Users are unimpressed, eager to toss devices if test sticks.
  • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    12·
    7 hours ago

    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.

    • melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      35 minutes ago

      pirate, or you’ll just be doing the same fucking thing again in two years.

      good news: pi’s can do everything a roku does, plus any you install of: retro gaming, libreoffice, web browsing, shit tons of educational software, IDE’s, and teaching her computers.

      • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        21 minutes ago

        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.

  • MiDaBa@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    5 hours ago

    Think of any invasive streaming devices in your house. Samsung, Google Chromecast, ATV, LG etc. Roku is by far the worst.

    • fakeplastic@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      51·
      5 hours ago

      This was shitty, but the giants are worse than the smaller companies. Roku works fine and ad-free if you block the ad/tracking domains. Try separating the ads/tracking from the stuff you need on a Google device.

  • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
    14·
    8 hours ago

    Bought a Roku back in 2020 or 2021 because the Apple TV was more expensive.

    Now I know why.

    For what it is worth, I have Roku set up as a REGEX in my Pi-hole so for the most part, any of this nonsense is completely blocked on my Roku.

    Needless to say, I shouldn’t have to do this shit with a device I paid for and mainly use for Plex streaming.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      9·
      7 hours ago

      I know it’s being lazy. But if you have the regex you could post, I’d appreciate it.

      I had this happen to me just a few days ago. Within the hour I bought an Nvidia shield and came up with a plan to install the projectivy launcher and button remapper.

      I’m mostly happy, it’s much more snappy but it’s missing a couple apps I used on the Roku (WGN and Marquee Sports). At least I can use my own pictures for the background and screensavers.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    7 hours ago

    Anybody notice the Max app on roku requires clicking twice to pause and then twice to unpause? Very odd and annoying glitch or feature.

    • _stranger_@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      12 minutes ago

      FWIW Roku doesn’t make the apps. That’s on Max. The Paramount app is trash too, resume doesn’t work.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    10 hours ago

    I think this happened to me last night with an ad for Moana 2 playing automatically. I just assumed I accidentally hit a button. I was on the home screen but it enlarged and played in the basically the top quarter of the screen. I hit Close and it closed.

    Also, the Netflix app is absolute garbage on the TCL Roku TVs. Constantly freezes and crashes, sometimes while not even try to rewind or pause/resume. It just decides its had enough and causes the TV to restart lol.

    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 hours ago

      I noticed the Moana background a couple days ago and thought it looked very nice. But to me it didn’t seem like it was “playing” an add, in the sense that there wasn’t a noticeable wait time before the remote worked. Checked again just now and it’s gone back to a plain gray background.

    • ABonar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      7 hours ago

      I thought the Netflix issue was just me! I also got the Moana 2 ad yesterday and assumed that I’d hit something, too. Good to know it wasn’t me, bad to know it was intentional on Roku’s part.

      • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
        2·
        8 hours ago

        you can get a raspberry pi and install something called pihole on it, it’s a DNS server with ad-blocking. basically, it converts a domain name like example.com into an IP address, but rather than just faithfully supply DNS, it also effectively blocks some adverts by acting like the domain names don’t exist for servers that run ads

        once it’s set up it’ll just work, and it should protect everyone on your network/wifi from some ads

      • modus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        8 hours ago

        Install a Pihole server on your network. It’s a DNS filter. When a client tries to access a domain that has been blacklisted (ie a known ad or tracker domain), it denies the lookup.

        On my roku homescreen it just has an empty placeholder where it tried to put the ad, but my Pihole server denied it.

        • TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          Is there risk of a sort of arms race wherein services will update and decline to render services to those who block said blacklisted ad domains, or has that already happened?

          • modus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 hours ago

            I can’t imagine that happening with today’s systems. Yes, it’s theoretically possible. It just seems unlikely that they’d go through the trouble of denying service to someone who didn’t fetch data from one specific domain but did get it from another.

  • oyo@lemm.eeEnglish
    19·
    13 hours ago

    If this happens on my box I’ll be taking them to small claims court and let you all know how it goes…

  • Tantheiel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    191·
    13 hours ago

    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.

      • Toribor@corndog.socialEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        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.

      • Tantheiel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        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.

      • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        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.

      • surph_ninja@lemmy.worldEnglish
        61·
        15 hours ago

        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.

          • stringere@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            10 hours ago

            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.

          • jacksilver@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            11 hours ago

            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).

    • scala@lemmy.mlEnglish
      12·
      14 hours ago

      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.

    • dan1101@lemm.eeEnglish
      9·
      16 hours ago

      I’ve had luck with just not giving a smart TV my wifi password.

      • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        15 hours ago

        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.

    • lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      11 hours ago

      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.

      • Corhen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        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!

        • lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          5 hours ago

          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.

  • _sideffect@lemmy.worldEnglish
    231·
    16 hours ago

    This is why I disconnected my parents Roku tv from the internet last year, when they started to get updates that wouldn’t download, and freeze the whole tv, i said enough is enough