Ugh. Roku was one of the platforms with fewer ads.
- Roku will be adding more ads to the home screens of its devices and TVs in the near future.
- The ads will be interactive and ‘shoppable’ and will cover a range of industries, including restaurants and cars.
- Roku already has a significant amount of ads on its home screen, and it is unclear if users will be able to change their preferences for the new ads.
Step one.
Buy a thing. It is a good thing.
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Oops, now it only works if you pay monthly. Ok maybe they’re doing some upkeep.
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Now there’s ads. You’re paying them money, but they want even more so now you’re the product.
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Haha it broke! My family tech guy says it’s literally impossible to fix without the cheat codes.
Final step. Don’t buy the thing again. Don’t buy anything with “terms may be altered. Pray I do not alter them further.” Probably stick to open source.
Me after getting those dumbass Canary cameras that cost $200 a piece then they completely wrecked the free tier then started giving them away for free to get more subscribers.
Wyze cams with wz_mini_hacks firmware offline in a VLAN with Frigate and Home assistant from here on out!
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Jesus, I hate that word, “shoppable”. It just sounds dystopian.
it’s not as brutal a construct as the other Sales-Bro trash we see: ‘the ask’, ‘the spend’, etc. It’s too bad that no matter how much we mock the soulless people who parrot that crap, it’s just our dumber friends who won’t learn anyway.
They’re out to
stomp pressure oner, maximize value proposition from your “pain points” with their ad-sponsored boots. (Uggs maybe idk)
Anyone jailbreaking these damn things yet?
Rokus are not worth the effort. Nvidia literally publishes dev roms for the shield tv boxes.
I love the RF remote, the functionality, and the responsiveness.
Are the dev roms fully compatible with Netflix & Co.? I’m running a shield and the one thing that kept me from rooting it was compatibility with hardware DRM. Have since cancelled all my subscriptions after they locked my family out and tried to hike the prices, but I’m still following the developments out of interest.
I’m not sure, actually. If they do have DRM issues, I imagine it would be precisely the same issue as (and therefor would have the same workarounds as) any other custom android rom… which probably involves some shady APKs & instructions from XDA forums.
Yes, this is what the people want! More ads! Skip the content, just show ads 24/7! That will definitely keep people from pirating out of sheer frustration.
And dont forget about that ad space on the remote control too.
Can these ads be blocked with pi-hole?
I block logs.roku.com and cloudservices.roku.com on my pihole without impacting any functionality.
Is there a good resource to learn how to install that kind of a system for a person who’s tech knowledge ends at one semesters worth of C++?
A semester of programming is more than you need. The hardest part would be installing the OS on the raspberry pi. https://pi-hole.net/
I set one up. My IT skills begin and end with being a millennial that had to troubleshoot what I wanted to get to work before App stores.
You’ll be fine in general searching “Pihole setup (insert OS here)”. Some minor troubleshooting was necessary in my case, could be an ID10T issue though.
Yes setting up a Pi-Hole should be pretty doable for someone like you. I can’t recomend a specific tutorial off the top of my head, but there should be plenty to find.
You mainly need a pi running raspbian or a pc running some debian based distro.
Anyone can set them up, it’s just running an app
You can alternatively install Adguard too which will happily sit in a Docker container on a regular server if you’re aware of how to do that.
what info is sent to these domain?
None if you block them.
Yea my Adblock Home (pihole alternative) blocks the ads on my Roku home screen. Now it’s just a big blank box.
I do wonder how long it’s going to take for these device manufacturers to get wise and start hard coding their own host file on these devices with the addresses they use.
Then we switch from DNS and look to good old firewall blocks.
Update to say device is ‘offline’ unless it can reach these IPs? Local NAT to direct the traffic to a basic ping box.
Game keeps being played until someone quits.
Yes.
What domain list(s) are you using? Mine are still showing up with pihole. I do think some are being blocked, but not all.
Firebog.net Ticked lists as a collective, over 10^6 domains long now. Firebog have lists organised by how likely it is to impact general browsing, ticked being least likely (basically do you want to be black listing or white listing).
Thank you. And good advice about over-doing it. I’ve had people complain about “the internet being broken” on my wifi because of an overly-restrictive pi hole.
PiHole blocks the current ads. Hopefully these new ones too.
PiHole Domain regex blacklist:
(ads|logs|cloudservices).roku.com$And there it is, folks.
