the project’s GitHub page for more details about the changes included in DXVK 2.7, which you can download as a source tarball from the same location. If you have DXVK installed from the software repos of your distribution, you’ll have to wait for the new release to land there to enjoy these improvements.

NotebookLM started off as a Google Labs experiment, under the code name “Project Tailwind” in 2023. If you aren’t familiar with Google Labs, it’s basically Google’s experimental playground, where the company tests out early-stage AI tools and features before deciding whether they’re worth rolling out widely.

Though NotebookLM is one of the experiments that survived and is now widely available for anyone to try out, Google has a long list of other Labs projects that the company is experimenting with. After testing out NotebookLM’s competitors, I figured it was only fair to see how the rest of Google’s Labs experiments stack up.

Illuminate

Like NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews, but better

For the first Labs experiment I properly tried out, I figured it made sense to go with something that felt close to NotebookLM. That’s where Illuminate, a Google Labs experiment that’s “dedicated to fostering learning” and can turn research papers into AI-generated audio summaries (like NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews), comes in.

When you first head to Illuminate’s website, you’ll have the option to listen to a conversation about a few research papers curated by Google. A play icon, along with the duration of the Audio Overview, is displayed right below each title. Upon clicking it, you’ll hear a two-person AI-generated conversation between two virtual AI hosts, a male and a female.

There’s also a small hand icon at the bottom (like the Raise Hand icon in Meet). Clicking it pulls up a Q&A section where you can ask questions related to the paper being discussed. It also shows example prompts to help you get started, and gives three follow-up questions after each query to keep things going.

The answers are clear and to the point. Like NotebookLM, Illuminate only references the source (the research paper, in this case) to answer your queries. This means the chances of the AI simply telling you what you want to hear, even if it’s inaccurate, are slim to none. For instance, I asked Illuminate what XDA is, and it said:

Thanks for the question. I can only answer questions directly related to the content.

Other than listening to the already-created Audio Overviews on Illuminate, you can create your own too by switching to the Generate section. You can upload a URL of any web content, and Illuminate will convert it into an AI podcast, as long as it isn’t paywalled content. Illuminate gives you a lot more control than NotebookLM, which I appreciate.

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It transformed my view of AI, for the better.

Learn About

An actual AI study Buddy

Though NotebookLM isn’t limited to students only, and I use it for various other tasks like preparing for job interviews myself, I’d be lying if I said I don’t primarily use it for studying. I’m a full-time student, and studying isn’t easy. And NotebookLM makes it a lot more manageable.

Another Google Labs experiment the company is working on where the primary focus is “learning” is Learn About. It’s an AI-powered learning companion that’s pretty much supposed to act like a personal tutor. When you head to the experiment’s website, the first page you’ll see is “What would you like to learn today?,” where you can type in any topic you’d like to study.

To test it out, I thought the best idea was to try and see how it’d teach me a topic I was already familiar with. Since I’m a computer science major, I typed in “teach me the basic syntax of Python.” Within seconds, the AI tool responded with an in-depth answer that had multiple interactive elements.

In this example, the answer included an interactive list of the “Key Elements of Python Syntax,” which showed a relevant image of each element and a short snippet.

And if I wanted to learn more about a certain element, all I had to do was click on it. The answer included examples of basic Python syntax, and even a learning card called “Stop and Think.”

The learning card was probably what I liked most about Learn About. It basically presented a fact about Python syntax and then posed a question. After you stopped and thought about it, clicking the Tap and reveal button would display the answer.

Like NotebookLM and Gemini, citations were always present next to each claim, and hovering over a citation revealed the exact text where Learn About pulled the information from.

I decided to click on one of the interactive elements from the list I mentioned earlier, and it explained that particular element (indentation) in depth with a table (that included the rule, explanation, and a conceptual example) and images.

Here’s another tidbit I loved: the explanation included a “Common misconception” learning card, which, as the name suggests, called out a common misconception.

