It would be a gold mine for them. People always forget the optional agreements and don’t want to find where to turn off the faucet of personal data or even know what that means.
I have brought this up while installing TVs for my job and I either get a “wtf, help me fix” or [blank stare] “why should I care?” reactions. Mostly the latter and they are all over the age of 60.
Look I’m 48 and I get it. I get the Russian level paranoia about people accessing my data. What you’ll find is there are a lot of people that are aware and genuinely don’t give a shit.
We are old enough to know that if you want privacy don’t use technology.
Jesus Christ just yesterday I had to tell my oldest to watch what he says because he mentioned Luigi wasn’t wrong. I told him I agree but I explained they’re all listening and pointed to the alexa, the TV, his phone, his laptop.
Privacy is a farce. You can make it harder which I’m all for but if someone wants the data they can get it. You have secrets keep them to yourself. That is privacy.
Anyways, rant from someone with 25 years in Corporate IT. It’s all theatre.
Gotta find a way to connect with the old people now that cable is going the way of the dinosaur.
The regulators allowing this should be shot.
I can put 22 billion Gokus in my ass and Fox still won’t offer me my own show, but yet they’re buying Dragon Ball? Like, tf they gunna do with that shit?
Cable is dying hence Murdoch needs a new way to broadcast his propaganda to old people.
I don’t have any Roku devices luckily, but is there anyway to remove the google, roku, or amazon OS from a smartTV yet? I hope someone can crack these smart tv’s and we can install linux on them in the future to eliminate the ads and backdoors.
If you auto update your tv, you most likely are SOL for jailbreaking a smart tv. I have tried two different TVs from LG and Samsung ending in the device being bricked. This is slowly becoming a pet project that I am realizing I am way out of my depth with.
If you can replace the mainboard and just use the panel, that would be awesome.
No. TVs are pretty dang cheap these days because they subsidize the up front cost with turning them into ad machines. If you want it without the features, you have to pay a higher up front cost.
People be like “don’t connect it to the internet.” I tried that and the TV actively functions worse. Like it forces me to go to the Fire TV Home Screen rather than just returning to whatever input I had it on when it was turned off and it says “some features don’t work when not connected”
Like Amazon enshittified the TV input to force me to connect the TV to the internet. I wouldn’t have bought it if I had known but now I’m stuck with it.
I should be able to use whatever software I want in my own devices. I want a Linux TV so badly.
Get a proper top class panel TV that’s dumb and do rasp pi as a firestick, or just run it as 24/7 mini pc connected to the TV that has ad free YouTube, free movies, free everything really if you know what’s up.
It cost like 7 euros a year to run it 365 days 24/7
I can’t afford a super nice TV. I have a Hisense U6 which I probably spent $500-700 at the time. It’s a few years old. But the fact that they know we don’t want their garbage so the make the TV worse if I don’t connect it to their services pisses me off. That’s the FireTV version.
I have a smaller Google TV version of the same panel on my bedroom and it doesn’t do that. Plus it has more features. I am degoogled tho so I don’t have it connected to an account tho.
I do have the living room TV connected to an Apple TV set top box. As for streaming devices that work out of the box, I actually really like the Apple TV. The only thing better than this would be doing what you said.
I’ve been trying to self host with Jellyfin, but getting my NAS set up has been a hassle. I’ve probably spent 200 hours trying to get it to work but no luck yet. (Fuck you QNAP/QTS and your proprietary software)
Time to throw out the roku I never use.
I have an old Roku 3 that is, basically, a Raspberry Pi. Like, if you could swap out the OS it could do Raspberry Pi like things.
My only tv is an almost 10 year old Roku tv… Guess it’s time to finally dig into the settings and figure out if I can bypass the home screen and get it to just boot to a raspberry pi or something
Time to throw out the Roku I never had
I can’t wait for free movie site levels of ads.
If the big old government needs to approve this deal then FOX is in big trouble! /s
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.
Fox news is specifically 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
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.
The comment does contain tips on how to set it up though
Yeah, that doesn’t sound like Roku’s fault.
Dementia doesn’t automagically make one rabid for Trump.
There seems to be a pretty strong correlation though
Same with the level of propaganda.
No, but it does often lead to sudden, late-life personality changes
$22 billion to get the maga propaganda machine front-and-center on more screens than cable tv ever did, and timing is just right to get it all going in time for 2028.
Capturing all media distribution.
One of the things on my FOSS wishlist is an open source alternative to Roku/GoogleOS/Apple TVos, etc. there are lots of FOSS apps on these various platforms, but those apps almost always have varying levels of quality and availability across them.
Right now the closest you can really get is media center PC, but what I really need is something relatively plug and play I can send to family members, preconfigured.
yes I totally don’t know why this isn’t more of a thing. here’s hoping that “plasma bigscreen” will change that. https://plasma-bigscreen.org/
Plasma Bigscreen is coming
Looks very promising
Yeah, a jailbroken Roku OS would actually be fantastic. The actual TVs aren’t bad. Roku has actually figured out how to do streaming decently. It just sucks that the entire company seems to be going down the shitter, and they’re determined to drag all of their screens down with them.