I added the Roku and Samsung TV servers to my blocklist months ago, (maybe even years ago, at this point?) My three smart TVs are the most blocked devices on my network, by far. It’s not even close. Here are today’s stats from my pihole:
For reference, my phone (my most used device) is number four on that list. My three smart TVs (two Rokus and a Samsung) are numbers 1, 2, and 3. I haven’t even watched TV today. These blocked requests are simply from the TVs idling. Smart TVs are hilariously, mind-bogglingly invasive, and you should block them ASAP.
Why did you black out your private IP addresses?
He doesn’t wanna get hAcKeD duhhhhh
They are called private for a reason!
God damn this shit is so fucking annoying. I paid something like $100 last year for the Roku Ultra because it was better than the built-in software on my TV and now I have to see ads? Fuck em, I’ll repurpose a mini PC I have and replace the Roku.
Nvidia shield is what I got instead of Roku and holy shit it’s so much better. It can be flashed with another OS as well.
Do you want Plex servers? BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU GET PLEX SERVERS
This is the way. I’ve only used it for backed up movies so far but Jellyfin is SNAPPY.
Well time to replace my roku TV with a Goodwill special TV because fuck that shit. Fuck smart tvs in general and what they have become. They used to be neat little editions added on for value on your TV back when Netflix made sense. But now they don’t especially with the ads that automatically get shoved into your face depending on what you are doing that have started to interrupt your viewing experience. It’s not like I’ll be downgrading at all when just using a computer with a TV using Stremio and AllDebrid.
I do see the appeal of non-smart TV’s now. Just getting a device that host your media is a good option.
All i need is to find one, preferably affordable obviously.
Just the thought of being able to use it until the hardware fails, instead of when the maufacturer decides to abandon it after 2 years.
I remember the 20 years i lived at home, we owned 3 tv’s and 2 of those were passed on to people who didn’t have the money to upgrade. The last one is still in use today, 15 years later.
While my own tv now requires 2 devices to stay functional one of which i need to rent from my isp, in a way i’m being forced to buy a new tv even though i don’t need one and then everyone wonders why the planet is going to shit.
I’m surprised we aren’t living in a cyberpunk esque landfill bordered city.
Every smart TV is a dumb TV too. Mine has some smart stuff, I think, but I have never used it, and it has never been online.
I’m looking into getting a projector and just hooking it up to my pc for media. I don’t watch all he time anyways, it’s mostly for movie/game night.
All new Google TVs have a “dumb mode” that you can configure at startup.
“commercial display” is the search term you want.
Not with pihole I wont.
No, but 1/3 of your screen will be empty real estate.
I’d rather have blank space than ads.
Of course. I did the same thing until my OCD got the better of me and I got an AndroidTV device with a custom launcher, as well as an AppleTV4K. I love having no ads and no blank spaces now.
This posted prompted my to set up pihole. My blank space has a big “not connected to the internet,” although all the services work.
Unfortunately, they also disabled accessibility settings, so I can’t remap buttons or add another launcher.
This is my last Google TV. Are there any other options?
From what I gather, making your own little “media PC” connected to a “dumb TV” or never-connected “smart PC” can give you a similar if not better experience!
KDE has a big TV style desktop environment they’ve made for TVs now, and you can use KDE connect to use any phone as a remote control.
Completely open source! Wee!
“Not connected to the internet” lol. How presumptuous of the designers.
If it’s a Google TV you can always install a custom launcher and even disable the stock launcher via ADB and never be bothered by any of the curated bullshit again
My recommendation is FLauncher
So you go from owning a multi media entertainment system to owning a online store front where you must buy crap that you don’t need.
This is bait and switch level bullshit
Why won’t anyone make a privacy focused premium streaming box with no ads? I’d pay so much for this thing that will never exist.
Apple TV is a premium streaming box without ads. The privacy aspect is less clear, but probably better than Samsung, Google and Roku that are all harvesting data.
An open source solution would be better.
The privacy aspect is less clear, but probably better
I love how dividing by an unknown somehow makes a bigger number for you. The bias is leaking.
Apple chargers more and isn’t openly selling data (Samsung) or openly selling ads (Google). The commercial activity provides some insight here, that suggests Apple is better for privacy.
IMHO, for a quick out-of-the-box solution, the AppleTV is still the better streaming box.
Performant, tight software experience, large software catalog, proactively asks about blocking tracking data, and no ads all over the place.
It does advertise Apple content but its not too bad.