There was also a Comprehension check button at the bottom, which said:

Comprehension check

Now that we’ve covered the rules of Python indentation, try explaining in your own words why it’s so important and what happens if it’s incorrect.

Why is indentation critical in Python, and what is the consequence of incorrect indentation?

It included a text box where I could type my answer and get feedback on it! It then assessed my response and highlighted its strengths and weaknesses. After every question you asked, it would suggest related content, which I found really helpful. There was also the option to simplify the explanation, get a more in-depth answer, or view related images.

What I loved about Learn About is how interactive and aesthetically pleasing the tool was. It made learning new information a lot more intuitive. And it’s easy to tell it’s made for the sole purpose of learning something new and supporting active learning, rather than just spitting out information like other AI chatbots.

The ability to adjust the complexity of the explanation, get instant feedback, and explore visuals all in one place made it feel less like I was using a chatbot and more like I was inside a digital study room built just for me.

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Little Language Lessons

Like Duolingo, but with an AI twist

The Little Language Lessons contain three “bite-sized learning experiments,” all powered by Google’s multimodal large language model (LLM), Gemini. The best part is all of them are uniquely refreshing, and I haven’t seen them done before.

The first bite-sized experiment within this collection is Tiny Lessons, where you can describe a situation (like ordering coffee) and it’ll compile useful vocabulary, phrases, and grammar tips in a language of your choice.

For instance, some vocabulary words it suggested for me, both in English and the language I chose, were: coffee, milk, sugar, hot, cold, and more. It suggested genuinely useful phrases like “Give me a coffee,” “How much does it cost?,” and “Do you have iced coffee?”

Lastly, it suggested a grammar tip, where the AI explained that being polite while ordering coffee is key, and adding “please” in the language I had chosen would be the way to go!

If you travel often and feel like you sound too formal when speaking a foreign language, the next bite-sized example, Slang Hang, is something you’ll love. It allows you to “generate a realistic conversation between native speakers” on a randomized scenario. For instance, this is the scenario I got:

Setting: A bustling outdoor farmers market in Moscow on a crisp autumn morning. Anya, a young art student, is sketching the vendors when she overhears a conversation between Dmitri, a middle-aged farmer, and a customer.

Though the entire conversation will be in the language you’re learning, you can translate it to your native language as well. You can also click the speaker icon to listen to the pronunciation, which I found incredibly helpful.

The last experiment, Word Cam, is best for when you can’t think of words in another language for things right in front of you. All you need to do is snap a photo, and Gemini will detect the objects in the image and label them in your target language.

It’ll also include additional words you can use to describe the objects, which can really help when learning new languages.

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Google Labs is definitely up to something

The three experiments I walked through above are just some of the projects Google’s currently working on. You can find a lot more on the Google Labs website’s Experiments section. After trying the abvove and many others out, I can say with complete confidence that Google’s up to something, and it’s clear that it didn’t just get lucky with NotebookLM.

There’s real thought and experimentation going into each of these tools, even if some feel a bit early or niche, they’re all pushing toward the same goal: making learning and information access smarter, more interactive, and a lot less boring.

How Apple tests its devices to see how they hold up against water, drops, vibrations and more

It’s not just the iPhone that holds more value than its rival, non-Apple devices. Counterpoint says that similar performance is seen with other products such as the Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods. Counterpoint took notes of what it saw during its walk through one of Apple’s durability labs. The first tests that Counterpoint mentioned covered how these products would hold up in different environments.

An iPhone gets tested for water resistance from rain. | Image credit-Apple

With Apple devices available in over 175 countries, the company tests how warm and humid conditions affect its products. Counterpoint spotted a test to see how 100 hours of exposure to salt affects Apple devices. Apple also exposes Apple products to sand from the Arizona desert to see how the iPhone responds when fine sand particles find a home inside the iPhone’s speaker grille or charging port. Other tests used artificial versions of sweat and earwax created in the lab to see how these products hold up to constant exposure of the real things.

