They’re working hard to make sure piracy provides the best experience.
It’s approaching 1984 levels of BS control.
Sorry to inform you, but we are already in the Brave New World.
I seem to be lacking in Soma and orgies.
Ah crap. That means I’m an Epsilon.
Ugh I wanna be in Brand New Animal
This is already my experience but still use a Roku to access Plex. Looks like I’ll need to get something else or figure out if i can block them with Ad Guard Home
I use pi hole and the experience is not entirely smooth. I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this but my pi hole blocks ads but every few weeks Roku has an update and it locks up the entire operating system and I’m stuck in a loop of trying to get my update so I can return to normal. I for the hell of it disabled pi hole for 5 minutes and it wound up working but not until I dropped pi hole. So it’s as if it every so often decides to hold the operating system hostage if I don’t drop pi hole for updates. Makes me think they likely get all the telemetry they are trying to collect for selling data. I like not watching ads 90 percent of the time but it pisses me off that they are likely still spying on me by forcing me to communicate with their servers every now and then.
My brother in Christ, please just connect another device to your TV and disconnect your TV from the internet. No one should be using the built-in software for exactly this reason.
Interesting, I use PiHole as well and have no issues with any of my Roku devices. I wonder if you have more restrictive blocking or some particular rule that I don’t. What lists are you using in PiHole?
I can’t recall having that issue but I stopped using pi-hole because it was blocking certain functionalities on some websites. It required a more hands on approach than I wanted to dedicate at the time.
Not a surprise for Roku. The company has been getting progressively worse in the last few years and their enshittification is accelerating. Their recent forced download of an update that requires users to agree to arbitration to even use our TVs was intended to ultimately take control of those TVs completely away from the people who own them.
Right now it’s possible to block Roku’s static ads and presumably the autoplaying ones using a local DNS server like Adblock Home or Pihole, but it’s only a matter of time before Roku blocks everything unless we watch the ads they are trying force down our throats. I’m already in the process of obsoleting all 5 of our Roku devices.
It has taken Roku years to build up enough market share to allow this kind of behavior and it will take years for the market to abandon them. Their executives will claim ignorance as to why users are walking away when it finally hits their bottom line.
Im literally willing to ditch the device and cancel all streaming services because of this. When I turn on my TV I don’t want to be forced to consume ads when I haven’t been provided with anything in return.
I just block all ads at the router level. When looking through the most blocked domains I see a lot from Roku.
Im not very computer savvy and currently only have a tablet and a mac mini from 2008.
If you’re not tech savy, how do you row row row your bot???
Gently down the byte stream
Can i pleace find a decent TV without smart-capabilitys? I just want HDMI thats it
Don’t give your TV wifi access, use a separate device to watch stuff (Chromecast, FireTV, Android box, etc…)
Wish it had more apps, but Apple TV is pretty solid. With the Steam link app, it’s also good for couch gaming on your pc.
We use Moonlight instead of Steam Link. It requires a little more setting up at the PC end, but overall seems to be a more smooth result.
Witch brands have moonlight available natively? I think I remember Samsung. Anything else? LG doesn’t…
I can only speak for Apple TV, I’m afraid.
I’ll take a look, but I haven’t noticed any performance issues with Steam link.
Moonlight blows steam out of the water. I can’t even tell I’m streaming when I use it.
Can you give me some examples for what’s really all that noticeable?
With steam for me it took longer to connect, it was harder to set up and the stream itself had noticeable artifacts and lag.
With sunshine & moonlight my lag is 1 ms, it connects instantly and I can stream in 4K HDR. Like I said it’s so high quality that I often forget I’m streaming the game.
Plus moonlight is free and open source. Takes maybe 5-10 mins to set up. I was skeptical because it’s FOSS, but it’s easily the streaming solution I’ve tried for gaming.
This is on Windows over LAN, I haven’t tried it over the internet.
I just dock my steam deck
Yeah, that was my approach, but the forced ads are also on the roku stick :(
Yeah about time for me to switch to something else :/
Is there anything that’s a better alternative?
Some people have mentioned apple TV, for now that at least isn’t riddled with ads. Others have mentioned getting android sticks, but I’m not sure how smooth that process is (or how well they work with remotes).
I’m looking into alternatives. So far Kodi is the front runner for my use. I have not decided on whether to replace roku units with raspberri pi running kodi or try the jailbreaking roku route.
Technically you can get commercial TVs but many companies stopped selling them. They are literally the new screen tech with no “Smart” capabilities. They are also much cheaper than their smart counterparts.
