Roku is, first and foremost, an advertising platform.
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
Rules • Full Version
1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy
2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote
3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs
4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others
Loot, Pillage, & Plunder
📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):
💰 Please help cover server costs.
Ko-fi | Liberapay |
My friend uses roku and I found it hilariously dystopian that the screen saver is basically just an artistic side scrolling city scape with billboards that advertise shit shows and movies you can stream or pay for.
Plex/Jellyfin is the only way to go.
Can't even sniff digital panties in the privacy of your own home what is this world coming to?
When Roku took all four of my set-top roku devices hostage a while back with their forced Terms of Service update, I threw them all in the trash and have warned people against using them since.
Roku is a garbage ad company that will continue to use your devices against you.
We have a roku TV that has no internet connection. It did when we first got it and didn't play as much attention to this kind if thing. It's now a dumb TV that'll never get internet again. We run everything through an rpi4 running osmc.
Smell-O-Vision sounds like a great idea until you think about it while watching a zombie movie.
my roku TV felt my wrath because it dared to show me a banner ad while I was in the middle of a game.
i promptly disabled internet on it completely. now it's a dumb TV. and my life is much better.
Yep disabled Internet and I cast video from my phone to the TV so I can control what appears on the screen.
Using screen mirroring or does it still access the home network?
Just screen mirroring iirc.
For reference, I have a Samsung S23, and I use the Smart View function that you can find if you pull down twice the top of the screen and get to the Quick Settings drawer. I think my phone and TV had to be on the same WiFi network at first for the phone to be able to find the TV, but after that I can turn WiFi off on both devices and Smart View still remembers the Roku TV.
Oddly, after screen mirroring begins and I can see my phone screen on the Roku TV, if I scroll down on the Quick Settings drawer it shows the phone's WiFi is on, but the symbol next to my signal bars is clearly 4G LTE or 5G and not WiFi.
Works pretty well unless you have too much ElectroMagnetic Interference (EMI) in which case the lag sucks and may even cease the connection. I've been using screen mirroring for years though and it's great.
Good luck!
Yeah it probably becomes WiFi Direct once both find the other. In my experience though the quality is pretty bad, might depend on the devices
Never give your TV the wifi password.
The problem is that some TVs (cough Samsung) won't allow you to even use the thing as a monitor until you allow it online.
This is false. I just bought a brand-new current-model Samsung QN90D QLED TV. Like any modern device it nags you to connect to WiFi/Ethernet during the setup, but the "decline" button is not hidden and it's completely optional. Not sure if that's on-par with older models, but I just have it connected to my external Roku and several consoles via HDMI. Completely offline. No ads on the home screen (not that I really use it, I just switch inputs). All features are available: 4K, AI upscaling, HDR+, 144hz gaming mode, etc...
I've talked to numerous people who have modern Samsung QD OLED and Mini LED TVs and literally not a single one has ever mentioned an issue like this. I'm incredibly skeptical of your claim.
That would have been an instant return for me.
“we may collect information about your activities, like the apps you install or access (including usage statistics such as what apps you access, the time you access them, and how long you interact with them), and information about the videos and other content you select and stream within these streaming services.
When you use a smart TV with our operating system (e.g., a Roku TV model) with the Smart TV Experience enabled, we use Automatic Content Recognition (“ACR”) technology to collect information about what you watch or access (e.g., the programs, video games, ads and channels you viewed or accessed, and the date, time and duration of the viewing or access) via your TV’s antenna, cable box, game console, media player or other devices connected to your TV, and we may also collect additional information about the videos and other content you stream. The data collected while the Smart TV Experience is enabled may vary depending on your TV’s model and when you enabled the Smart TV Experience. For information specific to your TV, please see the Privacy > Smart TV Experience section of your TV’s settings menu. If you disable this setting on your TV, Roku will not use ACR on that TV, but Roku still receives information about your interactions and streaming activities on that TV through other methods.
If you use the Roku Media Player to view your video or photo files or listen to your music files, Roku will collect data about the files viewed within the Roku Media Player, such as codecs, and other metadata of the local files you play through the Roku Media Player”
They pushed these changes on Christmas Day.
Knowing no one would read it, since they're with family just trying to watch a lovely Christmas movie. Bastards.
Edit: autocorrect
If you buy something nowadays and it connects to the Internet, it's bad. Treat it like it's bad. VLAN it, firewall it, force it to use your DNS only and block everything until it breaks then figure out what it actually needs.
Don't give it internet, return it if it “needs” internet.
What you're doing is a losing battle; once internet connected everything is normalised they'll stop working if you block tracking and suddenly you're the weird one.
Instead, vote with your wallet, talk with others about how annoying/bad this is and get them to vote with their wallets, too!