Roku OS’s home screen now features a large, permanent ad
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/05/roku-oss-home-screen-now-features-a-large-permanent-ad/Open linkView original on lemmy.world644
Comments206https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/05/roku-oss-home-screen-now-features-a-large-permanent-ad/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
Roku used to be pretty great, but the writing was on the wall after the IPO in 2017. This is just one more step in the decade-long march toward total enshittification.
does the UI just render blank squares in that case?
Yes. It's obnoxious.
I think it hides the big ad area if it can't get the data, but I haven't used my Roku outside of the setup in so long I don't know what the UI would look like.
I've done this on VIDAA (Hisense) and there's a placeholder for the homescreen ads that just say "VIDAA".
In some cases. There is a blank square on the main menu. The idle screen also normally had an ad. The idle screen looks like a scrolling cartoon panoramic shot of a street, and the ad is a billboard on the side of the street. That billboard simply isn’t there at all if the ad is blocked.
On my parent's it doesnt render anything at all. Just shows the wallpaper.
I use adguard on my opnsense with several lists... one of them snags it by default. the big blank border of a square is still lame.
yo this looks like a good gist, thanks!
whoops! deleted it because it was posted elsewhere in the thread but i hadn't noticed yet.
here it is in case anybody wants it. https://gist.github.com/sidward35/cea28bedd0ec0b1bceec8c2b22c163c4
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.
Yea I've been ignoring that forever. I jsut go to my Jellyfin app at square 1
FYI if you already have a Roku, you can block these with a network level ad blocker like Pihole.
Edit: Here’s a list of common Smart TV domains to block.
I was using NextDNS instead of pihole because I wanted my ad blocking to still work when I’m out and about.
Couldn’t stay on the free tier because I make so many DNS requests. Which seemed weird - it’s just the two of us using the network?
Lo and behold, the fucking forgotten Roku attached to a TV was doing a fresh DNS lookup every 30 seconds to try to call home and send telemetry data. It accounted for like 60% of my DNS traffic!
I use a simple WireGuard VPN to use my home DNS when I’m out. This container from linuxserver.io was really easy to set up, and the WireGuard app works great on iOS/Android. You can even have it automatically turn on and off depending on your network.
I tried fancy mesh networks like Tailscale, but it was over-complicated for my setup and kept causing DNS issues. Some people find this works well for them, though.
Either way, you can go full self-hosted this way and save money.
If you already have a Roku you can probably just stop using a Roku.
I'd rather show people how to de-shittify their existing devices than create more e-waste.
What do you recommend instead for $30-40?
One of the Onn streaming devices from Walmart. Picked one up last month to replace an old Fire Stick, and it's been great. Runs stock (or close enough to it) GoogleTv and it only cost about $40. Downloaded Projectivy Launcher and set it as my default home app, so no more home screen ads. Will probably end up throwing ReVanced on it, too.
And when Google inevitably pisses me off enough, I can unlock the bootloader and try my hand at flashing a custom ROM without any Google Play services.
Yeah like the other guy said. One of the ONN devices with Projectivity Launcher to get rid of ads and organize your apps in a sane manner.
I know everyone shits on Apple but … my cheap Apple TV has 0 ads, except the ads the apps may have.
I assume Google has, and probably killed, at least 1 variant?
Google has Google TV. It's rancid with ads too. Basically the top half of the home screen is ad space, with more sponsored content recommendations below. There for a while it was running fried chicken video ads on that top half. That's when I decided to replace my ChromeCast with Google TV with an Nvidia Shield that has all the Google crap gutted out of it. Not exactly perfect, but so much better.
Unfortunately, digital rights restrictions prevent an open source option from taking off. None of the streaming services want to allow their content onto a platform they can't easily manipulate.
Gross.
You lose SOME extra functionality not being in an Apple ecosystem but the Apple TV is a pretty amazing device especially for the price.
I imagine the device is a loss leader for them
Oh, it's worse than I even made it sound. Their sponsored video recommendations would often recommend me a show on a service I don't subscribe to, even though the show was available on services I do subscribe to, and Google would recommend videos from the one I do subscribe to as not an ad, so they know I could get it for free, but still tried to sell it to me.