A drop test measures an iPhone’s ability to survive an accidental drop. | Image credit-Counterpoint

Many of you are probably interested in learning how Apple tests its products to determines how they hold up to liquid and water exposure. In its labs, Apple simulates rain and other conditions that reveal the level of water resistance on individual products. First is the drip ceiling test which might not be actual rain, but is an incredible simulation. If the device passes this test, it is eligible for an IP X5 rating. The X means that the product has not been tested for dust resistance.

Apple also tests its devices to see how they stand up to vibrations. | Image credit-Apple

The next test measures how Apple’s devices stand up to high pressure water jets from a distance. Passing this test gives this product an IP X6 rating. Apple tests for IPX7 and IPX8 ratings by using a pressurized tank simulating water depths of up to one meter and six meters, respectively. While this protection is valid for iPhones being submerged in clear water, the company tests other liquids, including sodas, juices, sunscreens, and perfumes.

The drop test might be the most visually interesting test to view

The next series of tests measures how Apple products respond to drops. Counterpoint says that an “accidental drop” is among the top three reasons why a phone needs to be repaired. Counterpoint saw tests “simulating a variety of randomized, accidental drops that Apple products may experience in everyday use.” To help with the drop tests. Apple has created a klutzy robot that drops devices at various angles and on various surfaces including asphalt, particle, and granite boards. Each drop is analyzed by Apple using a special app used by company engineers.

The last test measures how Apple devices stand up to vibrations. Products are placed on a table that recreates the different types of vibrations that these products might face in transit or during other conditions.

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The Stop Killing Games campaign has just crossed a major milestone—1 million signatures and counting. But instead of celebration across the board, it’s also stirred controversy and backlash. Indie dev and streamer Pirate Software, also known as Thor, has responded after becoming a lightning rod for outrage from supporters of the movement.

The Petition That Shook the Industry

Stop Killing Games (SGF) started as a movement urging game publishers to maintain access to digital games, even after they lose official support. The argument? Players who paid for a game should be able to access it permanently. As of now, the petition has drawn over 1.15 million signatures.

Pirate Software Pushes Back

Pirate Software, who previously criticized the campaign for being too “vague,” has found himself at the center of the storm. In a July 4 Twitch stream, Thor revealed the extreme fallout following his comments. “I got swatted on Tuesday,” he said.He described receiving tens of thousands of death threats—not just toward him, but also directed at his moderation team. Constant phone calls, harassment, and doxxing followed.

“Corporate Plant,” “Nepobaby,” and Other Attacks

Thor described the level of online harassment as relentless. According to him, users attacked his life’s work and claimed he never held the jobs listed in his professional history, even in the face of proof.He added that he’d been called everything from “corporate plant” to “napobaby,” expressing visible frustration at how the campaign’s success had turned into personal vendettas against him.

Fallout From Offbrand Games

The backlash wasn’t limited to just words. On July 3, Thor announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he had stepped away from Offbrand Games, a studio founded by fellow creator Ludwig. He said supporters of the campaign began attacking all titles published by the studio simply due to his involvement, calling the behavior “unhinged.”

A Final Word to SGF

Though clearly embattled, Thor didn’t wish failure on the movement itself. Instead, he left viewers with a sharp message:

It’s a statement layered in bitterness—possibly a wish for the movement to succeed on paper but fail in its spirit.

Where This Leaves the Industry

As SGF’s petition grows, the debate over digital ownership is louder than ever. But Thor’s experience raises a tough question: Can disagreement survive in online spaces without turning into personal destruction?While Stop Killing Games may want to protect digital access, this chapter highlights another issue that needs saving—civil discourse.

Over the course of my computing journey, I’ve built, upgraded, and replaced several PCs. But rather than labeling my older systems as e-waste and sending them to the scrapyard for pocket change, I try to come up with cool ways to leverage them in my home lab. For example, any mid-tier PC or laptop released in the last 5 years can be reborn as a solid general-purpose machine with a Linux distribution.