You can turn that off. If you don’t want the TV app to show new TV+ shows when it’s highlighted in the dock, you can set it to display recently watched content. And recently watched content will be app agnostic.
The feature is a little buried, but it’s a nice experience upgrade that is worth switching over to.
It still clutters on OS upgrades.
Can you elaborate? Mine has remained set to show “up next” for several OS upgrades. That feature has never switches itself off.
Hmmm, maybe I need to dig in settings. When Apple Arcade became a thing I found new apps on the Home Screen. I still think it’s the only streaming box outside of a shield that is appropriately powered amass doesn’t serve ads. And unlike the shield, Apple tv has a clear future.
Ahh. Yeah, when Apple adds a new app to an OS, they love to throw that thing right in the dock so you can see it. I usually end up moving a lot of those things out and I put my preferred apps in that dock.
I thought you meant it was changing your preferences for “settings > apps > tv > homescreen” after you installed OS updates. Sorry, I was confused.
Mainly because the major streaming services wouldn’t allow their platforms to run on it.
I don’t use major streaming services. I just want something that runs NewPipe and Jellyfin. Lol
Until then, a Raspberry Pi or SFF PC will do the job just fine. They even work with remotes if you get an IR receiver for them.
How do you set up the IR receiver? I would like to use Linux if possible. It’s often such a pain to set up things like this. Took me forever to get my Xbox controller to pair.
I’ve used LIRC in the past. Takes a bit of setup, but it works well once you get it going.
Thanks for that. Were you ever able to get something like this to power a device on from a full shut down?
Edit: power on using the remote.
Because people won’t pay for it. We are in the minority.
We need a fediverse streaming service.
Torrent? PeerTube?
For paid options I see no sense in decentralization. But a standard protocol for rental tied with some protocol for payments (like GNU Taler) to rent movies from any source with one tap and no install would be cool.
Google is already doing this with their default Android TV launcher. I tolerated their home screen ‘recommendations’ for a while as they occasionally highlighted something interesting to watch, but one day I switched on the TV and was greeted with a huge advert banner for a fucking watch on the home screen.
At that point I spent a few hours setting up FLauncher on all my ATV devices.
I did the exact same thing. Also blocked androidtv updates in case Google starts pulling shit regarding custom launchers.
It’s gross how ads are being crammed in every little nook of our lives. Not like the ShieldTv was a cheap device either.
Pretty sad to see Roku going down the same road. Guess forcing a third of the screen devoted to ads just wasn’t enough.
I prefer projectivy launcher. It’s got a few more features and feels a little more polished.
That’s the reason I’ve been using Roku. I couldn’t stand all the suggestions and ads on my Google TV. If Roku does that, too, then there’s nothing good to distinguish them.
I like that I can install custom apps on Google TV, but Roku beats them in UI IMO.
This launcher looks super cool, does anyone bychance know if it works on FireTVs? I was ok with the FireTV launcher up until they made it autoplay ads with sound everytime you turn the damn thing on.
Same! I recently found this “feature” can be disabled in the preferences, along with a bunch of creepy tracking options.
I can’t speak from experience as I don’t own any Amazon devices, but I have read reports that it seems to work fine with the FireTV variant of Android.
The dev has only tested it against Chromecast with Google TV, with that said I’m using it on a Shield TV and a Shield Pro and it runs fine on both.
Is there any way to repurpose an old android phone into an android TV? Sometimes like Linage OS but TV focused. Even older Android phones can be considerably more powerful than any current streaming box. Add on privacy and you’ve got the perfect solution. It also would save on e-waste.
Smart TV: Runs Android Smartphone: Runs Android
Oh, so can I install Android TV interface to repurpose my phone as TV box?
Google and capitalism: No!
Also why I’m looking forward at Linux phones in the future.
Let’s say I got myself one of those arm-based single board computers that can run android. Is there not a way to install Android TV instead of “regular” android? i assume you’re saying it’s not because it requires GMS cert or something.
No no no. You can replace whole OS sometimes, some phones can also do it but in much more hacky way than SBCs. But what I mean is that you cannot replace the interface. Almost all highly corporate operating systems have their interfaces “welded” in place.
Kodi is probably one way to do it
I’m not sure, but the easiest solution is an old laptop or a mini-PC.
They’ve gotten great at this war of attrition. They know if they make changes incrementally people wouldn’t accept all at once then most people won’t notice or care. That’s why I through that trash and two firesshits out in the garbage where they belonged when they started with “related” ads and app store ads.
through
You sure?
Tru blu tru n tru