It's sad, because Android TV was a very solid experience for years, and it slowly enshitified to being a pain in the ass to use, just like Roku. I feel the same about a lot of streaming services though. They started removing downvoting videos, made it so you couldn't hide certain content, started changing the recommendation to recommend what they wanted me to watch instead of what I might want to watch. Half of them force sports in my face too, with no option to hide sports content. Hell, even if you had a sport you loved, that doesn't mean you love whatever sport that streaming service has, yet it gets top billing on my screen for some reason.
Arg, I've been forced to a new solution.
closest non-apple alternative to appleTV is probably nvidia shield, but it may have enshittified when i wasn't looking. appleTV is pretty much the only apple device I use these days, every now and again i use my old ipad
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?
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!
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 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.
very neat! thanks!
So how long before ONN gets enshitified?
Always a concern. They will eventually require a Walmart account I guess. I'll have to remember to disable updates.
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.
Well... People have been doing this with Raspberry Pis and Kodi forever. Add a bluetooth remote and you basically have an open source streaming box. You could even install LineageOS and run all of the android apps you want.
Enshitification is just business doing business. It suck as much value as it can out of anything it touches until it's barely worth it then just let's the quality hover there. They call it "the price the market will bare", also known as, giving as little value as possible.
Everytime something turns to shit it's because the business side of the endeavor has started making the decisions.
I'm also curious what you ended up with
Agreed, but are there any realistic alternatives in the android space to firestick and roku?
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's several problems. Transcoding is one but there's also issues with content providers requiring the use of their own apps along with Linux not (until very recently) being able to use any HDMI spec beyond 2.0.
I've been a ROKU user for over a decade but the last year has had me thinking more and more about boxing up my devices and sending them to their HQ with a note "Since you treat these like you own them I figured I'd just send them to you."
I am really REALLY tired of them dicking with my boxes and updating / reconfiguring things however and whenever they see fit.
I've been considering what to do with mine that has been in a box since they pushed spyware to them. I might do that.
spice things up and put a bomb in it ^/j^
Roku solved my wifi/buffering issue way back in 2015 or so, when i was using a Sony bluray player that had built in streaming capability. I became a devout user after that.
Also the UI isnt clunky, laggy like so many cheap TVs and such (except the Youtube App is fucking laggy trash).
Is the recommended ONN streamer (see above) as good as the Roku at all the same shit?
I would love to ditch the rokus for all the same shit.
Roku's slide into corporatism kinda hurts. I really liked their product and their lead developer came from the Amiga Universe.
I honestly don't now. I haven't owned a Google Streamer since the Asus days.
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.
Good point. Of course, while technical solutions make for an interesting discussion, piracy is both an excellent free solution, and can get rid of the pesky anti-piracy ads.
But I do appreciate the discussion, as I remain unwilling to bother with piracy, and I might still use and pay for a service that works on Linux without too much effort.
I love how both streaming and blu-ray both made piracy the simpler solution by having ungodly amount of DRM that only screw over the paying customer (that don't even work to stop piracy, by the way).
As some old gaming dude once said "Piracy is almost always a service problem" , said dude is now a billionaire by providing a correct service by the way.
Show me a steam or gog equivalent (ie just a platform that is not outright hostile to consumers) to buying movies and tv shows and my money is yours. In the meantime I'll keep sailing the high sea.
So true!
Dropout and Nebula both stream pretty well from locked down Android, without unreasonable permissions, at least.
Neither is at feature parity with Steam, by any means.
KDE Plasma Bigscreen is joining the Plasma release schedule next month and will then be available in distro repositories. That at least will be a big deal for Linux HTPCs.
Are you familiar with Kodi?
Plasma Bigscreen is scheduled for its first release next month: https://plasma-bigscreen.org/
Looks good and I’ll definitely try it but this likely won’t get you any of the streaming services. But I don’t personally care about that.
Looks much improved from the last time I looked at Plasma Bigscreen. Probably going to struggle to get any Streaming services support, but it might make a great base for something like Bazite to not be locked to Steam Big Picture mode for TVs.
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
Seems like doing some clean room design off of Roku OS would be a good choice.
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.
It's best because everything else is worse
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.
I wanted to buy one but Apple banned stremio recently...
I bought an AppleTV device and it is by far the best out of the box TV product I’ve purchased. It’s pricey but I highly recommend it if you don’t want to self host.