Older rigs with spare drive bays double as incredible Network-Attached Storage systems, and if they’re armed with a decent processor and memory, it can even run some VMs and containers. While we’re on the subject, outdated machines can become formidable self-hosting and experimentation machines with the right virtualization platform.

In fact, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks testing Proxmox on ancient hardware. Contrary to what you may believe, it works surprisingly well on cheap systems from the bygone era.

Proxmox has fairly low system requirements

Unlike other virtualization platforms

Home labs are often characterized by overkill servers packing enterprise-grade hardware designed for an equally demanding operating system. Harvester is a prime example of that logic, with the platform requiring 16 CPU cores and 64GB of memory for a production-ready virtualization environment. Then you’ve got platforms like ESXi that refuse to play nice with consumer-grade hardware, and it’s a lesson I learned the hard way after attempting to install it on every system in my arsenal.

In contrast, Proxmox lists an x86 processor with 2GB of memory as the recommended system requirements, which are the same specs required by your average Linux distribution. That’s because Proxmox is essentially a set of virtualization packages running on top of good ol’ Debian, wrapped inside a convenient web UI. This makes Proxmox the ideal virtualization platform for turning old PCs into highly capable home servers.

It pairs well with weak devices

Including a mere N100 SBC and a decade-old budget laptop

Although I currently use a dual Xeon system as my primary Proxmox server, things were a lot different before I got my server machine. I used to run Proxmox on a mere Ryzen 5 1600 system with 16GB of RAM, and believe it or not, the platform worked really well on my outdated system.

And I don’t just mean a VM or two either – this beast of a virtualization platform was enough to run a couple of GUI virtual machines alongside a dozen LXCs without hitting max utilization on the CPU or memory. For a PC from 2016, being able to run that many VMs without buckling under the extra processing load is no short of a surprise – and I’ve got the KVM hypervisor to thank for that.

If that’s not enough, I recently conducted this wild experiment on running macOS on my N100 SBC. While the project wasn’t feasible enough for me to recommend anyone to try this at home, I figured I could try running a couple of virtual guests on the tiny tinkering board, and to my surprise, I was able to run two VMs and a couple of LXCs side-by-side without encountering performance issues.

To take this experiment to the next level, I tried turning the Lenovo G510 I bought back in 2014 into a PVE node. As you’d expect, the 2-core, 4-thread processor and a 4GB RAM stick buckled under pressure when I attempted to run a GUI distribution inside a virtual machine. However, Proxmox LXCs were a different story altogether…

An LXC-only Proxmox setup works better than you’d expect

Even without VMs, PVE nodes are great for self-hosting services

Virtual machines are undoubtedly an essential part of home servers, but so are containers. Since Proxmox supports Linux Containers out of the box, I don’t have to deploy a separate virtual machine just to install Docker, Podman, or another container runtime. Throw in TurnKey templates and Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts, and it’s possible to deploy a formidable army of containers without resorting to VMs at all.

That’s precisely what I did when my Lenovo G510 failed to run virtual machines. Luckily, the low overhead of LXCs is enough to circumvent the abysmally low processing capabilities of the laptop, and I was able to convert it into a reliable self-hosting machine that could run more than a dozen useful containers without conking out. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Proxmox is an underrated distribution for containerization projects, especially for low-end machines and dinosaur hardware.

Still, old PCs can have their own issues

Although I have no plans to stop my crusade on running Proxmox on anything I lay my eyes on, this article won’t be complete unless I mention the major drawbacks of using outdated PCs as home servers. Power efficiency on older hardware is far from ideal, and if your area has high energy prices, you’re better off spending some extra dollars on new rigs in the long run. Likewise, newer systems can deliver a more responsive experience than ancient machines, especially on the VM front.

But if you want to put e-waste devices to good use and have a renewable source of energy powering such an experiment, old systems can serve as decent Proxmox hubs. Me? I’ve already set my sights on a MacBook Pro from 2015 just so I could arm it with Proxmox and run a (comparatively) newer version of macOS on the laptop.