Buy a commercial signage display. It’s just a TV without the smart garbage.
Or, get a projector :)
Commercial displays
I must not be looking at the right thing. All I’m finding are expensive displays that have all this fancy scheduling, web surfing, etc. built into it.
Try this brand https://www.sceptre.com/
Are they actually any good though? I was looking at a 1440p Sceptre monitor for my PC, and a lot of reviews mentioned huge bezels, dead pixels, and other issues…
Oh, these are just Wide-screen Gaming monitors though?
LG and samdung make commercial displays, as well as monitors (no speakers or tv tuners generally)
Cheap computer monitor works well for me.
Just a heads up that the Smart Cancer has already begun infecting PC monitors. Samsung makes Smart Monitors.
It won’t be long before there are no longer Dumb Monitors.
A buddy sent me this recently. I’m intrigues. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=46513
A Sharp Aquos TV from the late 2000s, pre-Hisense days. We have a 42" model from ~2007. It’s only 1080p (which is honestly just fine for its size and our usage), but there’s plenty of I/O for modern and legacy equipment, and lots of configuration options. It is an absolute monster at 75 lbs, but an incredibly high quality unit nonetheless, especially considering it’s age. I’ve owned it since 2019 and it’s needed zero repairs or anything.
For comparison, we also have a much newer 55" curved Samsung TV (in our basement, wall-mounted up high) which has already needed a backlight driver board replacement. Luckily that was only $50, but still, I expect better.
the largest problem with older TV’s isnt the resolution. even on my 75" its hard to tell the difference between 4k and 1080p… But HDR is amazing, it really blows me away each time a scene lights up!
That’s a fair point. HDR is quite nice, I use it a lot on my Pixel. The TV I mentioned does have dynamic brightness, but that’s over the whole TV, not really equivalent to HDR.
For years I was a big fan of Roku. It represented a better value alternative from the big corporations pushing their own agenda like Google, Apple, Samsung, and Amazon. They made products that were intuitive and user oriented and carved out a very nice and stable market share for themselves because of it. Now they’re just leveraging their hardware relationships to transform the software into something terrible.
I used to look for tvs with Roku built in. Now I’ve disabled Roku features from my smart TVS and use a separate streaming device.
How did you disable the Roku OS?
I think it depends on the model, but there should be something in the power settings to change the startup device. I did a factory reset first to clear any network settings or user data, skipped the setup, and set it to startup on the HDMI input.
I think the issue is they hit market saturation and haven’t been able to develop any real revenue streams beyond the sale of devices (which is one time cost while maintenance and development constantly drain them of any profit).
I suspect the increased enshitification is because they need other revenue streams. Just take a look at their stock price and it doesn’t paint a great picture for them.
Don’t connect your Roku to the internet.
Or better yet, use a Pi-Hole or something similar to block the relevant adservers at the DNS level.
I wouldn’t say this is “better”
I do run a pihole, but I still will never connect my roku to the internet. It is much better to have a media PC or other streaming device I have control of fully connected.
True, but most people are buying off-the-shelf stuff and they don’t have their own localized piracy-enabled libraries with a Jellyfin server.
Further, I’m pretty sure you’ve got to connect your Roku at least once to install player apps like Jellyfin. But maybe you don’t, I’m not at all familiar with if you can sideload on a Roku.
There is actually a way to sideload apps without internet. I did it once and forgot the details
For any streaming, Netflix, YouTube, or anything I would always use a computer. Not some awful app on a slow device. No screen of mine needs to be anything besides a screen.
Amen. I run a PiHole, and also just use lil computers on all of my screens and download anything I watch and put it on a lil server they all can stream from! No ads, best quality!
Would you happen to know of any guides or have advice on identifying the adservers to block?
I’ve always just done it manually by viewing the Pi-Hole logs for the device I am on while the ad is loading. It takes getting into the weeds a bit.
Further, I don’t have a Roku so I’ve never looked into it myself.
That being said, a quick search brought up this hosts file:
https://gist.github.com/sidward35/cea28bedd0ec0b1bceec8c2b22c163c4
Adlist for Pi-hole with domains for Roku, LG, and Samsung
Not sure if it’s current or not. Lots of threads about Roku ads making it through after being previously blocked.
Appreciate the reply and link regardless! It’s always whack-an-ad with these intrusive jerks.
That’s not better, you didn’t allow any smart TV to connect to the internet.
Shit. I got a Roku TV. That’s one big fucking stick to toss.
