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Own a Roku TV or streaming device? You're about to see a lot more ads on your home screen

Ugh. Roku was one of the platforms with fewer ads.

  • Roku will be adding more ads to the home screens of its devices and TVs in the near future.
  • The ads will be interactive and 'shoppable' and will cover a range of industries, including restaurants and cars.
  • Roku already has a significant amount of ads on its home screen, and it is unclear if users will be able to change their preferences for the new ads.
stinerman ,
@stinerman@midwest.social avatar

DNS blocking at the router never fails.

Wooki ,

Linux and Finish jelly is the way

smileyhead ,

Until they put everything onto the same domain

supernicepojo ,

Pi-Hole/AdGuard works to stop these ads, never even have to see them.

jennwiththesea ,
@jennwiththesea@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5b5ff5b3-9f58-4c56-b721-cdf020767496.webm

kadu ,
@kadu@lemmy.world avatar

After all the issues with software updates, ads, and just overall terrible experience of TV operating systems and those little media boxes, I just finally accepted that my life is better using my TV as a dumb screen that's connected to a PC and then using Steam Big Picture for games and Jellyfin for media.

Stovetop ,

Inb4 Toyota ads start popping up in your Steam library.

Schmidtster ,

It’s already in some games unfortunately…

WhatAmLemmy ,

That sounds like it's determined by the game developer and has nothing to do with steam.

Schmidtster ,

It is, but steam does have its own form of advertising. Their front page is all ads for games and sales, go to your library there is ads for updates for your games.

It just seems to be acceptable since it’s their ecosystem content, but it’s still ads for all intent and purposes.

RedditWanderer ,

Yeah, for games. Ads for games on steam makes sense, you're literally browsing a shop. You won't see a random ad for a car or wtv on steam

Schmidtster ,

Ads are ads, just because it from the same ecosystem is moot. I don’t need the steamdeck paraded in my face on every page I view. It’s ads

RedditWanderer ,

Ok buddy, next youre going to tell me the stuff you see on the shelves in the store are ads lmao

Schmidtster ,

That’s an apt comparison actually, since yeah stores do have ads as well as products….

https://lemmynsfw.com/pictrs/image/7d0e6540-3255-426a-8750-4da1f766f9c5.webp

Edit picture doesn’t seem to be working, here

Hate ,

Ads are ads, just because it from the same ecosystem is moot.

so should Steam not have any game discovery features? Is it bad for Steam to display "trending games" because it's technically advertising them by showcasing them?

Schmidtster ,

If people bitch about ads, than they shouldn’t find those acceptable either. You can have a store and showcase products without the additional ads.

Hate ,

go to your library there is ads for updates for your games.

I have no problem with patch notes

Schmidtster ,

Except it’s for any “game news”….., so if they are peddling another game of theirs, it shows up there as well. Or we are selling a plushie, it’s there in the same place. It’s not just patch notes dude… and never has been either.

freebee ,

It's an ad if the update is a DLC.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

After various trial and error, not to mention irritation, I have determined that this is the way. It's what I did in the dark ages back in the day (with a Pentium 3 that had enough hardware acceleration to play DVD's!) and it's what I do once more. By hook or by crook, one way or another you're guaranteed to be able to retain complete control over a PC even if that ultimately means you have to install some flavor of Linux on the fucking thing.

You can get a perfectly capable media center PC for very little money if you don't need it to be able to run AAA games, which in my case I don't. Even the various nanocomputer boards like one of the beefier Raspberry Pi's or any of its myriad competitors can do the job these days, fit in a tiny enclosure, make no noise, and consume very little power.

Fuck all the Chromecasts, Fire sticks, Roku boxes, Apple TV's, and other sundry and bullshit devices of the world.

deweydecibel ,

Nvidia SHIELD is still ok, because it's Android TV, and you can install custom launchers on Android. Therefore no ads on your home screen.

Granted, Nvidia is letting the SHIELD line twist in the wind, and the most recent model is from 2019, but it's not outmoded just yet. I'll still be using mine for a number of years.

FunderPants ,

The shield is great for the reasons you mention here. I use primal launcher and have a custom home screen experience without annoying ads.

The shield also outputs music over HDMI without resampling, which makes it awesome for my digital music listening, except the app support is lame.

deweydecibel ,

Yeah unfortunately Android TV is neglected versus Roku and Firestick and so on, but most major apps are there, and you can sideload shit.

Odelay42 ,

I've been doing this for a decade.

