Submitted 9 months ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
Ugh. Roku was one of the platforms with fewer ads.
Anyway to roll back firmware on some of these TVs?
Mine was never connected, except once a friend came over and connected it and it updated and now it requires a connection to rename inputs…
It’s never been connected since that day either.
Hate this kind of crap.
I don’t think so, I searched around but didn’t see anything noteworthy. Maybe a hacker will get bored one day and jailbreak them, but seems like there’s no hope as of right now.
As long as they don’t remove the option to startup on input #1, I’m good 👍
I have the remote with two shortcut buttons, so I can map them to my favorite apps and never see the homescreen. It’s actually pretty nice!
How do you map the custom buttons? I’ve literally never used mine
Anyone ever read the short story “Sales pitch” by Philip K. Dick?
My Roku TV is basically unusable at this point. Opening Netflix takes about 10 minutes to get to the main menu. Then launching the video is like rolling a D12. Except it lands on a 1 every time and crashes. It also restarts randomly for “updates” in the middle of watching something. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it!
PiHole takes care of that.
I just saw enough ads trying to read the damn story
Firefox with uBlock Origin!
I actually have that on my phone but there was still 7-8 ads
LOL “Roku was one of the platforms with fewer ads” my ass. Every. Fucking. Menu. Had that shit.
That’s why I stuck with Google TV/Nexus TV for so long - because despite Google collecting that viewing info, I wasn’t getting feature-length ads interrupting my shit.
Maybe I’m not using all of Roku’s features but the only ad I see is the one box on the right of the homescreen. To me that’s much less intrusive than the full screen stuff I see on Google TV or Fire Stick.
Yeah, GTV and Fire Stick have become awful for sure - On the lookout for alternatives to all 3 at this point. I shouldn’t have to run a pihole just to connect to my jellyfin instance.
I blocked it with nextdns, my Roku shows no ads at all. Instead there’s just a blank space where the ads would be, which is so much better and less obnoxious.
How do you set the Roku’s DNS server?
I’ve seen ads on one screen and that’s it. Have 5 Rokus and have been using them for a decade.
Oh. Also I guess they started advertising shows in some of the screensavers, too.
They’ve already been adding them to mine. My home screen inputs got smashed into one (because I don’t use any of the home screen apps, I only use the two HDMI inputs) so they could jam a bigger ad on the right, and then make suggested things some of the options. Like the last month or so it’s been wanting me to watch super girl or Wonder woman or some dumb shit.
My other personal favorite thing they do is that they load slowly so sometimes I’ll go to select an input and the cursor will jump to the wrong place because an ad loaded. Fun!
I guess I get to ad more devices to my pfsense Adblock rule
Yeah, that sucks. That will definitely drive me elsewhere.
Like a modified Android TV or Apple TV or something
Highly recommend Apple TV. My only issue is the insane amount of YouTube ads. Feels like more ads than content some days.
I only use my Roku streaming stick for Youtube and Plex. Should be easy enough to replace with a mini-PC or equivalent, if it really becomes bad enough.
As I have found trying to see if I can sideload or jailbreak or otherwise hack the software of my Samsung TV, I have found plenty of ways to totally disable ads on a Roku or Android TV or anything that runs on Android in general (Chromecast, and firestick also IIRC). Too bad I don’t have one of those… 😩
What would one recommend as more of a custom build version of these with a way to connect a convenient remote (smartphone or otherwise)? Alternatively is there a way to sort of jailbreak many of them, or does that just become more cumbersome?
jimbo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
God damn this shit is so fucking annoying. I paid something like $100 last year for the Roku Ultra because it was better than the built-in software on my TV and now I have to see ads? Fuck em, I’ll repurpose a mini PC I have and replace the Roku.
ccdfa@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Nvidia shield is what I got instead of Roku and holy shit it’s so much better. It can be flashed with another OS as well.