Great, I got rid of Amazon fire stick after they stuck ads in movies and got a Roku.
Now I’ll have to switch again or start pirating. Another loss for civilization
And they wknder why piracy is skyrocketing again. It’s not hard, dipshits. Fuck.
They updated my roku a few months ago with this and there was an opt out to revert, and I took it. It asked if I really wanted to change back to the old UI as it would be unable to swap back. I hope that stays true!
My understanding is that they pushed it to some people as a beta and eventually they would roll out the update to everyone even if they opted out of the beta. I opted out to go back to the not as bad homescreen and blocked it from the Internet in my router settings
I know everyone shuts on Apple but … my cheap Apple TV has 0 ads, except the ads the apps may have.
I assume Google has, and probably killed, at least 1 variant?
Mine haven’t been connected to the internet since about a year before they pushed out that update that forced you to agree to their revised surveillance terms or you could never use it again.
My googleOS TCL never got internet access in the first place. Who needs integrated apps when you have tons of mostly old computers kicking around?
You can also just block it via a Pi-Hole. My Roku works fine as a smart TV, but has no ads because they can’t load from the ad server. I also blocked the telemetry server too. So I get all the benefits of having a smart TV (like convenient apps, instead of needing to use a HTPC as a workaround), and none of the downsides like ads.
The built-in ads were actually what led to me finally setting up my pihole after moving. I had it set up in my old apartment, and my wife was used to having it quietly running. She didn’t really realize how much it blocked until we moved. After the move, I was busy with unpacking, work, etc and didn’t have a whole lot of free time. So the network was just running on the new ISP’s provided modem/router until I had the time to get all my server shit unpacked and set up. My wife kept dragging me away for other tasks, so it was like three weeks before I even had time to touch the box that my pi-hole was in.
I finally got time to set my pi-hole up because my wife had the Roku TV paused, it went to the idle screen, and she saw an ad scroll past on the idle screen. She turned to me and was like “okay yeah, you need to go set up that adblocker thingy. Ads on the fucking idle screen? I knew ads were getting pervasive these days, but what the fuck?” The next day, she left me alone so I would have time to actually get everything plugged in and configured. Seeing that ad on the idle screen was the moment that cemented in her mind that an adblocker is a necessary part of the network.
You can, but I found that roku forced my apps (specifically plex, the only app I really ever used, which should have needed an update exactly never because my server doesn’t get updated either) to break in such a way that I needed to unblock everything and redownload exactly once every 3 months (I assume to collect your stored data), and that wasn’t worth it to me, so I factory reset it and left it that way, because idgaf. I have enough old computers to have one in every room, so roku gets nothing. They are just dumb tvs now.
Maybe that’s changed, but I’m not risking fucking it up to find out.
I had gotten a roku for us for xmas the year before. Saw that tos update and stopped using it immediately. Tbh it kinda sucked anyways.
Roku used to be pretty great, but the writing was on the wall after the IPO in 2017. This is just one more step in the decade-long march toward total enshittification.
We really need to figure out an open source TV OS or something. I want a Linux based OS for a small PC explicitly to stream Plex or other streaming services. I think I read that licensing for the transcoding or something was the hang up.
The biggest hurdle is streaming services’ DRM (something called widevine iirc) that just doesn’t work on linux, which limit you to low resolutions like 720p. There was some struggles between AMD and the HDMI consortium preventing them from shipping HDMI2.1 drivers, but that appears to be solved.
I think I read that licensing for the transcoding or something was the hang up.
There’s several problems. Transcoding is one but there’s also issues with content providers requiring the use of their own apps along with Linux not (until very recently) being able to use any HDMI spec beyond 2.0.
I’ve been a ROKU user for over a decade but the last year has had me thinking more and more about boxing up my devices and sending them to their HQ with a note “Since you treat these like you own them I figured I’d just send them to you.”
I am really REALLY tired of them dicking with my boxes and updating / reconfiguring things however and whenever they see fit.
Are you familiar with Kodi?
I wish there were something more like Apple TV UI. Kodi is weird and hard to navigate. Apps are more like plugins instead of just Apps.
Seems like doing some clean room design off of Roku OS would be a good choice.
<laughs in pihole>
does the UI just render blank squares in that case?
In some cases. There is a blank square on the main menu. The idle screen also normally had an ad. The idle screen looks like a scrolling cartoon panoramic shot of a street, and the ad is a billboard on the side of the street. That billboard simply isn’t there at all if the ad is blocked.
Yes. It’s obnoxious.
I’ve done this on VIDAA (Hisense) and there’s a placeholder for the homescreen ads that just say “VIDAA”.
I think it hides the big ad area if it can’t get the data, but I haven’t used my Roku outside of the setup in so long I don’t know what the UI would look like.
I use adguard on my opnsense with several lists… one of them snags it by default. the big blank border of a square is still lame.
deleted by creator
yo this looks like a good gist, thanks!
whoops! deleted it because it was posted elsewhere in the thread but i hadn’t noticed yet.
here it is in case anybody wants it. https://gist.github.com/sidward35/cea28bedd0ec0b1bceec8c2b22c163c4
This is technically correct, but it’s not new. They’ve had this ad for years.
looks like they shrunk the menu to icons in order to make room for the ad on the same view, not just when you arrow over to the app icons.
Yea I’ve been ignoring that forever. I jsut go to my Jellyfin app at square 1
Is anyone running https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ yet?
From https://plasma-bigscreen.org/get/
Plasma Bigscreen is not yet widely available.
We are planning to join the Plasma release schedule starting with Plasma 6.7 (in June), which will make it possible for distributions to ship it in their repositories.