Highly recommend it. The only thing some people don't like is using a keyboard and mouse on the couch, but there are endless solutions for that.

MentallyExhausted ,

I have a little mini keyboard/trackpad controller. Primarily just use the directional pad and media controls to navigate Plex, but if I need to pop into a web browser or whatever, it works great.

chakan2 ,
@chakan2@lemmy.world avatar

Actually...that's the sticking point at my house. I'm ok with mouse keyboard, but my wife and kids are not.

Still trying to find a remote that will suit that use case.

Rai ,

Logitech k400!

Merritt ,
@Merritt@lemmy.world avatar

I've heard good things about the PS5 Media Remote, which pairs via bluetooth. If my generic bluetooth remote dies that is my replacement plan.

Rai ,

I have like four or five Logitech K400 keyboards, they’ve got a touchpad and they’re super inexpensive!

nicetriangle ,

Yeah I was getting fed up with apps and boxes said fuck it and am running a mac mini hooked up to a shitload of storage now and it's been great. Plays media, works as a competent file server for said media, and emulates a bunch of console games. We don't use anything else now.

Blue_Morpho ,

Isn't Apple TV the most ad free box now? I'm still on Roku but I've read that Apple TV is equivalent to a Roku but without the ads.

flop_leash_973 ,

Unless you change the launcher on your Android TV box, Apple TV is the most ad free now. Unless you want to just hook a PC up to the TV anyway. Which can introduce codec and DRM issues if you want to use Netflix and Prime video from the PC.

nicetriangle ,

Yeah it probably is in terms of an off the shelf, purpose built option with no tinkering. They're pretty snappy as well. Decent hardware in there it seems.

We have an ATV but our wireless network is kinda shit and we kept having connectivity issues between the ATV and the Plex server we were running on the Mini so we just went all in on running the Mini as the media player and Plex server in one to avoid it. Bonus was that we now have a very capable console game emulator hooked up to the TV too. Also we just ditched our last streaming subscription so all we were using the ATV for was the Plex app.

It's a bit overkill but I will say as a server and emulator the new apple silicon minis are great. Zero fan noise ever and they sip electricity and run really cool.

endhits ,

I want to love jellyfin, but the Roku app is a buggy mess.

VampiricClam ,

The Roku app has had a major update recently. Might be worth checking again.

Blue_Morpho ,

Why would you run Roku on Jellyfin? Wouldn't that open you to the ads you are trying to avoid?

Trainguyrom ,

I'm guessing it's the opposite way around, they use the jellyfin app on their Roku to steam from their jellyfin server

Blue_Morpho ,

that makes much more sense.

1hitsong ,
@1hitsong@lemmy.ml avatar

I'm one of the Jellyfin Roku devs. What bugs are you experiencing?

mrnarwall ,

Not the OP, but I have been getting a bug where I select a show/movie to watch in the roku app, and instead of playing it will exit out to the list of shows/movies menu. These same shows work just fine in the app on a google android TV, or on a computer

1hitsong ,
@1hitsong@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah, something is failing in playback and it's simply falling back to the previous screen. I'd suggest posting this to the troubleshooting forum. I'm sure the support team will be happy to help out!

https://forum.jellyfin.org/f-troubleshooting

spaduf ,
@spaduf@slrpnk.net avatar

I've used it daily and never had a problem. What did you experience?

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

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.

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

Hey, nice, I get to build an HTPC again and check out the latest streaming shit for Linux.

I'm not even being ironic. Tired of this corporate hellscape and finding joy in returning to the kind of hobbyist tech I grew up on.

Uranium3006 ,
@Uranium3006@kbin.social avatar

corposhit used to at least be worth paying for with all it's flaws but they're shitting it up so bad it's increasingly not even worth it in the slightest

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

Yep. There was a little while there where things coulda maybe been fine but the greedy psychopaths decided they wanted to fuck it up.

Malice , (edited )

I just recently started using my Samsung TVs as dumb screens because they're slow as shit, but a nice side effect is zero ads.

ONN 4k streaming box for $20 at Walmart.
Install a custom launcher.
Install a button remapper for the remote.
Install SmartTubeNext for YouTube (no ads, SponsorBlock).
Install whatever other apps you need (Plex, etc).

FAR better experience. Turn the TV on and it's ready to go in a few seconds, not the ~60-90 seconds it takes the Tizen nonsense to "warm up."

It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better. Can recommend, especially for only $20.