They are certainly more expensive, but it's a "buy once cry once" type of thing. You pay a little more but the box works SO MUCH better and for longer than the cheap junk that'll show you a bunch of ads.
I have two of them at this point and zero regrets.
Plus, it´s pretty easy to find used ones that are cheaper.
I'll see you walled garden bullshit and raise your an nvidia shield. I think I Stoll got till September before I'm in the sane boat.
I know it's not for everyone but fuck nvdia too, I build a pc next to my tv it's everything and then some.
Again, I know it's not for everyone.
My other tv's just have onn 4k seems non enschitified yet.... And is dirt cheap
I wonder how much of the anti-apple stuff comes from the extremity of the person's views. I have always preferred PC/windows due to familiarity with it, but I've used iphones for 12 or 13 years, and by extension, some of apple's services (like icloud). They've been pretty great this whole time. And, as a normie, I've been happy with what I've heard and seen about their stability, general lack of ads, and security/protection of customer data. I doubt there's many others on the Fediverse with similar views due to the nature of this place, but anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that it seems like some of the dissent toward apple is inherent to their position relative to the opinion holder.
I definitely think it's "linux brain" that exists around here to a degree. You can see it on any given thread that talks about...well...anything technical. "Just download Linux!" they'll say. And I say this as someone who LIKES Linux. I have it on two of my pcs (and I have a Mac and iPhone/iPad, etc. as well). It's great. But there's a zealotry around here around it.
That said, it's not hard to dislike Apple right now. I'm pretty mad at them for cozying up to trump all the time. I'm glad Cook will not be leading Apple soon (though I wish he'd just leave outright. He'll still be at the company). But it's hard to deny the hardware is great and the software is generally good and generally works well.
But Lemmy is certainly a niche population of nerds. And that's fine! It's great! But a lot of those nerds seem to love the "console wars"-type mentality of "MY thing is the best and anything else is bad."
I really appreciate your response and I agree completely. Linux seems awesome (I've played with Mint a little bit, and have heard a lot about Bazzite and Kinoite, and I do plan on moving over when I have the time/energy/motivation. It does seem significantly better than the commercial offerings once one gets past the (often exaggerated) learning curve.
Would you mind expanding on the Apple stuff? I haven't looked into them as a company since they told the courts to fuck off during the Snowden trial or something like that. I'm realizing that I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I also don't have the data pool to really form an opinion one way or another.
I grew up an apple fanboy but in my early twenties I realized I couldn't afford to stay one. Since the iPhone came out they've gotten more and more closed off and hard to modify. The last straw for me was realizing you couldn't install older versions of software (someone gave me a 1st or 2nd Gen iPad) and I couldn't even put an older version of home assistant on it. That really showed me how hard they push for "you must buy the newest thing" because they'll deliberately break the old one
MacOS is on a steady decline though. Since Jobs died, it has become worse with each release.
Apple TV is great, though.
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
And they wknder why piracy is skyrocketing again. It’s not hard, dipshits. Fuck.
Worst part are the psychopath lawyer trolls acting like we're violent criminals just for non-voilently CLICKING A DOWNLOAD link. So glad that Sony lawsuit they sunk major cash into failed.
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.
Is anyone running https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ yet?
From https://plasma-bigscreen.org/get/
In June, so almost!
It'll be packaged up in plasma 6.7, I think mid June. Then it'll be easy for distros to make it available. I want to try it but I don't want to change distro or build it myself. When 6.7 rolls out, I got my computer plugged into my TV with CachyOS handheld edition. Right when Plasma 6.7 is available in the Arch repos, I'm installing it
Somehow, it appears to already be packaged for fedora, I already tried it and it looks extremely promising while still being in beta.
want to. Got a rpi5 sitting waiting but too many other projects ahead of it.
I did try android TV on it. it was utter horse shit, so I'm hopeful for pbs.
I've got Android TV on a Rpi5 and it works fine. It does have some bloat but it gets the job done.
playing anything 4k makes it too choppy for my taste. even 2k has issues.
How do people tolerate this? Just looking at this pic makes me want to turn it off and throw it out the window.
Literally nothing about the interface is about the user. It all screams everything except what you might want or need. Well, maybe the Zootopia tile is good, of all things, but not much else.
They were born in it, moulded by it, they've never seen a world without an add somewhere in it.
*molded.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mould#English
*Mauled
Madded, the ad version of being mogged.
