You must log in or # to comment.
Oh no! Not the pop-up AD Smart TV company! The only reason to have Roku today IMO is for those cheap Roku subsidized TVs but only when you keep them completely offline. I truly feel bad for all the people who have them connected to the internet but this is pretty on par for Roku.
Both our TVs are Rokus, internet connected and I’ve been too lazy to configure the firewall. Only ads I see are on the home menu screen, and those are slightly annoying but unobtrusive.
Wife’s TV in the bedroom is only used for YT. (I think, that’s her thing.) Mine’s a second monitor for my PC to watched pirated content.
Where and how are people seeing ads?
They’re on the home screen in a banner on the right when you select an app, as sections on the left, in a banner on the bottom left, a banner over the movie in their Roku Channel app and so on.
You may be in a country where they are not serving many ads. They also use ACR on TV models which have it tgat sends fingerprints of what you watch to a server for personalised ads.
Also Roku live tv has commercial breaks.
On a related note, the Samsung live tv app now runs javascript during its commercial breaks. It locks\disables about ten buttons on your remote so you are forced to wait or “interact” with the commercial.
I expect as Roku grows they’ll soon pick up that feature.
That’s disappointing.
This is the same Fox that owns Fox News. So now Roku’s advertising push can include a side of misinformation.
Side?
Okay, okay… the entire goddamn buffet AND the drinks from the bar.
Don’t forget the sundae bar.
I was just at my father in laws house and he has roku, it already does that. He went from voting for Harris to last week saying “Trump is the smartest president we’ve ever had”.
Sounds like dementia.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound like Roku’s fault.
Dementia doesn’t automagically make one rabid for Trump.
No, but it does often lead to sudden, late-life personality changes
There seems to be a pretty strong correlation though
Same with the level of propaganda.
Fox news is literally designed to target the elderly as their critical thinking skills are fading, targeting their most triggerable fears. Fox Brain is a known phenomena, one which can usually be reversed if easy access to Fox News is removed, as seen in this documentary.
I myself was able to stop my mother from going down that path with the help of a browser add-on that let me block right-wing rage bait news from showing up in her YouTube feed, which had an almost immediate and lasting effect.
Link to the addon instead of a preview of a comment with the link https://github.com/amitbl/blocktube
The comment does contain tips on how to set it up though
Ah, I didn’t realize the Voyager app worked that way when using it to share links, which is really weird and awkward. I edited my comment to a direct lemmy link now that I’m on a PC. Thanks for the heads up.
And for others reading, I linked to my older comment since I briefly explained how I used blocktube to be effective, but I’ll add it here as well:
At some point she had an appointment to go somewhere and I happened to have an opportunity to access her computer for an extended amount of time.
What I did was subscribe her youtube account to a bunch of left-wing news sources, and more critically, I installed the browser addon BlockTube, which allows you to create a blacklist that seamlessly prevents videos or channels matching any keywords you choose from displaying on youtube. I added words like Trump, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Fox News, Sean Hannity, etc.
Time to toss the stick I use on the spare TV in the garbage
Guess it’s finally going to be time to flip over to AppleTVs.
Sail the high seas.
Still need something to get the plunder to the TV.
Raspberry Pi, Plex media server software and you’re good to go. (it’s free when you stream across your own home network) Bonus points for using industrial velcro and slap the raspberry Pi on the back of the TV.
Plex Media ServerNo.Jellyfin. Easier to configure. No corporate BS.
The rest is fine.
Use Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr for movies, TV, and music respectively. (they really missed the ball with the Sonarr name).
I recommend getting an account with a service like UseNet News (UNS). Set up NZBGeek. Connect the above to that. UNS costs a fraction of what streamers cost and you can download most anything you want any time.
I would suggest torrenting, but I feel that’s inherently more risky.
Plex Media ServerNo.Really? Hm. I’ve got it installed on my main computer and it streams my videos to the TV w/o issue.
Granted, the OS on the computer is ancient and it’s an older version of Plex (at least 6 years? Maybe more…) and I refuse to let it online to update and it’s not failed me at all.
I’ve been sailing the high seas since the days of Mactella, so…
I didn’t say it doesn’t do that.
However, it is worse at transcoding, it is more of a memory hog, there’s a potential risk of Plex using your information (privacy concerns). Plex can potentially catalog what’s in your library and use that information for marketing or worst-case-Ontario, report you if you’re a pirate.
It’s a corporate entity with corporate-sized issues. You can dig deeper if you want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR7AmIN5wHU
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/plex-how-bad-is-it-for-privacy/26180
https://www.askdavetaylor.com/how-to-maximize-your-privacy-with-plex-media-server/
Jellyfin is better. ESPECIALLY if you aren’t sharing your library with others. Even if you are, use Tailscale or some other VPN to your network to do it.
Just because it’s how you’ve always done it doesn’t mean it will always be right.
I’ve heard Apple TV is great, but I can’t bring myself to use a limited device for media at home… I recently replaced our raspberry pi media players with a levovo tinys that I got for a steal (under 100USD each, i5/16/256!) because my partner uses YouTube while working and I can’t bear to have ads playing in the house. Got a PiHole but that doesn’t work on sites where the ads are served from their own servers. If I was going to get any box thingy to play media at this point though, it’d for sure be an appletv—they seem the most polished and least invasive of any premade box like that.
Get a onn. Box from Walmart and put something like Projectivy launcher on it
can those be “set up properly” without having to use a wm or google account?