Kadaj21 ,

Just picked up the Onn box and did all that. Also installed RetroArch and so far the SNES era stuff all plays good with my bluetooth controller though there is a slight input lag or i just need to adjust lol.

CatZoomies ,
@CatZoomies@lemmy.world avatar

Bluetooth does have latency issues, but setting your TV to Game mode (if available) will provide extremely noticeable improvement.

Kadaj21 ,

Ah at the moment its connected to a 144hz portabble monitor via usbc.

FloMo ,

Any guides/links on setting up my Onn box like that? It’s been great for the $20 but removing ads and deeper customization sounds amazing

Malice ,

Directly from the play store, you can install alternative launchers. Some people like FLauncher; I did not. I went with Projectivy. Highly customizable, very clean.

You can also grab a button re-mapper there. I went with tvQuickActions Pro - it's paid, but quite powerful.

For SmartTubeNext, I followed this guide.

FloMo ,

Much appreciated!

deweydecibel ,

(Plex, etc)

Just get started on the move to Jellyfin now.

Seriously, people, use some pattern recognition here. Plex is already on its way down the enshitification pipeline, you'll be sick of it in a couple years too, just like Roku. Why wait?

Malice ,

Jellyfin is definitely on my radar, and I'd love to make the switch. One thing that's important to me and my family, however, is the library sharing between accounts. To my knowledge, Jellyfin doesn't support this.

Sendbeer ,

SmartTubeNext might be the greatest thing about AndroidTV just for the sponsor block. It's so amazing.

Proxima_Centauri11 ,

Your comment inspired me, so I picked one up today for my Roku TV, and I had it running in under an hour! We really don't know how many ads we'd been seeing until we stop seeing them. I already had a PiHole on my network, but getting SmartTube running is so nice.

Malice ,

I'm glad you're having a better time with it! Honestly, if you watch any amount of YouTube on your TV, it's well worth the $20 just for SmartTubeNext. Such a massive improvement to skip all the sponsor, promotion, intro, etc segments.

Proxima_Centauri11 ,

Thank you! For me, that's half of it. The other half is removing everything that's not my subscriptions on the home page so I'm not seeing a bunch of "the algorithm". And then being able to boot to the subscriptions page too is so nice.

Poggervania ,
@Poggervania@kbin.social avatar

For those with Roku TVs or any of their products, I found that a PiHole blocks the ads on the home screen so far. Hoping I could pick up an ONN box in the future so I can just not deal with this shit lol.

AtariDump ,

A pihole is a whole "home" adware/malware/spyware blocker. It runs on a raspberry Pi but can also run on a physical/virtual install of several different Linux distributions. Not only can it block ads on your computer but can also block ads on technology that you can't (easily) block ads on ("Smart" TV / stock cellphone / IoT devices / etc). In addition, with some easy to instal additional (free) software you can block ads even when not at "home"!

gramathy ,

Pihole also has a docker distribution, so it’ll also run easily on “appliance” NAS solutions with minimal effort

triptrapper ,

Thank you for the explanation. I felt very out of the loop on this whole thread. I'll look into pihole.

AtariDump ,

NO problem.

Any issues, let me know :-)

Not sure if the PiHole team is on Lemmy yet.

SharpieThunderflare ,

Yeah, DNS blocking is quite effective for not just ads, but also telemetry on Roku.

Personally, I use nextdns until I can can a good pihole setup going.

NovaPrime ,
@NovaPrime@lemmy.ml avatar

You can comfortably run pihole, unbound, and a VPN like wireguard on a pi zero or zero 2. You can find entire zero 2 kits for under $35 if you're patient

SharpieThunderflare ,

Very true. Mostly just haven't had the time. Also want to set up a little home server to play around with Proxmox and move Jellyfin off my main PC.

Fixbeat ,

I use roku...I might have to try a pihole...or switch to something else. Damn shame just about everything gets ruined by greed.

Lucidlethargy ,
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

I can confirm that I'm blocking all the Roku ads with adguard now. You just plug this list in: https://oisd.nl/

ALostInquirer ,

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?

thantik ,

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.

AnActOfCreation OP ,
@AnActOfCreation@programming.dev avatar

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.

thantik ,

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.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

I've seen ads on one screen and that's it. Static ads for shows on the initial home page, nowhere else. 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.

ultranaut ,

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.

AnActOfCreation OP ,
@AnActOfCreation@programming.dev avatar

How do you set the Roku's DNS server?

ultranaut ,

You don't have to, nextdns on my router handles the Roku.

henfredemars ,

Enshittification strikes again!