I'm on the home screen for one second. The remote, in fact, has buttons on it, I don't even need to look at the home screen.
You can add or remove tiles as you see fit (although they definitely like to add some for you from time to time), but like I said, I barely use the tiles.
I love people on here who don't and have never used it expressing any feelings on it at all. Like, why do you care, other than were all here (on the internet) just to get mad about shit?
They "don't have" the technical expertise or energy to avoid it.
That's very true. I don't mean they should run their own Linux on their TV's or something, I'm more like...not having a smart TV at all must be better than this abomination.
So I have one of these pos "onn." Wal Mart brand Roku tvs. It was legitimately the cheapest 40 something inch tv (250bucks?) they had to offer, I did not realize that the smart part isn't like an input it's the home screen every time u power it on. Had I known, I would have spent up to 100 bucks MORE to just have a regular ass TV. Live and learn I suppose.
You should get a Google TV one. You can select basic TV mode and it lets you set it up without Wi-Fi and has the option to power on to last input.
You have to spend a multiple of a smart TV and buy a commercial TV (as in the type of TVs businesses use for display) to ensure a dumb tv if you can't lobotomize it yourself.
Insanity ensues
Smart TV is basically what most people would buy if not an apple TV. Amazon and Roku sticks are still around.
Mine haven’t been connected to the internet since about a year before they pushed out that update that forced you to agree to their revised surveillance terms or you could never use it again.
My googleOS TCL never got internet access in the first place. Who needs integrated apps when you have tons of mostly old computers kicking around?
You can also just block it via a Pi-Hole. My Roku works fine as a smart TV, but has no ads because they can’t load from the ad server. I also blocked the telemetry server too. So I get all the benefits of having a smart TV (like convenient apps, instead of needing to use a HTPC as a workaround), and none of the downsides like ads.
The built-in ads were actually what led to me finally setting up my pihole after moving. I had it set up in my old apartment, and my wife was used to having it quietly running. She didn’t really realize how much it blocked until we moved. After the move, I was busy with unpacking, work, etc and didn’t have a whole lot of free time. So the network was just running on the new ISP’s provided modem/router until I had the time to get all my server shit unpacked and set up. My wife kept dragging me away for other tasks, so it was like three weeks before I even had time to touch the box that my pi-hole was in.
I finally got time to set my pi-hole up because my wife had the Roku TV paused, it went to the idle screen, and she saw an ad scroll past on the idle screen. She turned to me and was like “okay yeah, you need to go set up that adblocker thingy. Ads on the fucking idle screen? I knew ads were getting pervasive these days, but what the fuck?” The next day, she left me alone so I would have time to actually get everything plugged in and configured. Seeing that ad on the idle screen was the moment that cemented in her mind that an adblocker is a necessary part of the network.
You can, but I found that roku forced my apps (specifically plex, the only app I really ever used, which should have needed an update exactly never because my server doesn't get updated either) to break in such a way that I needed to unblock everything and redownload exactly once every 3 months (I assume to collect your stored data), and that wasn't worth it to me, so I factory reset it and left it that way, because idgaf. I have enough old computers to have one in every room, so roku gets nothing. They are just dumb tvs now.
Maybe that’s changed, but I’m not risking fucking it up to find out.
I had gotten a roku for us for xmas the year before. Saw that tos update and stopped using it immediately. Tbh it kinda sucked anyways.
Roku had the best ui a few years ago, everything i dont contol is just shit now.
Fast and responsive UI, easy for older people to use. Too bad it is getting worse but I still find it more usable than Google TV.
They have been slowing ramping up the enshitification over the last year. It time to add some more features to my Kodi install!
I built Kyu Launcher so you can get Roku experience on your Android TV.
Had to Google it but it looks pretty nice. I thought you meant that you were injecting giant ads into Android TV.
Fighting fire with fire, they'll never see it coming
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.
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...
YouTube- > SmartTube NextSubscription Streaming Services- > Plex (or Jellyfin if you're just doing local and no special devices that need transcoding)Twitch-> S0undTV...Any other steps there may or may not be are for you to figure out on your own.
I dont have ads on my Nvidia shield but I never updated it either.
Roku has had a big ad on the side for a while now? I've been blocking it with DNS.