Step 1. Factory reset.
Step 2. Do not allow it to connect to the Internet.
Step 3. Connect a Linux based computer to it and run everything through the computer.
Instructions unclear. TV now controlled by Nicole the fediverse chick.
You can trust her. She’s from Toronto!
You been getting that noise too?
Seems like everyone’s been getting that noise lately. I’m on my third.
This method will not work on all Roku tvs, some Roku TV brands require you to phone home to activate the TV before you can use it for the first time. Which requires you to not only connect to the internet but also log into a Roku account on it. It’s stupid.
That would instantly result in the TV being returned to the store I purchased it from.
I bought a Samsung TV that wouldn’t let me change the input until I connected it to the internet, I returned that crap within the hour.
Shall I introduce you to the folks over at !selfhosted@lemmy.world?
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Eh, I just started connecting cheap ($30 or so) used Apple TVs to mine. I saw the writing on the wall.
Almost downvoted instinctually as a reaction to the headline. Visceral reaction. I hate this beyond belief.
I have a Roku ultra in my kid’s room.
I do not want her subjected to ads when she turns on the TV.
This is unacceptable to me and I will be replacing all my Rokus immediately.
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I have a 200+TB library for my Plex and jellyfin instances. The Roku was just a family friendly launcher and remote. I bought them when you could still disable ads in the secret menus and most of the Roku BS is blocked by a pair of piholes, but I’ve gotten annoyed chasing new urls to blacklist.
It’s DRM for the other app bullshit that becomes a hindrance for going the Kodi route. There really isn’t a good alternative that I’ve found. Linux boxes will limit some services to 720p and jt’s mostly baseball and local news programs that I’ll lose.
For the news, I need to look at something like hdhomerun or something else I can pair with an OTA antenna.
For baseball, not much other than the absolute mess that live streaming sports is. Doable, sure. But a pita and sketchy last I looked into it. My season ticket comes with MLB.tv, but the irony is that I’m “in network” so all my teams games are blacked out for me. I had previously created a VPN tunnel and routed one of my Rokus to a different state to watch it. But it’s not a user friendly experience.
For games, I already have a batocera box running on an old dell thin client with way more power than a pi, and it has Kodi on it. But the UI/UX still sucks.
I just got an HDHomeRun that I use with an antenna and love it. I use Mac and they are one of the only boxes that works on Mac.
They don’t have a native Linux client, but you can use VLC supposedly: https://info.hdhomerun.com/info/linux
It also works with Jellyfin through a plugin, but I haven’t tried it yet so idk how good it is
You can connect your HDHomeRun with Plex too. It’s really a nice setup. Plex can work like a DVR to record live channels and even has some capability to remove commercials. I’ve started letting NFL games be DVR’d and commercials stripped before watching the game. It’s a much better experience if you can tolerate the delay.
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DRM. They don’t like how open Linux can be so to combat people using it for pirating their content the companies restrict it.
For instance, Netflix is capped at 720p on Linux unless you are on Opera, apparently.
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I use an Nividia shield that I’ve had for about 5 years. Have an alternate ad free launcher enabled. Still works really well. I use it mostly with Kodi streaming from SMB, some Jellyfin though I have Jellyfin hosted on a Pi4 so video quality is somewhat lacking. The 4k upscaling still works very well and is somewhat unique among streaming boxes
Cabernet with daddylive plugin, this can emulate hdhomerun on your network, add this to plex/Jellyfin for live tv. https://thedaddy/ . to Check the list and see if these 24/7 channel streams work for you.
I integrated these into plex and are able to watch live tv the way I want. Cabernet is a docker container on my network, ensure you set the ip address to the server vs the docker IP, in the Cabernet web ui settings.If you want to just watch streams off that site, I recommend using brave browser, turn on all the ad block capability and set it to strict and even import the hagezi multi pro blocklist in brave. The amount of pop ups on that site is horrible. But brave smooths them out and streams are fairly reliable. Plenty of sports.
Roku had the best smart tv ui. I was seriously bummed when the ads started rolling in a few years ago.
I want an open source streaming client, but from what I hear DRM gets in the way of that.
Honestly i dont even care about non intrusive ads. I dont like it but i can live with those ads on the side bar telling me about some movie coming out, but this auto video bullshit that takes over my screen is fucking awful. That’s the line for me
I’ve much preferred Google TV for some time now. The recommendations and live free tv options are essentially built into the UI. Although I do use the Roku app as one of my free streaming options lol.