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

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!

jimbo ,

Bruh, it sounds like your Roku TV is just broken in general.

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

It was working fine then an update made it this way.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, that sucks. That will definitely drive me elsewhere.

Like a modified Android TV or Apple TV or something

ji17br ,

Highly recommend Apple TV. My only issue is the insane amount of YouTube ads. Feels like more ads than content some days.

cyborganism ,

Anyone ever read the short story "Sales pitch" by Philip K. Dick?

gregorum , (edited )
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

I know a lot of people here reeeeeaaaaalllly hate apple, but, having used many different streaming boxes over the years, I’ve never had a better experience than with my Apple TVs. I have a Gen 4 (Apple TV HD) and a Gen 5 (Apple TV 4K first generation), and they both have worked flawlessly and trouble-free since they day I bought them many years ago. I primarily use them for the Plex app (there are very nice Jellyfin, Kodi, and Emby apps too, chill), and sometimes for some other stuff, all of which they do very well, even the older one, and even still after all these years. tvOS updates have, historically, been pretty essentialist— that being, slim and performant. Old Apple TVs still run great.

YES, for those who don’t like Apple and/or who aren’t totally into the who Apple ecosystem, one won’t get all of the benefits (yet will still get about 90% of them) and one might see friction with some of Apple’s “way of doing things” — especially that fucking annoying remote of theirs - but, all things considered, it does what it does extremely well, and it’s far better and more powerful than its competition IMO (for which you do pay a premium I feel is well worth it). and it is especially good at both protecting your privacy (compared to its competitors) and keeping ads far, far away (except when individual apps insert them, i.e. Hulu or Netflix with ads).

I have had Rokus in several TVs I’ve owned, and… yeah, they were, technically, the closest to the great functionality I came to expect rom my ATVs, but, still, nowhere close. On top of that, my Rokus all wanted all my data and sleazily blasted me ads while making it nearly impossible to disable the ability to disconnect my wifi, disable ads or tracking, etc. The whole device/os seemed designed for data mining first, and showing me media second. ew. the only upside was that the Roku Plex app has one or two interesting UX and UI features the tvOS app didn’t due to some weird programming quirks in SwiftUI and tvOS limitations that didn’t exist in whatever development framework that Roku uses.

Veedem ,
@Veedem@lemmy.world avatar

I came here to say something similar. I love my AppleTV. Works like a charm and has a no-nonsense interface if you enable the grid Home Screen. No ads. Runs great. It’s perfect.

gregorum ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

Even for Apple haters, it’s a pretty decent device. Even for people who hate Apple stuff, you don’t have to have other Apple devices to make great use of an Apple TV. You do have to create an iCloud account in order to sign into it, but you can always use an iTunes account for that purpose.it’s just for the purpose of downloading apps and so forth. No other Apple device or service is required. It really does work great on its own and isolated from any other service or device. However, it does work excellently in concert with other Apple devices, if that is your thing.

AnActOfCreation OP ,
@AnActOfCreation@programming.dev avatar

Do you need any other Apple devices to make good use of an Apple TV?

gregorum ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

No! Shockingly, this is the one Apple device, even aside from the iPhone, that you really don’t need another Apple device for it to be at nearly it’s maximum usefulness. Yes, more Apple devices do make it more useful, but on its own, it’s at nearly 100% of its usefulness. It does want you to have an iCloud account and register for that, but it doesn’t need to go further than that. All of the regular apps like Hulu or prime video or Netflix or whatever work normally on Apple TV, but they work in an Apple TV sort of way. For the most part, it’s actually much better than another platforms, but it is in Apple TV sort of way. It does take a little getting used to.you can always go into an Apple Store and try it out if that is convenient for you.

AnActOfCreation OP ,
@AnActOfCreation@programming.dev avatar

Thanks!

gregorum ,
@gregorum@lemm.ee avatar

sure! I’m happy to answer any of your questions about it.

Sendbeer ,

AppleTV would be my recommendation for people that want a clean interface with no ads and they don't want to or can't modify an android TV box to a custom launcher. It's just about a perfect experience right out of the box. It's a shame about the shitty remote though.

For people willing to get their hands dirty, androidtv having SmartTubeNext is a killer tool for YouTube and for me gives it the edge.

QuarterSwede ,
@QuarterSwede@lemmy.world avatar

Just buy one of the 4K’s and it comes with the power button and better remote. Also, the remote isn’t bad if you turn off the swiping and just use the 4-way as a D-pad. You still get its great circular scrolling too.

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