this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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Hisense TVs force owners to watch intrusive ads when switching inputs, visiting the home screen, or even changing channels — practice infuriates consumers, brand denies wrongdoing (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 22 hours ago by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] Peffse@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

If you are using a network level block, make sure it's a black hole and not just a DNS filter. I tried a DNS filter with a Roku and found that they bypass it with hardcoded values, even when the DNS server was statically assigned and DHCP assigned.

[–] HumbleBragger@piefed.social 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

What you mean by black hole and filter? I blocked a bunch of tcl domains on my pihole and made my router drop everything in port 53 coming from every other device that wasn't pihole. It seems to have worked for now.. Is that a good solution?

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

Pi-hole blocks the name resolution. TV wants to go to Hisense.com, asks your Pi-hole where that site is. Your Pi-hole sees that Hisense is on a block list, so it says back to your TV "sorry, no idea how to get to that site, it must be offline."

If the manufacturer wants to get around this, they program a public DNS in, like 8.8.8.8, or they hardcode the static IP for their website into the TV. Now when it wants to go to Hisense, it never has to ask your Pi-Hole where that site is, and it doesn't get blocked. Heck, it probably won't even show up on your Pi-hole's logs.

If you black hole the site, then any traffic going out there gets dropped, and the hard-coded addresses on the TV don't matter for shit.

[–] HumbleBragger@piefed.social 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

I don't think my tcl TV has it hardcoded because my pihole is always blocking tcl domains

![(https://media.piefed.social/posts/tU/o1/tUo1JxYy1qjG7g4.jpg)]

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Your Pi-hole can only block the things that query DNS. Try this, ping a website you don't normally go to, and you should see that show up in Pihole log. Next, ping an IP, I usually pick on 8.8.8.8, and see if that shows up in your Pi-hole's logs. I'm fairly confident it won't.

[–] rocci@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Where can I find out more about black holing a site?

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Best I can do is Google it and read it to you. I'm a little knowledgeable about how a pihole works since I have my Net+, and I've set up a few Pi-hole's (or the same one a few times tbh), but I'm definitely not a networking expert.

[–] SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

Yep, same issue with Firestick here.