I blocked by Roku TV’s telemetry BS with my pi-hole, at least. But that won’t stop them from trying. Having a way to flash a new FOSS/jailbroken OS onto it would be ideal.
Same. I’m currently doing the mini PC media center. It’s nice but I don’t see my family doing something like that. It’s a bit too expensive and less plug and play than a $40 Roku/Chromecast unfortunately.
Those things are so cheap because they serve you ads and sell your data. They’re sold at a loss. Most brain dead idiots are fine with that trade it would seem. If you could get Linux running on one of those that would be great.
Google TV is the least worst option in terms of open source optionality, Apple TV is best for privacy as is
Why tf does everyone trust apple for anything? They’re a pretty awful company.
Because as of now their main financial structure isnt based on selling personal information for ads. They make most there money selling products and services. And I think trust isn’t the right word. Apple is normally the least shitty out of all the shitty big tech companies with modern day convenience.
Because as of now their main financial structure isnt based on selling personal information for ads.
Again, how do you know that? Cook gave a gold bar to trump, they’re not a good company.
No one said Apple was a good company, just better for privacy.
Cook was giving a toddler a shiny for favoritism. That’s pathetic on Trump, not Tim.
Tim is a business man. He was brown nosing so his company doesn’t get fucked by the government.
They’re the only mainstream hardware company that takes user privacy seriously. Bad on right to repair and openness though
Why tf does everyone trust apple for anything? They’re a pretty awful company.
They’re the only mainstream hardware company that takes user privacy seriously
Why do you think that? Is that what you’ve heard or do you know that?
They’re the only truly mainstream company with E2EE backups among other things. iOS is also much more secure than stock android, only Graphene OS is better.
Is Apple TV hardware any good because the app is appallingly bad. Even on a gigabit network connection it will drop connectivity and lag out. If you pause for more than about 1 minute it crashes and kicks you back into the main menu. It never seems to keep track of current shows and just shows a bunch of irrelevant stuff at the top which you have to always scroll past in order to get to what you actually want.
It makes Amazon TV look like a well polished product.
The hardware is actually one of the better streaming boxes on the market. Good direct play support for most of the big codecs, so your Jellyfin/Plex server isn’t having to transcode things. And it was (not sure if it still is) one of the few that wasn’t completely riddled with ads.
I feel like Kodi mediacenter app is one of the main things to consider putting on it. Like, booting some Linux and instantly launchung it, so it’s UI is the main UI for user to interact with. It covers most TV usecases of mid 2010s and shines if you have a medialibrary on the network.
But it doesn’t cover occasional web browsing, DRMed videostreaming platforms with their own apps, etc. Worse than that, if we don’t limit it to just Kodi, we’d need some UI to pick apps, swtich apps, etc, and if that’s critical, it’s probably worth it to rip an image of some WebOS, like on LG TVs, or an Android fork like on SmartTV boxes/sticks, whatever is less combatative, and methodically carve out bloat and adware, forming an image of inherently insecure/outdated OS that has the UI thing working right.
Outside of SteamOS idk if Linux (not Android) had slick console/SmartTV-like DEs/system-wide GUIs. But since the problem is on the surface, I believe there are some who tried, or configured/themed their environment to act like it.
😳
Outside of SteamOS idk if Linux (not Android) had slick console/SmartTV-like DEs/system-wide GUIs. But since the problem is on the surface, I believe there are some who tried, or configured/themed their environment to act like it. kde-bigscreen is available, and has that sort of ui, but does require some setup. Also don’t know how available it is. I believe it is already in some repos.
I have the feeling so many people are super enthusiastic about it, it will be a matter of months after it’s included in regular KDE that someone will make a “Linux TV” distro centered around plasma bigscreen while minimizing setup complexity, aimed at using it for TV only… And there’s some (quiet) rumours that steam might be interested in using KDE bigscreen on the steam machine…
A FOSS alternative would likely be missing or have meh performance from many of the streamers. All the big ones use proprietary codecs that are expensive annual licenses. And even then the streamer controls what various access methods are allowed to see and at what quality. I think netflix still limits web browsers to 720p, for example. And straight web access isn’t great, you want an interface that can ideally be controlled with about 6 - 8 buttons (4 directions, OK, and Back are the minimum) which might require API access to these services, which introduces more access control. Netflix (and maybe others) even have hardware installed at the ISP level that give them a lot of control over individual access as well.
Basically for a full featured FOSS service you’d need to start with getting grants to buy to codec licenses, and then you’d need to hire people just to maintain your relationship with the streaming services to stay in their good graces while they know you’re working against their bottom line.
Best solution would probably be a mini PC running a web app dashboard like they do with kiosks. I would tell you to get a rasp pi but they went up in price by quite a bit. You would still have to order it for them and spend a few hours tinkering and installing everything.
