I still use a Roku that was gifted to me, but only thanks to also having a pihole. The amount of logging & ads it blocks on the Roku is insane. If that ever stopped working I would ditch the Roku in a heartbeat.
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2025
82 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
75069 readers
3049 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Man it must be rough out there for regular people that put up with that kind of bullshit.
On the plus side, AI will make the obnoxious ad goblin career track less profitable now. So, good news.
“This company is too cheap to pay someone for a proper advertisement.”
Using AI like this seems like a counter productive way to build brand awareness.
Odroid with Lineage OS instead of Roku
This just made me realise… with AI-generated videos, ads could be tailor-made for you. Could even feature you on it.
Roku, was cool.
I want Roku to fuck all the way off with that plan.
I'll be honest... advertising is the one industry I wouldn't be sad to see get completely cannibalized by AI.
Truth. Before there was at least some sort of pressure on the ad industry to incentivize our attention. They had to make it interesting or funny.
Now, it’s a far less consensual arrangement. “I will hold your Skinner box hostage until you listen to me!”
UBo, pinchflat, SponsorBlock, jellyfin, WireGuard, Apple shortcuts for auto connect and activation when I get in my car, and now I get my stories while I’m driving and those obnoxious vultures can fuck right off.
If Adblock blocking goes away, so will I. This is already more work than I feel like putting into it and the quality of online content has really gone downhill. The enshittification is so extreme now that it’s just not worth paying for things anymore.
I want Roku to eat shit.
AI generated ads
It doesn't happen a lot that headlines make me vomit a little in my mouth but this one did
You're Not Buying a TV; You're Buying a Roku
My TV (dumb but attached to a Roku Express) died last month and since then I've been watching on computer + Zen Browser + uBlock Origin, with zero ads.
And noticing that I don't see a single TV for sale in nearby shops that is not a (usually Roku) smart TV, i.e. data surveillance capitalist tool.
The funny thing is you can just use an external box and never connect your tv to the internet at all. Let it collect all the data it wants. It’s not like it can tell anybody.
Why not librewolf, Firefox has native vertical tabs since Firefox 136
That's why I'm never letting your access the internet, Roku.
You're the cheapest TV I could find to use as a monitor
Just stay in your line, or else
Also I can't root Roku 12 ?
What in the absolute bullshit is that ?
Not root on my own fucking TV ?
Someone needs to 9/11 that entire company !!
Roku is so far away from their golden era, why are we still talking about them?
They subsidize the cheapest TVs
We need to subsidize de-fingering their engineers in response
I’m Sure the engineers weren’t crazy about this idea either. The business majors are to blame, not the engineering majors.
The slime are gonna slime, but engineers have ethics courses and now they have counter-incentives as well.
Any Android TV OS > Roku. Dumb TV > Roku. Outside > Roku.
Kinda. I recently got a shield pro to replace my roku. Customization, and no ads are nice, but for what it cost, what a fucking piece of shit. Hard freezee that require unplugging is the main issue, but it also doesn't respond to remote presses frequently on start up. Takes 30+ seconds sometimes before the remote works.
For more than double the cost it shoukd blow the roku ultra away in every sense. And I shouldn't have to adb hack it to install a custom launcher.
Thank you for this. I was setting up to buy an nvidia shield to replace my roku ultras.
FWIW, I have so far tried:
-
Onn Google TV 4K: Returned it, freezes constantly.
-
Jailbroken AMZ fire stick w/ LineageOS. Buffering issues and wireless issues in general. I still use it, but not my favorite.
So for now it seems my next purchase will be a TiVo Stream 4k android device or a jailbroken fire tv cube and if that fails, I may just have to DIY an android Pi system lol.
I did the same replaced a Roku device with a shield when Roku started doing startup ads. Seems to work fine then won't respond to remote and needs a reboot, some weird stuff with the VPN too. Should have probably just got a mini form PC instead.
The ONN devices from Walmart work near-flawless, even the $14 stick. I would recommend starting there.
So long as their ads keep getting blocked my my pi-hole I won't notice.
Could be entertaining if somebody accidentally flips the "allow slop machine to make up fake products" switch from off to on.