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
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
The TV's have been problematic, but the devices them selves have been basically cheap and works. With LESS nonsense than the alternatives in that category: firesticks and google devices.
On the other hand, with a Roku you are limited to no vpn, and rare apps you might want (the exception being the nice youtube ad blocker).
Nice YouTube ad blocker on Roku? Please share
Playlet. An invidious front end, it's in the roku apps.
laughs in a Linux Raspi, hooked up to a dumb projector, sitting behind a pihole and streaming from an in-house Jellyfin media server
Mine doesn’t. Because I set it up with no Internet connection, so it’s just a dumb tv now.
It's why I'll switch after mine stops working. Terrible UI now.
Are there any TVs nowadays that don't advertise to you? I bought a Hisense about 6 years ago because it supposedly didn't advertise. 2 years into getting the TV it advertises now. Any suggestions for a TV that just lets me watch?
Every time somebody brings this up, there's the same obvious answer. The only real option is to have an external streaming device and to disable or completely ignore the built-in operating system.
I got a Philips TV and just never connected it to the internet. Only ad I see is the ugly Netflix button on my remote, rest is handled by OSMC.
I think most TVs can do this. I've even discovered that Samsung that's notorious for forcing you to go through a network setup wizard can be bypassed just by pressing the right arrow button instead of selecting a WiFi. At least all the Samsung TVs from my old workplace had this bypass.
Finally got sick of the FireTV so I plugged a mini PC into a dumb TV. It's kinda sad to have to use a keyboard instead of a controller, but it was a minor tradeoff for a much better experience.
You should be able to use something like Flirc if you want to use a TV remote to control your mini PC.
The OSMC remote would probably also work. It also comes with an RF receiver (doesn't use IR). I got an OSMC box with accompanying remote and I'm very happy. If need be I can plug it into one of my non OSMC devices and test it out with a specific media app.
Honestly this is what I would do if I didn’t have a partner to worry about. They wouldn’t like that but yeah, it’s the cleanest way, if not odd.
It's certainly odd but my wife doesn't mind it because she just makes me operate it 😅
Back when it was only Roku boxes, I don't recall any ads at all on the home screen. Then when I got a TV with Roku built in, I recall it also being zero ads. That was like 10 years for the Roku TV where it still had no ads on the homescreen of the RokuOS. Then they added that big right banner ad. It was that for a number of years and then they added a row at the top advertising some streaming apps. Then they started this beta program for the new layout and they jacked up the size of the content advertisement space and pushing your stuff further down where your cursor focus defaults at when starting the TV/Roku. The expanding presense of advertisement icons have been pretty rapid.
Roku used to be have no advertisements. Then they started trying to be a digital storefront for movies/tv and that was just a button on the side list menu. Then they started adding advertisements more and more
Sounds like cable tv. No ads to making as much profit as possible
Yep for like 10 years at least
I use Nvidia shield and never update it. So far no ads.
You can update (and probably should to get things like security fixes), just make sure you then also install a custom launcher like FLauncher to replace the original one after updating.
Don't need security fixes. Updates always makes things worse. So I'm very happy with current version and will keep it forever.
But the hackers! They could hijack your tv and make you watch something boring!
This threat is super overblown for a device that doesn't listen to the internet. :)
If hackers get into my local network, I have bigger problems.
I don't have a Roku. I own a non-smart TV connected to a mini PC. But for folks that don't want to go through that setup, wouldn't using an adblock DNS block it?
TCL TVs (whose OS is just Roku, and I imagine Roku is the same situation) blink the front LED as an Error when there's no network connection or it can't hit whatever servers it has configured for FW update check. It can get stuck on partial firmware updates when it can't cokplete every check it wants to make. The LED has a diffuser on it so it's a significant negative impact.
I can't even tape that LED because that's also where the IR sensor is. My next step is to disassemble the thing and snip snip.
I don't use any smart features, just HDMI input like you. Finding a Dumb TV has been a challenge.
You might want to replace the LED with a normal silicon diode since if I were a piece of shit TV company I would measure that circuit as a voltage divider, and for a complete circuit. No current flow and no 0.6V drop, and that means I activate my out of warranty self lobotomize routine.
That's not something I would have considered and thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Now I know about silicon diodes.