No, I bought one thinking I just wouldnt log into google and it would not let me do one single thing without logging into Google. Nothing. Took it back immediately.
pi or old pc/laptop, maybe? with remote control or mini wireless kb/mouse (what i use, one with trackpad integrated) or one of these remote control sized ones?
Eh, fuck you Roku I never trusted you.
It would certainly be a shame if some rogue Roku employee deployed an update that stripped ads and broke automatic updates for all devices right after Fox finalizes the deal but before they get anything out of it.
that’s a nice idea, but when they catch-on it probably wouldn’t survive six months before breaking changes are implemented on the backend somewhere.
aaand then they just broke millions of TVs. there goes the brand recognition
On the day of the handover lock it up with ransomware.
I’d settle for a crack so I can make it a plain ole linux htpc.
Bonus points if I can configure the remote.
Well that sucks, the disinformation network just got a much broader reach.
Guess I’m glad I never bothered with Roku
Breaking up all of these media mergers and tech companies needs to be the top priority if we ever have a Dem president again. And Hungary proves it’s possible even when the trash controls 90% of the media.
Fuck every one of these fascists.
The same Fox owned by Disney?
Different Fox, article addresses that. 21st Century Fox was sold to Disney. This is Fox networks, think Fox “News”.
Fun fact: Google Gemini is b******* and the AI summary told me that Foxcorp was one of the Disney holdings.
Your answer, obviously, is more correct
Well, I did have the advantage of having read the article. 😉
thats worst. its the “prime fox” owned by murdoch. murdoch specifically seperated his company so no one else can own it. disney owns the right to produce fox media movies and shows, just not the news portion.
Propaganda machine is on the move.
I dread the day my Nvidia shield dies. The next less shitty option is probably using an apple tv, but I really wished Nvidia made a new version with a bit more power
I’ve spent a solid 4 years at Discovery/WBD, working on their video playback engine for all things Android. This includes all of Android TV.
I am still an Android engineer, but all my TV systems are Apple TV. This should tell you everything.
but if it didn’t… Google really made the TV experience of Android go to waste. Underpowered hardware, badly written software, all resulting in stuff like sluggishness, UI freezes, apps crashing, not to mention the frequently messed up hardware/software layer (took us 2 years to make Sony admit they messed up like 3 years worth of Bravia TVs…).
I’ve seen maybe a little of that with my shield, but nothing too crippling. I have an apple TV on one system and a shield pro on the other. I still prefer the shield especially because it supports audio bit streaming l, has a superior remote, and for the past couple of weeks I’ve developed an ethernet issue with the Apple TV that I still haven’t fixed. I’ve had very few issues overall with the shield.
am still an Android engineer, but all my TV systems are Apple TV. This should tell you everything.
i run into other cases like that… ‘i work on x but use y instead’.
hell, i work in and on windows shit and “smart” devices, but i run linux and have a flip phone.
Tons of older folks (like my Mom, grandma, my aunts) have Rokus set up to replace cable. They don’t know how to operate individual apps, but they love Roku TV, and kinda just watch whatever comes in.
So… Yeah.
That’s not worrying at all.
A lot of the stuff that comes over the online TV channels is also broadcast over the air, have you considered getting them an antenna?
They all have one! In the attic, with an amp. I installed them myself.
It’s not the same as the Roku TV app though. Those channels are like older person catnip, and the duplicated ones don’t cut out unpredictably.
It’s also difficult for some folks to remember how to change TV input, rescan channels and such.
Can someone recommend a good, simple, open source TV box with a remote that can play YouTube and Plex?
Kodi.
That’s not what they asked for
Mini PC with KDE Big Screen? Just got a massive update and can even handle HDMI CEC, so You can use your TV remote with it
Thanks for this info! Ive got a house full of Roku and have been gifting them over the years. Now I’ll have a new gift “box” to all those same people.
- Install a PiHole.
- Create a guest wifi (most current routers allow you to do this)
- Configure PiHole as DNS server on guest WiFi DHCP
- Add all IoT devices including Roku and SmartTVs to guest WiFi
Maybe a dumb question… But what’s the point of the guest network? Separation of concerns? Isolating data? Why not just run Pihole on everything in one network?
I have my Roku on my main wifi network and it’s the top blocked device. I haven’t considered moving it to a guest network. I try to keep it unplugged but maybe I’ll just get rid of it now.
PiHole can break some funtionality for your main computers. This is especially sensitive if you work from home. You can opt for PiHole on your PC via manual IP setting but many IoT devices only use DHCP.
We had a few Roku left, but now we are going to finish our.transition to Nvidia Shields.
Roku, in my experience, likes to break apps every 3 months to force you to reconnect and reinstall them, so pihole works, I’ve had one for years, but it didn’t work very well for Roku, unless adblocking is your one and only concern and tracking doesn’t matter to you. I assume it’s the window where they can still get fine-detail logs.
This might be out of date info; I have had mine off the internet for years at this point, but it’s because of that crap.
You can add libraries to pihole that focus on blocking tracking urls, so you can easily expand the functionality beyond ad serving URLs.
Now I need to find another easy-to-use streaming stick for my parents.
https://www.kodi-guide.com/best-kodi-devices/
I didn’t even know about these options until now. I’ve been using old laptops.
Thanks for the idea!
oh shit you’re already all over it!
that one new artic something skin is fuckin awesome!