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Even when used as a monitor for your Mac, an LG or Samsung smart TV will periodically capture what’s on screen and send it to company servers. Here’s how to stop that terrible behavior.

Smart TVs from LG and Samsung are increasingly being used as monitors for Mac and PC, given that they are generally cheaper than an OLED display. The trade-off that you get for an inexpensive TV is adware. To accomplish this goal, they can capture screenshots of everything on screen, and sell it to just about anybody who asks, or they use that data themselves for targeted home screen advertising.

This isn’t a giant problem when you’re watching television. But when you’re working on your Mac on a television, that capture can include sensitive documents, emails, private work, and everything else that happens on your computer.

Here’s what you need to know, and how to turn it off on a LG or Samsung OLED display.

How LG and Samsung smart TVs collect your data

Smart TVs are not just screens you watch. They are also sensors that watch you. LG and Samsung smart TVs both include technology called Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR.

The feature captures small snapshots of what’s on your screen or snippets of audio, then sends that data to external servers to identify exactly what you are watching.

ACR works even when the TV is used as a PC monitor or connected via HDMI. A 2024 study by University College London and collaborators found LG TVs capturing screenshots as frequently as every 10 milliseconds.

Samsung TVs do so every 500 milliseconds — even when displaying content from external devices. Opting out of ACR in settings completely stops this network traffic.

Each snapshot is matched to a massive database to determine the exact program or ad. They allow companies to build a detailed profile of your viewing habits.

These TVs also track other information, such as which streaming apps you use, how long you watch them, and what you click on in the menus. If you use voice commands, the TV may send audio recordings to the cloud for processing.

When voice assistants are enabled, the microphones can be listening for wake words at all times.

Both companies transmit this information over the internet to their servers. LG uses Alphonso, an advertising technology partner, to manage much of its ACR data. The TV contacts Alphonso servers with domains like “alphonso.tv” to share content recognition data.

Samsung handles much of its ACR in-house, contacting multiple Samsung-controlled domains.

Smart TVs routinely check for software updates, fetch ads, and collect app usage stats. They also perform analytics over encrypted web connections, making them hard to block without specific tools.

The data isn’t collected for your benefit. LG and Samsung use it to sell targeted advertising and to share with partners.

For example, LG’s privacy policy explicitly notes that personal information, including viewing history, may be sold or shared with third parties. Samsung also uses viewing data to power personalized ads and recommendations.

Most people don’t realize that they have opted in to being monitored. Even when privacy laws require opt-out choices, the settings are often buried deep in menus.

How to disable data collection on LG smart TVs

LG’s ACR feature is branded as Live Plus. The service monitors what you watch and sends data to Alphonso for content recognition and advertising. Disabling Live Plus and other ad tracking features is essential for improving privacy.

Follow these steps on recent LG webOS models. The exact wording may vary slightly depending on your TV’s year and software version, but the process is generally consistent.

1. Press the Home button on your LG remote.
2. Select the Settings icon, then choose All Settings to open the full menu.
3. Go to General, then System, and select Additional Settings.
4. Find Live Plus and toggle it Off.
5. Return to General and select Home Settings.
6. Turn off both Home Promotion and Content Recommendation.
7. Go back to General, then Additional Settings, and select Advertising.
8. Enable the option labeled Limit Ad Tracking.
9. Return to the main Settings categories and go to Support.
10. Choose Privacy & Terms.
11. Look for Do Not Sell My Personal Information and toggle it On.

After completing these steps, Live Plus will no longer gather data about what you watch, and advertising tracking will be significantly reduced.

LG doesn’t currently offer a comprehensive online privacy dashboard for managing these settings remotely. It has a privacy site with forms to request data deletion or opt-out.

However, LG often requires your TV’s serial number and other details. Using the TV’s built-in settings remains the most practical way to disable tracking.

