Since there are a lot of comments here I want to ask this: we purchased a xiaomi tv stick (specs below) and a 15 year old intel pentium dual core w/ android runs circles around it with the exact same apps plus the PC has significantly more stable network connection. The stick’s OS is old however not bloated and it even blocks google banner ads OOB. Did we get a very bad unit or are all of TV sticks / boxes unusably slow unless you get a shield or an apple tv?
It’s been like this for a while. Nvidia Shield is even worse but I put up with it because it’s so useful.
At this point, I’m not even sickened any more. Anyone who buys these consumer goods and willingly uses them as intended DESERVES this shit. Fuck them. Before someone says “It’s all I could afford” or “What’s the alternative? We can’t seem to find “dumb” TVs anymore!”
Dead. Simple.
Buy that trash Roku TV. Take it home and set it up. NEVER, EVER allow it to connect to the internet. Set it to ALWAYS go to the “PC” hdmi input and put a tiny, cheap Linux PC on the end of it. If you need a remote, there are dirt cheap gyro mice “remotes” on Ebay.People love to hate Apple, and that’s fine (Tim Cook sucks ass), but the AppleTV is honestly the best streamer and you can’t change my mind.
Zero ads on the Home Screen, and even the first gen 4K box that came out 8 years ago is still fast as hell and getting updates.
I know this because I had one in my closet and just took it out the other day when setting up a TV in my bedroom. It downloaded updates and is now rocking and rolling again.
My family knows me as the anti-apple IT Guy. So, it shocked everyone when I brought home a Best Buy open box Apple TV 4K (saved me $20US).
Honestly, this is my first Apple purchase since my ipod and I have to admit: it’s good.
Roku has lost their way and my 3 Roku Ultra devices are all dying for reasons unknown (freezing, random reboots, spinning endlessly when trying to open an app). I’m just so done with them (and Nvidia) for my streaming hardware business.
Roku is another prime example of enshitification.
Now I have all my “smart” TVs disconnected, and I hooked up some inexpensive Android TV boxes (with a couple minor modifications). No more ads!
I’m also curious what you ended up with
can you go into detail on the boxes and your mods? interested in getting some of my family off of Roku for this reason
I would love to exit the Roku ecosystem. I don’t use any Apple products and I’m not interested in starting.
It’s amazing how there are really no open-source products in this category of devices.
I got some cheap ONN boxes, Which seem like the best value for true Android TV devices. If you have the funds NVIDIA Shield TV is probably the way to go.
It’s possible to skip the Walmart account login at setup, but probably not possible to skip the Google account sign-in (let me know if you find a way!).
Setting up side-loading is trivial, although largely unnecessary. I loaded Stremio, Jellyfin, and a VPN for better streaming experience and control. I replaced the default home screen with Projectivy Launcher. You don’t need to go into ADB shell or anything like that. There are also other home screen launchers that fix the major problems with the default GoogleTV screen; Emotin UI (closed source), FLauncher (dormant), Leanback Launcher, ATV Launcher (closed-source).
There are lots of options for web browsing, File Explorer, on-device media, stores, etc. that are easily available.
The easiest way to avoid ads is use an android streamer (I use the Google tv streamer) and install projectivity launcher. You get the cleanest UI that’s fully customizable with only what you want to see. I also installed a button remapper app to change the netflix button on my remote to open Plex. It’s a very easy stress-free experience using my tv
People probably wouldn’t like it to have only one product without a single ad. They probably had bug reports about it “my roku doesn’t display ads on my smart TV, does that mean that it’s broken?”.
Are they ads for thing to pirate…?
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
Used a fire TV stick for a long time but multiple factors made me finally switch to an Nvidia shield.
Worked great for a year and then an OS updated made the home screen 60% ads, especially those that started to play with sound when I was on them for like 2 milliseconds. Installed projectify on it and now I only see what I want to see.
It is always disturbing to me how much ads I see when I am using someone else’s system, because I banned everything at home.
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
That’s what I figured. I havent blocked the device completely, but I would like to block the update if possible. I just need to look and see if I can block just the update dns query. Was your fix a total block?
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.
There are solutions aiming to help with that like LibreELEC (basically a minimal backing OS for Kodi). But unfortunately any Linux-based streaming solution will have issues with DRM connecting to Netflix, Prime, etc. There are sidesteps around that too but starts to get more and more challenging for the average user
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.
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.
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Buy one or more NVIDIA Shield Pro 2019 editions for whatever TV (and make sure whatever brand TV you use is itself 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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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
They have been slowing ramping up the enshitification over the last year. It time to add some more features to my Kodi install!
