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.
looks fucking stupid
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.
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
Because people won’t pay for it. We are in the minority.
We need a fediverse streaming service.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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Kodi is probably one way to do it
I’m not sure, but the easiest solution is an old laptop or a mini-PC.
Not with pihole I wont.
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?
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
“Not connected to the internet” lol. How presumptuous of the designers.
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!
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.
I guess I get to ad more devices to my pfsense Adblock rule
Pi-Hole/AdGuard works to stop these ads, never even have to see them.
I don’t mind if it’s an ad for a new tv show or movie or streaming platform. But if it’s shopping stuff I’ll need to find a new tv.
I just shuffled some hardware around and got an old Roku that I thought was dead going again. One of the ads that appeared on the homescreen was “Cancel THIS! the Rosanne Barr Special” so if that’s the kind of movie ads you’re looking for you’ll love Roku!
Can these ads be blocked with pi-hole?
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.
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++?
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.
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.
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.
Anyone can set them up, it’s just running an app
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/
what info is sent to these domain?
None if you block them.
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.
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.
Hey, nice, I get to build an HTPC again and check out the latest streaming shit for Linux.
I’m not even being ironic. Tired of this corporate hellscape and finding joy in returning to the kind of hobbyist tech I grew up on.
corposhit used to at least be worth paying for with all it’s flaws but they’re shitting it up so bad it’s increasingly not even worth it in the slightest
Yep. There was a little while there where things coulda maybe been fine but the greedy psychopaths decided they wanted to fuck it up.
As I have found trying to see if I can sideload or jailbreak or otherwise hack the software of my Samsung TV, I have found plenty of ways to totally disable ads on a Roku or Android TV or anything that runs on Android in general (Chromecast, and firestick also IIRC). Too bad I don’t have one of those… 😩
Thank you Roku, a step forward towards self hosting and self managing of every service
How are you going to self-host streaming hardware? A HTPC for every TV in the house along with a mouse and keyboard?
I was already thinking of upgrading my old Roku to a $20 Onn (Walmart brand) Google TV box (which I’m told is hackable), but this will only accelerate that decision.
yes they are. you can put lineage and degoogle these
I have one of these on every TV in my house and they’re great!
Small SBCs and keyboard/remote combos. That’s what we do.
Use Android TV with an alternate launcher like FLaunchee
No need for HTPC, just a small USB device with HDMI output and DLNA support. You use your phone as a DLNA controller, a server running Jellyfin as DLNA provider, and the device attached to the TV as DLNA renderer. And sometimes TVs have DLNA support built-in (my Toshiba does).
On Android there’s an amazing app called BubbleUPnP that can source media from a wide variety of places, make playlists, and cast to DLNA devices as well as proprietary protocols like Chromecast.
It works but it isn’t family friendly.
Jellyfin supports DLNA too, if you have a DLNA rendering device on the network it will just appear in the cast menu. Or if you want something that works with a remote directly on the TV you can install Kodi. There’s really no point nowadays in getting tied up into proprietary stuff.
Yes I have a thinclient attached to my TV running linux mint
LOL “Roku was one of the platforms with fewer ads” my ass. Every. Fucking. Menu. Had that shit.
That’s why I stuck with Google TV/Nexus TV for so long - because despite Google collecting that viewing info, I wasn’t getting feature-length ads interrupting my shit.
Maybe I’m not using all of Roku’s features but the only ad I see is the one box on the right of the homescreen. To me that’s much less intrusive than the full screen stuff I see on Google TV or Fire Stick.
Yeah, GTV and Fire Stick have become awful for sure - On the lookout for alternatives to all 3 at this point. I shouldn’t have to run a pihole just to connect to my jellyfin instance.
I blocked it with nextdns, my Roku shows no ads at all. Instead there’s just a blank space where the ads would be, which is so much better and less obnoxious.
How do you set the Roku’s DNS server?
You don’t have to, nextdns on my router handles the Roku.
I’ve seen ads on one screen and that’s it. Static ads for shows on the initial home page, nowhere else. Have 5 Rokus and have been using them for a decade.
Oh. Also I guess they started advertising shows in some of the screensavers, too.
Anyway to roll back firmware on some of these TVs?
Mine was never connected, except once a friend came over and connected it and it updated and now it requires a connection to rename inputs…
It’s never been connected since that day either.