Keep in mind that turning off these settings will reduce personalized recommendations on your home screen. You will lose suggestions tailored to your viewing habits, but you will keep full access to apps and streaming services.

How to disable data collection on Samsung smart TVs

Samsung’s Automatic Content Recognition feature is called Viewing Information Services. The option is enabled by default on most Samsung TVs and collects data about everything you watch, including HDMI inputs.

The good news is you can turn it off through the TV’s settings.

Here is how to disable ACR and other tracking features on recent Samsung Tizen models. The menu layout can vary slightly by year, but the basic approach remains similar.

1. Press the Home button on your Samsung remote to open the home screen.
2. Select Settings and choose All Settings to open the full menu.
3. Go to General & Privacy.
4. Select Terms & Privacy or Privacy Choices, depending on your model.
5. Find Viewing Information Services and turn it Off to stop the TV from analyzing what you watch.
6. Look for Interest-Based Advertising or Interest-Based Advertisements and turn it Off. This setting may also appear as Interest-Based Ads Service.
7. Confirm your changes if prompted.

Your Samsung TV will now have ACR tracking turned off and targeted advertising disabled.

To disable voice data collection on your Samsung TV, go to Settings under Voice Recognition or Voice Assistant and turn it off if you’re concerned about privacy.

Samsung also offers an online Privacy Dashboard for users with Samsung accounts linked to their TVs. You can manage Viewing Information Services and Interest-Based Advertising for all Samsung devices connected to that account.

If you live in a region with data privacy laws such as California’s Consumer Privacy Act, you can also visit Samsung’s privacy website to submit a request not to sell or share your personal information.

The process may require you to provide your ZIP code or Samsung account details, and Samsung notes that it can take up to 45 days to process.

Disabling these options on your Samsung TV stops the collection of detailed viewing data for advertising and analytics. You will still be able to use streaming apps and watch content normally, but you will lose personalized recommendations based on your viewing habits.

How to block smart TV telemetry at the network level

Disabling tracking in LG and Samsung smart TVs’ settings doesn’t stop them from contacting company servers for updates and telemetry. For enhanced privacy, block these connections at the network level.

NextDNS

This approach involves using DNS filtering, router firewall rules, or network segmentation to prevent your TV from contacting known tracking servers.

Use DNS blocking or a Pi-hole

One popular method is to run a DNS-based blocker such as Pi-hole on your home network. Pi-hole acts as your local DNS server, intercepting requests from all devices and blocking those that match a blacklist.

You can add LG and Samsung telemetry domains to your Pi-hole blocklist. When your TV tries to reach these addresses, it will receive no response.

The method blocks tracking without interfering with necessary streaming traffic if you whitelist essential domains.

Cloud-based DNS filtering services like NextDNS or Control D also offer prebuilt blocklists for smart TV telemetry. Some services even have dedicated Samsung TV filters or IoT telemetry filters. These can be enabled with a few clicks and managed from a simple web dashboard.

Use router firewall rules

If your router supports outbound filtering, you can create firewall rules to block your TV’s traffic to specific IP addresses or domains. Additionally, custom firmware such as OpenWrt or Asuswrt-Merlin allows for similar functionality.

Assign your TV a static IP address in your router settings. Then block that IP from accessing known telemetry server IP ranges. You can also allow it only to reach specific whitelisted services such as Netflix or YouTube.

Firewall rules give you more granular control but may be harder to maintain. Smart TV vendors often change server IP addresses, use cloud providers like AWS or Akamai, or shift endpoints over time.

Domain-based blocking is often more flexible than hard-coded IP rules for this reason.

Network segmentation

Another advanced technique is to place your TV on a separate network or VLAN with restricted internet access. You can create an IoT VLAN where smart home devices have internet access only to approved services and cannot reach other parts of the network.

Network segmentation prevents the TV from scanning your main network or accessing sensitive devices. You can also limit its outbound connections to only streaming services you approve.

