this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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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.