Samsung Advises QLED Smart TV Owners to Scan for Viruses "Every Few Weeks"

Tsing

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Samsung's support team inadvertently gave a very good reason not to buy its QLED Smart TVs this morning. In a now deleted tweet, @SamsungSupport advised users that these displays should be scanned for viruses every few weeks to prevent malicious software attacks.

It's pretty obvious why Samsung rescinded the message. Viruses and malware on PCs are already enough of a headache—nobody wants to deal with that on their TVs, too.

The obvious question here is why in the world doesn’t Samsung automate this process. When so many people don’t even know how to turn off motion smoothing, what are the chances that they’re going to be mindful of security practices? It also illustrates how dumb some smart TVs can be.
 
lol, good grief, start having DDos attacks on your network with all the smart appliances hooked up to it.
 
I'm very techy but havent a clue right now how to scan my TV for a virus. I didnt know it had the option (or has it?).
What kind of fumbling is this?

edit
Its easy enough to do, first hit on google ("scan virus samsung tv") has the procedure without even clicking it.
You can keep watching TV at the same time.
= 0 virii
Not surprising, I only connect it to the web to get firmware.

This will become a problem for many web connected devices with writeable storage.
I wouldnt hammer on Samsung just yet.
 
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I love my Plasma non-smart tv :)
I had a Panasonic plasma and loved it.
My Dad still has a larger version of the same telly and we all thought it was the bees knees.
But when my Dad came here to see my new telly (Samsung Q9FN) he couldnt believe how much better the colours are so I was curious to see what his plasma looks like now.
It is indeed a bit bland in comparison.
I never thought I would think that.

ps
its easy to make my TV none smart, leave the network cable unplugged, it isnt needed if you have a PC or other way of feeding video to it.
I dont even use the tuners on mine, I use a web connected Humax satellite box that records.
 
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Pretty soon the viruses will need to scan themselves to see if they've been compromised by another.
 
I had a Panasonic plasma and loved it.
My Dad still has a larger version of the same telly and we all thought it was the bees knees.
But when my Dad came here to see my new telly (Samsung Q9FN) he couldnt believe how much better the colours are so I was curious to see what his plasma looks like now.
It is indeed a bit bland in comparison.
I never thought I would think that.

ps
its easy to make my TV none smart, leave the network cable unplugged, it isnt needed if you have a PC or other way of feeding video to it.
I dont even use the tuners on mine, I use a web connected Humax satellite box that records.

Well, a 10+ year old TV not looking as good as it did when it was new is not really much of a surprise. Think about how many hours it has on it. I have a couple low hour Kuro's and Viera's that, because they are low hour, still look to most people better than newer technologies.
 
Well, a 10+ year old TV not looking as good as it did when it was new is not really much of a surprise. Think about how many hours it has on it. I have a couple low hour Kuro's and Viera's that, because they are low hour, still look to most people better than newer technologies.

I'll never forget the 1978 Sony Trinitron my dad got. Thing was a champ that had near uncountable hours on it and was only retired sometime in the 90's. At that point though, it had got a fairly strong green hue to everything but I was always amazed by the picture clarity thru the years.
 
Well, a 10+ year old TV not looking as good as it did when it was new is not really much of a surprise. Think about how many hours it has on it. I have a couple low hour Kuro's and Viera's that, because they are low hour, still look to most people better than newer technologies.
It would be interesting to have your comparison of those to a new high end Samsung.
 
I just wish I could buy a high end display with best in class image quality features, and nothing else.

All I'd need would be a single HDMI port, and no smart features. I don't even want it to have speakers.

If it just turned on automatically by sensing the HDMI port, it wouldn't even need a remote!

It's just another in a long line of products that are less good for my applications because of the lowest common denominators.
 
I think it's interesting where even our freaking lightbulbs need virus protection.
 
Something else to worry about. I have the 75" version of the QLED. Never have I thought that I would be virus scanning a TV.
 
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