Because this reminded of it: For a similar reason, and if you own an older vehicle, you don't want to replace the warning lights (battery, oil, engine/MIL) with LED bulbs. Or you'll need "error free" bulbs with built-in parallel resistors. LED gauge lights are usually fine but, on a lot of vehicles, an incandescent bulb is expected on the warning light circuits. If you replace, for example, the battery bulb with an LED - the alternator might not engage as it should, because there won't be sufficient current for it to do so, and your battery could drain despite a running engine.
(I'm far from an electrician, nevermind an automotive one, but I did a lot of research before upgrading/replacing my burnt out dash lights and that's a mistake I would've otherwise made)
TCL makes Google TV models which explicitly allow you to set them up without Wi-Fi so only HDMI and antenna work. You should buy one of those next time.
Oh good to know. Much appreciated. Thisnines still going strong after 6.5y, great panels honestly. If LED neutering failed I was only going to look for other brands because of this thing so this is super good news
I just did a factory reset per another reply and I selected to set up as Store Demo, which makes it a dumb TV :)
How do you do that, and do you get full control of picture settings?
After reset i was given the 2 options of home or store. BTW Store did not have a setting to disable standby LED, so I reset again with Home, and lucky I did because that has slightly more settings, including that one.
You have full control of picture settings, yes. Also picture profiles (Movie, Vivid etc). Full color brightness contrast adjustment. HDR detection.
I had no Ethernet connected and never connected to wifi. There is no Roku OS. It's a TCL OS with fewer settings. I could custom name the inputs and I personally made my HTPC inlut be startup. The main menu does have a static Roku Ad in Home mode. When starting instead on an input, input can be changed with the side drawer flyout menu, so I never have to see that main menu ad (not that it's intrusive, there's not really enough menu items to require a full screen anyway).
Nothing is bugging me to connect or do anything, and I couldn't be happier. Wish I knew about this sooner.
If you haven't done so yet, you should set the clear motion/action smoothing setting to custom with de-judder and de-blur set to 0, and turn off the noise reduction stuff.
The blur and AI generated look those features cause on their default settings is even worse than home screen ads for me.
So I have Denoise settings, I will disable per your recc.
But I don't have motion/blur (I don't remember having it in the Roku OS either so my 6.5yo TV may just not have had that)
I have a Game Mode that seems to increase response time at the cost of picture quality, which I have disabled.
I did a factory reset on my TCL roku tv and use a third party streaming box. Blinking red light on the TV went away after the factory reset for me.
Don't worry, the next model they release probably won't allow you to do that.
Ooh, definitely gonna try this first. I actually assumed that factory reset would use the 1y old firmware that introduced the problem, but it could well roll back to the 6y original.
Just did this. Appreciate the tip. I had to select In Store Demo, which made it a Dumb TV. Its perfect.
Edit: store demo isn't required and has more limited settings. Just resetting and not connecting to anything makes it a dumb TV with no Roku OS on it. Inout selection, picture controls, sound controls, and that'd about it.
Cannot thank you enough. Dumbt TVs for life.
I ordered the original one, before it was ad subsidized, and they pushed an "updating" adding them to the ad-free device I paid many times the current price for.
After that I considered them a total loss.
Are they ads for thing to pirate....?
I know its possible to jail break a roku, but is there a follow up to remove ads after doing so?
Really sick of it. Though I need to get a pi-hole set up anyways
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?".
Never used it, preferring my ways.
Yeah, this gives anyone with tech savvy a reason to avoid the damn thing and make their own media center.
It gives us what?
I like my Chromecast setup. I remapped the Netflix button to Plex, so I push that button on the remote and the TV turns on and goes straight to plex. The Google TV UI is “meh” at best, and also full of ads, so I avoid it.
Roku just keeps getting worse and worse. It is highly inadvisable to connect a smart TV to the internet, a separate streaming box is the way to go. If Apple TV/Chromecast/whatever completely goes to shit, one can simply get something else.
I just got used Apple TVs and replaced all the Rokus
It was directly because of the ads.
You can load a different launcher onto a googleTV to get rid of the ads
I’ll look into it! I know so little about Android.
This is the one I use it works well enough except when it breaks but when it works no ads: https://projectivylauncher.com/index.html
Saved. When I get home I’m going to give this a go. I’d love to get away from Google’s launcher.
I like my Chromecast because it doesn't have any UI. I hit "cast" on my phone and it goes.
was literally about to buy a Roku TV. not anymore
anyone have suggestions for a decent new TV that isn't so invasive?