Some users set up network proxies or sinkholes to inspect, log, and selectively block TV traffic. For example, Pi-hole logs will show every DNS query your TV makes.

You can identify new tracking domains and update your blocklists accordingly. Proxies require some technical familiarity but provide ongoing control as vendors change their infrastructure.

Be careful with overblocking

Blocking too many domains can interfere with your TV’s basic functions. For example, blocking update servers can prevent firmware updates, which may carry important security fixes.

Control D

If you block all SamsungCloudSolution domains, some streaming apps such as YouTube may fail to load. They rely on Samsung’s backend services for authentication or metadata.

A careful strategy is to start with a core list of known tracking domains, then test your TV. If an app breaks, you can check logs to identify which domain to whitelist. Over time, you can build a custom blocklist that balances privacy and usability.

Implications of disabling tracking and blocking data flows

Before you turn off every tracking feature or block all known telemetry domains, it is important to understand the trade-offs involved.

Disabling ACR and other tracking features will remove personalized recommendations from your TV’s home screen. You will no longer see suggestions based on what you watch.

For example, LG’s Live Plus recommendations row will disappear. While many users see this as a small sacrifice for privacy, it does reduce some of the “smart” features that the TV offers.

Even with tracking turned off, you may still see some generic ads or promotions on the TV’s interface. Samsung’s Smart Hub might continue to show banners for new apps or Samsung products, though they should no longer be tailored to your viewing history.

On LG TVs, disabling Home Promotion can eliminate most home-screen ads. Turning on Limit Ad Tracking ensures any remaining ads in streaming apps are no longer personalized.

Turning off tracking doesn’t affect your ability to watch content through HDMI inputs or use major streaming apps. Services like Netflix and YouTube will still work as expected. However, network-level blocking can sometimes break app functionality.

For example, if you block all SamsungCloudSolution domains, apps such as YouTube may fail to load because they rely on Samsung’s backend services. Careful blocking is essential.

Samsung handles much of its ACR in-house

You could start with a minimal blocklist and test your TV to identify which domains are necessary for basic functions. It will help determine which domains can be safely blocked.

If you disable voice recognition or assistant features, you will lose the ability to control your TV with voice commands. You will need to use the remote for searches and navigation.

Disabling assistants can be an acceptable trade-off for users concerned about privacy. Turning off voice recognition prevents the TV from constantly listening for wake words or recording commands.

Blocking certain domains can stop your TV from receiving firmware updates. That can have security implications over time.

If you choose to block update servers entirely, consider periodically unblocking them. Then, check for updates manually or using USB update files if your manufacturer provides them.

Some users leave specific update domains unblocked while blocking known telemetry and ad domains.

Legal and service implications

Disabling tracking features doesn’t violate any user agreements. Manufacturers provide these settings for users who want more privacy.

Your warranty will remain intact, although you may be prompted to review privacy settings after firmware updates.

Blocking domains at the network level is entirely within your rights on your own network. Streaming services will continue to work as long as you maintain access to their required domains.

With the right balance, you can enjoy the benefits of a connected TV while keeping your personal viewing habits private.

Common telemetry and ad server domains

LG and Samsung use a range of domains to manage telemetry, advertising, updates, and app analytics. Blocking these domains can help reduce tracking. You should review them carefully to avoid breaking essential services.

LG smart TV domains

• lgtvsdp.com: Used by LG’s service platform for ACR data and other service communications.
• lgsmartad.com: Advertising domain that delivers smart TV ads and tracks impressions.
• lgappstv.com: Supports LG’s App Store and service platform. Subdomains may report app usage or fetch advertising.
• lgtvonline.lge.com: LG Electronics’ main smart TV service domain for various online features.
• alphonso.tv: Alphonso is LG’s ACR partner. When Live Plus is on, the TV sends snapshots here for content recognition.
• lgtvcommon.com: Used by multiple LG services.
• ngfts.lge.com: LG’s cloud backend that may appear in network logs.
• lgad.cjpowercast.com: An advertising server, often seen through content delivery networks like Akamai.