Yeah and the experience just wouldn’t be very good. I have a lot of experience with mini PCs auto loading into web dashboards and it never works quite as well as you want it to
As a family we rarely watch “on demand” or live TV. We have a mini hooked up to our TV and sail the seas for shows we want and watch them that way. We have a Roku stick in our bedroom TV and it works great, but if I get the feeling it starts to go all Project 2025 its getting ditched, but I’m in the UK so it’ll be interesting to see how it changes here.
We need to develop an open, modular or all-in-one NAS with easily enabled services like Jellyfin, Navidrome, Paperless, Home assistant and so on.
With IPv6 we could avoid having to deal with CGNAT, but that could be solved as well.
People have been trying to do that for a long, long time, with various levels of success. There are a dozen options out there to try, but the scope of that kind of project huge compared to a simple streaming appliance OS.
I’d like for something like that to be sponsored by the EU
I’d like it to be sponsored by no one but the people that make it personally.
Yeah but as you said, that didn’t work so far
Jellyfin is quite great for me right now. Check it out https://jellyfin.org/
Jellyfin is just a media streaming application
It is a server application too that can be installed in old hardware serving media to many clients, not only the jellyfin app.
It’s a server application that just streams your media. You’d still need some kind of device to install the client on.
Relax. I was just correcting your wrong statement about it being just “a media streaming application” by adding the sever part bit.
Relax, it is in fact just a media streaming application. It is an application that streams media. It does nothing else.
Yarr.
KDE is able to release plasma bigscreen. That, or frankly gnome would be fine with an air mouse.
Coreelec on ugoos am6b+ is the best option if you want the broadest support for formats possible (though notably missing av1)
Htpc with streaming content or stuff like Dolby vision is a licensing nightmare. Some stuff works, some doesn’t, Linux support is trash, etc
What would be amazing is if there was some way to have a fully declarative system that was integrated with a system update UI.
You would upload the config somewhere, your family’s streaming box would see a new update is available and either prompt them to install it or install it for them overnight.
I’ve never used it before but it sounds like you’re sorta describing NixOS? That might be an option to sorta Jerry-rig this idea together.
Yeah. The closest I’ve gotten without a media center PC is using remote adb to remove all the bullshit from my Nvidia shield.
Until I read the last sentence, I had no idea what you were talking about. You sound like you could whip up a media center PC easy enough. The machine I’m typing this on doubles as our media center. I have to take the mouse to the coffee table for a movie remote, but that’s the only hassle, and it isn’t a hassle for me.
I feel like the tech is already in place. What do you want that isn’t out there?
Must get very small, very quiet, require zero ongoing maintenance besides an automated update mechanism, and have a single unified UI across all apps that the user can’t easily escape out of.
For me it’s kind of JellyFin + TailScale, but that probably isn’t going to work with less tech savvy family members or on all devices. Plex works well enough, but then again it’s the same thing that someone has to be responsible for the ‘media’ portion, and a lot of people enjoy live sports, which seems difficult through the open source things.
Yeah JF + Tailscale in one of them $20 Walmart Google TV boxes works well enough but like, I’d love to drop the Google part entirely.
Yeah, I just use the web interface, so I end up having a cheap PC with a keyboard/remote which works pretty well, then it doesn’t matter the TV and get’s away from Google altogether.
Can you configure and ship it?
The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year. It still needs approval from Fox and Roku shareholders and also regulatory approval.
Hahaha, regulatory approval is f@ing guaranteed these days, as long as the proper fees are paid in advance. F@ck you, felon in chief. 😡😡😡
fuck is the word.
you know: you can swear here
Oh shit, for real? Fuck yeah!
OP might not be the best example but I have a growing appreciation of holding your temper in check. Self censorship is some acknowledgement that you’re watching a little bit of what you’re saying.
At the same time though, fuck Trump.
Censorship is stupid. It’s better to choose different words, hold back or go full in.
Also fuck Trump.
Been shouting at clouds forever. Capitalism ain’t the problem, it’s the unfettered mergers and near monopolies. When I was a kid, the FCC/FTC would have laughed. “No, you can’t control that much media.”
Now? Exactly as you said.
Why do you think there’s unfettered mergers and monopolies? That’s right, it’s capitalism.
So capitalism is the problem. What do you think allows the mergers and deregulation, a government that is not capitalistic? SMH
Well that’s some shit I’m gonna toss in the garbage. All of the streaming in the house is done on PCs or Playstations currently, so it won’t be a big loss. I have a few devices sitting around to take for travel or whatever, but I can find other solutions.
Dear corporate America:
I reject your enshittification. I don’t need your service. Fuck yourself with an axe-head.
– Shel
Does anyone know how to download content off those weird Roku channels? I’d like to download a bunch of stuff off of one before they (I assume) shut it down.
looks at stack of ebooks
Let Babylon burn.
