We have a Sony google TV that would do that ‘woke’ garbage, but we got a Logitech Harmony universal remote that I programmed so that when it powers on the TV, it also powers on the tuner box, and immediately sets the input to #1 (which is the tuner box). I’ve never cared for the “smart TV” concept. I use either a RasPi or a laptop running Linux connected to the TV for youtube and news and such.
The Harmony is fairly basic - nothing fancy. Got it at BestBuy for about $80, which was worth it for us.
Yeah, that's what I've got. I think Google is responsible for the bottom two rows of ads. That's recent, too. I had gotten rid of everything below the "apps" row.
And, once upon a time, I had gotten rid of the top row. That's the row with the propaganda, woke cause du jour crap. But that didn't last long.
“The Harmony is fairly basic - nothing fancy. Got it at BestBuy for about $80, which was worth it for us.”
Had my whole home theater system set up with Harmony and Alexa. It was great. I could even do things by voice that weren’t on device menus.
Then we got a new Samsung not supported by Harmony. Harmony promised updates but the pulled out of the market.