Hate this kind of crap.
I don’t think so, I searched around but didn’t see anything noteworthy. Maybe a hacker will get bored one day and jailbreak them, but seems like there’s no hope as of right now.
It’s honestly kind of surprising this hasn’t happened yet.
I guess TVs don’t have much processing power or room for it. Or maybe all the drm in them is a nightmare.
Why did they ever connect it? just wanted to watch the world burn?
They didn’t understand how the TV and Shield worked and had wanted to watch some sports thing on their ESPN account.
I guess they thought i was mistaken when I told them they only needed the shield remote for everything and the shield could do it all.
I know a lot of people here reeeeeaaaaalllly hate apple, but, having used many different streaming boxes over the years, I’ve never had a better experience than with my Apple TVs. I have a Gen 4 (Apple TV HD) and a Gen 5 (Apple TV 4K first generation), and they both have worked flawlessly and trouble-free since they day I bought them many years ago. I primarily use them for the Plex app (there are very nice Jellyfin, Kodi, and Emby apps too, chill), and sometimes for some other stuff, all of which they do very well, even the older one, and even still after all these years. tvOS updates have, historically, been pretty essentialist— that being, slim and performant. Old Apple TVs still run great.
YES, for those who don’t like Apple and/or who aren’t totally into the who Apple ecosystem, one won’t get all of the benefits (yet will still get about 90% of them) and one might see friction with some of Apple’s “way of doing things” — especially that fucking annoying remote of theirs - but, all things considered, it does what it does extremely well, and it’s far better and more powerful than its competition IMO (for which you do pay a premium I feel is well worth it). and it is especially good at both protecting your privacy (compared to its competitors) and keeping ads far, far away (except when individual apps insert them, i.e. Hulu or Netflix with ads).
I have had Rokus in several TVs I’ve owned, and… yeah, they were, technically, the closest to the great functionality I came to expect rom my ATVs, but, still, nowhere close. On top of that, my Rokus all wanted all my data and sleazily blasted me ads while making it nearly impossible to disable the ability to disconnect my wifi, disable ads or tracking, etc. The whole device/os seemed designed for data mining first, and showing me media second. ew. the only upside was that the Roku Plex app has one or two interesting UX and UI features the tvOS app didn’t due to some weird programming quirks in SwiftUI and tvOS limitations that didn’t exist in whatever development framework that Roku uses.
I came here to say something similar. I love my AppleTV. Works like a charm and has a no-nonsense interface if you enable the grid Home Screen. No ads. Runs great. It’s perfect.
Even for Apple haters, it’s a pretty decent device. Even for people who hate Apple stuff, you don’t have to have other Apple devices to make great use of an Apple TV. You do have to create an iCloud account in order to sign into it, but you can always use an iTunes account for that purpose.it’s just for the purpose of downloading apps and so forth. No other Apple device or service is required. It really does work great on its own and isolated from any other service or device. However, it does work excellently in concert with other Apple devices, if that is your thing.
AppleTV would be my recommendation for people that want a clean interface with no ads and they don’t want to or can’t modify an android TV box to a custom launcher. It’s just about a perfect experience right out of the box. It’s a shame about the shitty remote though.
For people willing to get their hands dirty, androidtv having SmartTubeNext is a killer tool for YouTube and for me gives it the edge.
Just buy one of the 4K’s and it comes with the power button and better remote. Also, the remote isn’t bad if you turn off the swiping and just use the 4-way as a D-pad. You still get its great circular scrolling too.
Do you need any other Apple devices to make good use of an Apple TV?
No! Shockingly, this is the one Apple device, even aside from the iPhone, that you really don’t need another Apple device for it to be at nearly it’s maximum usefulness. Yes, more Apple devices do make it more useful, but on its own, it’s at nearly 100% of its usefulness. It does want you to have an iCloud account and register for that, but it doesn’t need to go further than that. All of the regular apps like Hulu or prime video or Netflix or whatever work normally on Apple TV, but they work in an Apple TV sort of way. For the most part, it’s actually much better than another platforms, but it is in Apple TV sort of way. It does take a little getting used to.you can always go into an Apple Store and try it out if that is convenient for you.
Thanks!
sure! I’m happy to answer any of your questions about it.
