This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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?
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.
$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.
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.
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/
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. 😡😡😡
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
looks at stack of ebooks
Let Babylon burn.
Oh no! Not the pop-up AD Smart TV company! The only reason to have Roku today IMO is for those cheap Roku subsidized TVs but only when you keep them completely offline. I truly feel bad for all the people who have them connected to the internet but this is pretty on par for Roku.
Eh, fuck you Roku I never trusted you.
That's disappointing.
Nope. Don't like that 🤢
Tons of older folks (like my Mom, grandma, my aunts) have Rokus set up to replace cable. They don’t know how to operate individual apps, but they love Roku TV (which pops up by default), and kinda just watch whatever comes in.
So… Yeah.
That’s not worrying at all.
Oh, ffs.
This on top of tubi? It seems that Trump's henchies really do have all of FAST in their goddamn pockets.
Welp, time to discard all things Roku in my house. I've already been trying to make everything "dumb" again.
No, microwave.. there's no fucking reason you should be "phoning home"... get the fuck outta here with that shit.
Already switched to an Android box since Roku was getting crappy fast. Projectivity launcher. Still need a fork to go mainstream to reign in Googles app developer shenanigans. If memory prices weren't so screwed up, would have been a perfect time for Steam Machines to push regular Linux as an HTPC closer to mainstream
It would certainly be a shame if some rogue Roku employee deployed an update that stripped ads and broke automatic updates for all devices right after Fox finalizes the deal but before they get anything out of it.
Well shit.
