You can root webos depending on what version you’re running but that more just lets you run homebrew (which is handy for youtube with Adblock and sponsorblock)
As others have said the best thing you can do is bypass internet connectivity altogether. I use the youtube app so I keep it connected with lg services and tracking blocked:
||snu.lge.com^ ||su.lge.com^ ||su-ssl.lge.com^ ||snu-dev.lge.com^ ||su-dev.lge.com^ ||nsu.lge.com^
(Formatted for adguard dns)
But it’s easier to just disconnect entirely. Let it collect data but if it’s disconnected it can’t do anything with it.
For a box I use a Chinese google tv box - ugoos am6b+. It can decode almost any video format (including dolby vision and all lossless audio, can pass through) except av1 basically and there are some newer versions that can do that as well. Google is awful right? The ugoos is stripped back pretty hard though it does retain the play store but still block the following:
||androidtvwatsonfe-pa.googleapis.com^ ||androidtvchannels-pa.googleapis.com^
Probably not necessary but just in case. Anyway, the Google tv side is just for streaming services (if you use them) and IPTV because Jellyfin and kodi are garbage at IPTV, tivimate on android is leagues better
Anyway flash the box to use Coreelec and copy Coreelec to the emmc, takes like 10 minutes and is pretty easy, just need an sd card. Now you use kodi as your Jellyfin app (or plex/emby but fuck plex/emby) by just installing the Jellyfin for kodi plugin in kodi and in jellyfin. Sign into your Jellyfin instance in the plugin, your library will import (can take awhile the first time if you’re like me and have a huuuuge library with like 1,000 movies, 10,000 episodes, and 300,000 songs)
Then look around on the kodi forums for a decent skin that looks nice for you bc the default one is butt, configure the menus to match your setup, adjust the skin settings to your liking, etc. backup your settings!
Now you have a Jellyfin client that plays back media directly without transcoding 99.99% of the time (assuming you have an avr that can play lossless audio), is far more mature than any of the shitty Jellyfin client apps (development started in 2003), handles stuff like subtitles far better, still syncs watched status, etc. and the worst part of kodi: library management and administration, is now handled by jellyfin, which does it much better.
If you have remote users or other TVs/phones/etc they can still use the client apps too
Downside is that you lose most plugin support. Like back before they started to roll intro skipper into Jellyfin or jelly scrub, those are useless to kodi. And a weakness of kodi is that with the rise of plex/jellyfin addon development for kodi has dropped off significantly so no introskipper plugin for kodi. Navigation features work well (pressing right on the remote skips forward 10s) so that’s close enough, or just download good quality rips with chapters
ClydapusGotwald@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I don’t connect mine to internet and just use an Apple TV for all the apps I want. Why would you use the TV apps they are always pretty shitty in my experience. Also they can’t get your data if it isn’t connected to the web.
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This except I use a laptop running linux mint.
ssdfsdf3488sd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This except I use a cheap intel n150/n100 mini pice (aoostar n1 pro ftw currently) to run bazzite to autologin to kde and launch jellyfin media player.
ClydapusGotwald@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yep that works great also!
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ve enjoyed my NVIDIA Shield, though it’s arguably a bit long in the tooth if they’re still full price.