As of 2020, writes Nirav Patel, all the fancy TV brands load their sets with tracking, UI advertising and junkware, and short of nerdy shenanigans (such as buying a Raspberry Pi and setting it up as an ad-killing DNS proxy) there's no practical way to get around it. Patel calls for a reversal of fortune— In Defense of Dumb TVs—and finds a few minor brands that still make them.
Amazingly enough though, we found that none of the major consumer TV brands make basic "dumb" displays anymore. There are options in the commercial space like NEC's commercial displays, but they cost substantially more than the consumer-focused alternatives.