Samsung smart TV domains

1. samsungcloudsolution.com and samsungcloudsolution.net: Major telemetry and cloud service domains. Blocking these can stop a lot of tracking, but some subdomains are essential for updates.
2. samsungacr.com: Dedicated ACR logging service for sending screen fingerprints.
3. internetat.tv: Used for Smart Hub services, with subdomains for logging and single sign-on.
4. samsungads.com and samsungadhub.com: Advertising platforms that deliver targeted ads and track ad impressions.
5. samsungrm.net: Likely used for remote management or analytics reporting.
6. samsungotn.net: Delivers over-the-network firmware updates. Blocking this can prevent your TV from getting important software updates.
7. samsungqbe.com and samsungosp.com: Related to Samsung’s content services and app platforms.
8. api.samsungyosemite.com: Supports Samsung’s app store and hub API services.
9. syncplusconfig.s3.amazonaws.com: Used to fetch configuration files for Samsung’s SyncPlus advertising and content recognition service.
10. time.samsungcloudsolution.com: Used for time synchronization. Blocking this can cause time-based errors or failures in apps that check for a valid system clock.

Most telemetry traffic uses standard web ports, primarily TCP port 443 for HTTPS. Because this port is also used for streaming apps like Netflix or YouTube, blocking by port isn’t practical.

Domain-based blocking provides much more granular control. When building your blocklist, consider leaving essential update and time services unblocked or periodically unblocking them to allow firmware checks.

Key differences between LG and Samsung tracking

LG and Samsung share many similarities in how they collect data, but there are also important differences in how they implement telemetry and how easy it is to disable.

LG outsources much of its ACR technology to Alphonso, which handles content recognition and advertising. When Live Plus is enabled, LG TVs mainly contact Alphonso domains.

In contrast, Samsung manages ACR in-house and uses multiple Samsung-controlled domains. Samsung’s system is often more complex, involving different services for logging, advertising, and cloud features.

LG labels its tracking feature as Live Plus and hides the toggle under Additional Settings. Samsung calls its system Viewing Information Services and typically places it under a dedicated Privacy menu.

The naming and locations differ, but the underlying functions are very similar.

LG usually requires users to accept many user agreements during setup, which effectively opts them in by default. Users must manually opt out later.

Samsung TVs also typically have tracking enabled by default. In regions with strict privacy laws such as the European Union or United Kingdom, Samsung often ships TVs with ACR disabled until the user opts in.

Disabling tracking isn’t a one-click process on either brand. On LG TVs, tests have shown it can take over 25 separate menu actions to fully opt out of Live Plus and data selling.

Samsung requires users to uncheck multiple settings and sometimes confirm changes through their online privacy dashboard. Neither company makes it particularly easy or obvious, which can discourage users from completing the process.

LG’s policies explicitly acknowledge selling user data by default, especially in the United States. The company provides a Do Not Sell My Personal Information toggle to comply with regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act.

Samsung also engages in extensive data sharing. Users often need to submit a web form or use the Samsung account dashboard to request full opt-out from data sales.

Online privacy management

Samsung offers an online Privacy Dashboard linked to your Samsung account. The dashboard makes it easier to review and adjust tracking settings across all Samsung devices.

LG lacks a comparable, user-friendly online dashboard. Instead, LG relies on TV-based settings and a more cumbersome online form for data deletion or opt-out requests.

Both brands use targeted advertising in their TV interfaces. Samsung has been known to insert ads in the Smart Hub menu and even overlay pop-up banners during live TV viewing on some models.

LG typically confines ads to the home menu or content recommendations. Samsung’s larger advertising ecosystem can lead to more extensive cross-device tracking and more personalized ad experiences if tracking remains enabled.

Overall, LG and Samsung rely on detailed tracking to fuel their advertising businesses. Neither brand offers a completely tracking-free experience by default.

Users must actively navigate menus, read policy details, and make deliberate choices to protect their privacy.