This is the correct answer if privacy is your priority. They’re not particularly cheap, however.

I’ve done the same! It’s impossible to buy dumb TVs nowadays, but you can always prevent them from connecting to the network.

Chuck 'em in the garbage and get something that doesn’t break when you insist on privacy.

Can a device like this act as my router?

Make sure to get 100% beef hot dogs for a less disappointing experience.

Unraid is a great option for anyone, but beginners in particular. It does, however, cost money and isn’t open source.

Sorry, the video takes too long to get to the subject it claims to be about.

https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/

Also, you can host your own server: https://headscale.net/

Or, ya know, just reinstall right quick.

I mean… It is literally an ad. I don’t see how you could not consider it one. You could claim it doesn’t bother you or isn’t too intrusive or something, but it most certainly is an ad.

What a great graphic novel.

You’d also need GPIO pins to be able to do the remote “button presses”.

Check out pikvm: https://pikvm.org/

There are cheaper knockoffs that run the same software. For example: https://geekworm.com/

Decent older servers (e.g., Dell Poweredge) can be had off of Craigslist/FB Marketplace pretty cheaply (~$300-$400).

You can also achieve this with any VPN by using two Docker containers:

1. Gluetun: https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun
2. Tailscale: https://tailscale.com/kb/1282/docker/

Set Gluetun up to connect to your VPN (they support a huge number of providers) and then set the Tailscale container to use the Gluetun’s network. Then, use that Tailscale container as your exit node.

You can also combine this with a self-hosted Headscale (https://github.com/juanfont/headscale) instance.

I believe, when the conditions are right, it emerges from his navel.