In June, so almost!
It’ll be packaged up in plasma 6.7, I think mid June. Then it’ll be easy for distros to make it available. I want to try it but I don’t want to change distro or build it myself. When 6.7 rolls out, I got my computer plugged into my TV with CachyOS handheld edition. Right when Plasma 6.7 is available in the Arch repos, I’m installing it
Somehow, it appears to already be packaged for fedora, I already tried it and it looks extremely promising while still being in beta.
want to. Got a rpi5 sitting waiting but too many other projects ahead of it.
I did try android TV on it. it was utter horse shit, so I’m hopeful for pbs.
I’ve got Android TV on a Rpi5 and it works fine. It does have some bloat but it gets the job done.
playing anything 4k makes it too choppy for my taste. even 2k has issues.
FYI if you already have a Roku, you can block these with a network level ad blocker like Pihole.
Edit: Here’s a list of common Smart TV domains to block.
I was using NextDNS instead of pihole because I wanted my ad blocking to still work when I’m out and about.
Couldn’t stay on the free tier because I make so many DNS requests. Which seemed weird - it’s just the two of us using the network?
Lo and behold, the fucking forgotten Roku attached to a TV was doing a fresh DNS lookup every 30 seconds to try to call home and send telemetry data. It accounted for like 60% of my DNS traffic!
I use a simple WireGuard VPN to use my home DNS when I’m out. This container from linuxserver.io was really easy to set up, and the WireGuard app works great on iOS/Android. You can even have it automatically turn on and off depending on your network.
I tried fancy mesh networks like Tailscale, but it was over-complicated for my setup and kept causing DNS issues. Some people find this works well for them, though.
Either way, you can go full self-hosted this way and save money.
If you already have a Roku you can probably just stop using a Roku.
I’d rather show people how to de-shittify their existing devices than create more e-waste.
What do you recommend instead for $30-40?
Yeah like the other guy said. One of the ONN devices with Projectivity Launcher to get rid of ads and organize your apps in a sane manner.
One of the Onn streaming devices from Walmart. Picked one up last month to replace an old Fire Stick, and it’s been great. Runs stock (or close enough to it) GoogleTv and it only cost about $40. Downloaded Projectivy Launcher and set it as my default home app, so no more home screen ads. Will probably end up throwing ReVanced on it, too.
And when Google inevitably pisses me off enough, I can unlock the bootloader and try my hand at flashing a custom ROM without any Google Play services.
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Buy one or more NVIDIA Shield Pro 2019 editions for whatever TV (completely disconnected from the internet) you like watching things on.
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Replace the built-in NVIDIA / Google Launcher with a custom one like WOLF or FLauncher completely free of ads.
There are completely ad-free wonderful little alternatives to every ever-enshittifying service out there…
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YouTube- > SmartTube Next -
Subscription Streaming Services- > Plex (or Jellyfin if you’re just doing local and no special devices that need transcoding) -
Twitch-> S0undTV
- Combine that with a NAS of your choice and (optionally) a few pieces of free software setup through a containerized deployment system like docker by following the guidance of Dr. Frankenstein along with an account with Mullvad.
…Any other steps there may or may not be are for you to figure out on your own.
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Roku had the best ui a few years ago, everything i dont contol is just shit now.
Fast and responsive UI, easy for older people to use. Too bad it is getting worse but I still find it more usable than Google TV.
They have been slowing ramping up the enshitification over the last year. It time to add some more features to my Kodi install!
I really really wish general society had brains.
I’m not preaching anything new here, that people who know what a fediverse wouldn’t already know.
That being said, never buy roku anything. This isn’t new. It seems every 3-6 months I read a new headline where roku shits all over their customers.
And I know I know this. And I know you know this. However I also know we collectively are like 3% of society. Walk into any target or walmart or best buy, and you’ll see walls and walls of tv’s. And 90% of them say they have roku built into the menu. Well, WE know not to buy that tv. However, everybody else still buys it, and then complains 2 years later when their tv is bogged down and slow and they need a new tv.
I really wish it were legal to stand in these stores, and anytime someone tries to buy a roku, or roku tv, I could just beat the shit out of them with a tire iron. In my mind that seems like a perfectly justifiable response. But apperently thats “assult” and I would be “deranged” and “psychotic to even think that was ok”.
Pssshhhh…
They are still being enshitiffied… Literally everything is
The TV’s have been problematic, but the devices them selves have been basically cheap and works. With LESS nonsense than the alternatives in that category: firesticks and google devices.
On the other hand, with a Roku you are limited to no vpn, and rare apps you might want (the exception being the nice youtube ad blocker).
Nice YouTube ad blocker on Roku? Please share
Playlet. An invidious front end, it’s in the roku apps.
I like my Chromecast setup. I remapped the Netflix button to Plex, so I push that button on the remote and the TV turns on and goes straight to plex. The Google TV UI is “meh” at best, and also full of ads, so I avoid it.
Roku just keeps getting worse and worse. It is highly inadvisable to connect a smart TV to the internet, a separate streaming box is the way to go. If Apple TV/Chromecast/whatever completely goes to shit, one can simply get something else.
I just got used Apple TVs and replaced all the Rokus
It was directly because of the ads.
I like my Chromecast because it doesn’t have any UI. I hit “cast” on my phone and it goes.
You can load a different launcher onto a googleTV to get rid of the ads
I’ll look into it! I know so little about Android.
This is the one I use it works well enough except when it breaks but when it works no ads: https://projectivylauncher.com/index.html
Saved. When I get home I’m going to give this a go. I’d love to get away from Google’s launcher.