Looking around Roku’s site, I found this email address: AdsPR@roku.com
I’m planning on giving them a brief but firm “oh hell no” letter. I wonder how many others will do the same 🤔
I emailed them to let them know I cancelled Disney+ and cited this specific ad and advertisement campaign through Roku as to why I cancelled the service.
Let’s make the companies who advertise this way feel pain.
this is the worst, next they’re gonna put ads on cars
Have I got horrible news for you
@surph_ninja urgh
Stellantis is already doing this on new cars in the US. (Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Maserati, FiAT, etc) Soon as you press the brakes and come to a stop ads play on your infotainment system. Have the car in park? Yep more ads.
Bro they already tried charging you monthly sub for unlocking seat heating functionality… if they are not already here, you can bet they are coming.
You know I only ever get more glad that I didn’t learn to drive and went with cycling instead. It started due to not being able to afford it, now I won’t own their shit and I will be happy.
Just wait, they will find a way to make biking just as shitty
How? There are no electronics in the first place.
I’m sure “smart bikes” will come soon
So glad I blocked my TVs access to the Internet at the router level. Never complainrd about not setting up a network if the network doesn’t work.
Why even connect the tv to your local network?
Casting, using your phone for a remote, so the popup for connecting goes away
What a goofy thing to ask. You know exactly why people use smart TVs on the Internet.
I used Netflix on my TV but after the password sharing and other issues I choose to block network access.
Most of my Internet is done on my computer.
Wake on LAN. At least that’s what I do. I can turn on the TV and adjust the volume from Home Assistant but the TV itself can’t reach the Internet.
When my girlfriend moved in, she had a big TCL Roku TV its software absolutely sucks. But it would keep a blinking led on ALL THE TIME if it wasn’t connected to wifi.
I put it on my iot network, and I’m considering null routing it.
I actually had a Roku box plugged into it since it had a better experience, but I’m probably going to switch that to a Nvidia shield pro because of this ad bullshit.
Apple TV for the win
If you think another private company with profit on their mind is safe, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/1330127/apple-ad-revenue-worldwide/
They still have an ad business, and ads are what companies turn to when times get tough. There’s no guarantees that Apple will stay on top for other reasons, and to assume such a thing will never happen is truly foolhardy.
It’s like believing Valve will be the same after Gabe Newell dies.
Further, Apple relies deeply on TMSC and since the US is basically in a nosedive of idiocy and protectionist tariffs, there’s a significant chance their supply line for their chips could be deeply impacted, and by extension, their profits from their computing products. Whether from tariffs or China taking over Taiwan, Apple could easily get fucked out of luck fast.
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No, you implied that they’ll never ever ever never ever in a million years turn to their ad business to supplant lost sales elsewhere and that related things couldn’t happen to impact their sales. Which is a bogus and easily disproven line of thought.
bro, you’re projecting and read all that in the other poster’s reply on your own.
chill and rebuild binutils and clang from source again
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That’s not how they operate.
That’s literally the implication that I’m talking about that you say I’m projecting onto this. You don’t know the future, that can change.
Apple has some serious catching up to do with enshitification on the appletv end. I think they are going to really blow our minds when they finally release a new appleTV. It’s quite overdue and I’m guessing they are cooking up a doozy for us!
My predictions : still don’t fix bit pass audio issue, eliminate ethernet port, crappier remote that still has no back lighting, siri/ appleai is everywhere but only makes things more frustrating, and who knows - maybe ads!!
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I love how Dolby content doesn’t work with my Hue sync box!
Hasn’t Apple seriously considered the ad business in the past? I think I saw a video about it years ago. Most likely, they will switch their strategy as soon as it makes financial sense to do so.
As it stands now Apple TV for the win and I’d be legit shocked if Apple puts ads as you boot up an Apple TV.
It’s not that they won’t do it. It’s that they currently don’t so it’s a good choice.
When they add ads, then we can find something else. I’m on Roku now but have been increasingly annoyed by the increase in ads.
Or just… don’t. Self hosting video content isn’t that hard, then you have full control.
I do. But I also see a need to support content creators.
You can support content creators without streaming services. I buy and rip DVDs and Blurays, which directly supports them.
I don’t want any device for my TV that makes it hard to install free apps like Jellyfin without logging into an account. I tried fake accounts with Apple devices in the past and ended up with a couple devices that were basically bricked when the fake email account I used got disabled due to lack of activity.
They just did this to me. How can I tell them they failed this test?
If it has a video input, hook up a used PC, and pirate everything. (:
