today I fucking learned Roku is now a Murdoch Box.
Roku used to be the safe haven from ecosystem lockin.
Now with free-my-tv and other projects, this can be resolved.
Roku has been a poster child of enshittification for a long time. I struggle to think of any ways they could get worse. But I’m sure they’ll think of something.
Last month I took my Roku offline but let it connect to LAN so the Jellyfin app would work (for now until it gets too out of date probably). I knew Fox would fuck things up somehow and I was right sooner than expected.
As an aside, it’s still connected to my pihole and for about a week it tried to send logging data to 2 different websites every 3 seconds for around a week. It was funny seeing my blocked percentage at 91.5%, even funnier that it’s programmed to give up.
It probably gives up only not to accidentally DDOS their own telemetry servers
Or maybe it’s just a reaally slow exponential backoff
Piracy is the only moral choice when it comes to large services
Roku will automatically switch the Aquatic Life screensaver on affected devices to the Roku City screensaver, another popular animation that includes subtle advertisements, according to the user notice
Ugh.
Surprise! They’re not subtle.
Yeah, it’s literal billboards that slowly pass in the cityscape, looking like a flat PNG pasted over it, not matching tone or theme in any way. It’s not subtle in the least.
Same fishtank screensaver as you might remember from the early 00s, in case you’re wondering.
Any not terrible alternatives that my parents will actually be able to use without me?
Google tv streamer 4k is pretty good but recently went up in price due to RAM shortages
It’s pricey but I have heard good things about Apple TV. I think someone else in the thread has a list of FOSS alternatives but you’d still have to set them up.
Onn Android boxes work well for my parents. As long as you install Projectivy launcher to get rid of ads and clean up the UI. I make it so there are three app icons and nothing else on the screen, then it’s easy to understand and navigate.
Not sure about parents but you could try building odroid with lineage os and rii i25 remote
I was curious what the reason was behind this. As good of time as any to setup some different streaming sticks/machines I guess. Anyone have any suggestions? FOSS is preferred.
I know this goes against the fediverse but I pirate my shit via an outsourced (paid) plex provider [gasp] on an Apple TV box. The device itself is reliable and has no ads and has a very high spouse approval factor.
Depends on your needs. If you just stream via Jellyfin/Plex I’d recommend Kodi+Linux on a raspberry pi or something. There are premade distributions like OSMC for this niche. If you need Netflix/Disney+ etc you’re basically fucked on the FOSS front, the only option I know is either LineageOS’s TV version though that isn’t as well supported as the mobile version and there are some DRM shenanigans or just using Linux with a keyboard+mouse combo and a browser, though you will be limited by resolution. On the non FOSS front I have heard good things about the NVIDIA shield/apple tv though that is expensive, or using Windows with the native streaming apps and a frontend (eg Steam Big Picture).