I have an LG TV with all promotional stuff disabled. Not sure if they all do that, but my 65 inch TV is ad free!! For now.
I see Alexa is on the LG TV, and there's a way to turn it off in settings, but is it actually truly off when you do this (do u know)? lmao
I try to not accept any optional terms and conditions and never set up any assistant. If I don't accept all the legal stuff, those features stay disabled. Again, this depends on your TV and generation. I have the 65C1.
I can't tell what Spectre units do but they look like maybe an option
e.g.
https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U750CV-UMRD-75-4K-UHD-TV-product1131category1category73.html
plain old TV, and then add what you want? I have a flat screen, and a little roku box ($30 at Best Buy). I always wondered what you do if your Roku tv farts out--take the whole thing off the wall and tote it back to where you bought it? If something happens to my roku, or I don't want it anymore, I just unplug it.
My pihole blocks Roku ads quite handily.
guffaws in Onn 4K TV box I bought for $20 and de-Googled and installed Nuvio, Cloudstream and SmartTube on
Feels nice to get some trade-in cash for my Roku tv. Digital TV with the local channels and YouTube more than satisfies.
Is this on a hardware level? Or can I just plug it in a nvidia shield or such and just use it as a screen
I don't feel pity for anyone who bought one of these. You knew what you were purchasing.
They have ads on the home screen on their streaming boxes too. Maybe not as bad as their TVs, but definitely bad enough. Roku has getting steadily worse for quite a while, but their products have really gone to shit over the last several years.
For those looking for an alternative solution, one option is to buy a cheap Onn streaming box (which runs Google TV), and then side-load an open source launcher onto it. No more ads, but still a nice user experience.
The only wrinkle is that you'll need to use Adb and hook it into your PC one time and use some terminal commands to get the new launcher to stick around after device restarted. But it's not too bad.
Google tv is terrible too. Better off buying an apple stream box imo.
I see this as a warning not a call for pity.
ditto.
I have the Projectivity launcher on my Bravia; greatest thing I’ve ever done to my TV. But it’s still a Google TV first, and I doubt they’ll allow launchers for much longer. I feel like my time is limited with the setup I enjoy; and seeing ads get more invasive elsewhere paired with clamping down on VPNs, it just makes me think it’s just gonna get worse
Perhaps the next YV might need to be a hospital or commercial display.
This is how I learn there's a TV adaptation of "The Burbs"???
It’s pretty good too! Low impact, great cast and decent story that takes place in world but not as a reboot or anything cheese like that.
Bumbling oddball neighbors banding together to do a SERIOUS INVESTIGATION is such a no-brainer of a formula. I love the original film, just watched the trailer and it looks fun as fuck.
It really is. The cast has fantastic chemistry and feels like real people despite the heightened ridiculousness of the premise.
Dope. Will give it a look.
I bought an android box specifically because of the obvious enshittification coming from Roku. Default Android TV sucks. Not as bad as Samsungs but still sucks. Projectivity launcher and others good. Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, LG - all leave you at the mercy of these companies wanting to leech all they can from you
Yay!!! /s
It’s been like this for a while. Nvidia Shield is even worse but I put up with it because it’s so useful.
Apple TV hasn’t been enshitified yet. The hard part is finding a non smart tv to plug it into.
It is? I don't think I've ever seen an ad on mine.
On the homepage there are ads
I don't use the default launcher, I didn't even know it was a thing, it's probably also blocked on my network, but I'd expect at least placeholders.
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.
There should be a large, soft keyboard with attached touchpad for the sofa, then a setup like that would be perfect. Using a mouse on the couch is kinda weird.
What streaming services will you be able watch decently on a Linux pc? They all cap resolution at 720p for Linux browsers.
Don't know, I host my own media. 4K works a peach. The rest of the time I watch youtube essays and long videos about ARGs/analog horror, also on yt.
Most ppl don’t have the time to figure out how to set that up and maintain it
Sure but that's because most people won't try.
Each their own, you do you.
I self host, others are in monthly subscription hell until the end of time.
I do too, and I recommend it to people in my line who I think would be interested. I just don’t think it’s fair to act like people who aren’t equipped for that do that are lesser than or deserving to live with slop.
I wasn't equipped for it until I was. Have a good one.
Maybe it's just me, but I've always found smart TB UIs to be totally unnecessary and kind of an annoying feature. I've got a Sony smart TV and have never used the UI. I just use it as a monitor for my PC, and if I'm watching TV, it's via the web or something. So personally, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal, aside from the principle of it, which is absolutely a big deal and super shitty.
Maybe some of this is being terrified about the quiet spreading of the IoT and how that feels like a really fucking half baked idea that's going to be a big problem later on.
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?
https://www.mi.com/us/product/mi-tv-stick/specs
When my really old TV box was in it's last legs I tried 2 different Android TV boxes, which whilst not in TV Stick format like that, have very similar hardware specs.
These things were around €50 from AliExpress.
They were frustrating, one was actually sluggish, the other not exactly fast (it really boils down to the version of the cheap ARM CPU in your device and the processor names don't exactly make clear which ones are more or less powerful), and ran Android TV isn't all that great at customizing it and comes with pre-installed crap and Google spyware.
Replaced them with an N100 Mini-PC running Lubuntu and with Kodi always on top. That thing runs circles around those 2, not even reaching 10% CPU usage when playing 1080p h256 videos.
Now, I also use the Mini-PC as a home server, hence Lubuntu makes sense, but for the stupidly simple solution just install LibreELEC which is a distro pre-configured to just run Kodi.
You can get a wireless remote for it, at which point it's pretty much the same sofa experience as a TV Box or TV Stick except for the ON/OFF button (because it only works to turn the Mini-PC OFF, not to turn it back ON).
That said, that Mini-PC with 8GB memory and a 128 GB SSD was about €130 over a year ago and now it's about €240.
I believe the Shield and Apple TV are actually more expensive and you don't fully control what's running in that hardware, what it does with your personal data and even if it will end up enshittified or not, unlike with a Mini-PC were you installed Linux.
My current setup is similar. the pc runs a custom build of android tv w/o google services, with the remote of the tv box. I already have checks notes 5 spare pcs, i just had no idea 2.4ghz remotes could be dirt cheap. The item you sent appears as 2 usd before taxes & shipment but doesn't ship to my location lol. Oh and every single one of the pcs have hdd, i'll need either a new ssd or use one of my flash drives with a live linux install as permanent is very slow from USB.
Well, a quick check of my Mini-PC which has a bit more software than Lubuntu and Kodi but not by much (so, also stuff like Firefox and qbittorrent) shows a bit over 20GB used for everything but the mount to were the qbittorrent is downloading files, so even in this day and age of stupidly expensive storage all the storage you need is still going to be about €20 or less (that's the price of a new 64GB SATA SSD from AliExpress, which should fit the same connectors as your HDDs unless those PCs are so ancient they still use PATA instead of SATA).
I expect a dedicate distro for just a TV box like LibreELEC should be even smaller.
Mind you, I have the storage for the videos I watch in Kodi outside in the form of portable mobile HDDs since its a much better price per GB for bulk storage and the speed of even mobile HDDs is fine for playing h264 and h265 compressed stuff, so that's of course not counted in those 20GB.
Upgrading an old PCs with a 64GB SATA SSD should be reasonable cheap and more than enough to run either LibreELEC or Lubuntu with Kodi plus a bunch of extra stuff.
That said, the benefit of a Mini-PC like the one I got (with an N100 processor or similar) is that it uses very little power (unlike old desktop PCs or even notebooks) so it's cheap to just leave running all the time and it's quiet.
forgot to add this to my previous reply: if you configure the remote to put the PC to sleep instead of shutting down and allow waking up from USB devices, you might be able to wake your PC up with the remote. I can't do this because my remote uses Bluetooth low energy which I couldn't configure wake up for. And yes 2 of the PCs are ancient enough to use ATA instead of SATA probably, one has a Pentium T4300 and Intel GMA 3100. However I don't need 5 HTPCs lol.
I am locked in the software space as I need something very specific that kodi could only partly satisfy and android tv could fully satisfy.
Mine doesn't look anything like that. You can turn off those recommendations and set the icons to large.
The ad will be over on the right, but I never even notice it.
And you can still block it if you want with a dns rule.
EDIT: I didn't realize they were talking about their TV's. That's different. Avoid them anyways! Roku is in a class action lawsuit right now last I checked about their TV's.