Great... Now there'll probably be a $35 monthly fee just for having the damned thing plugged into the back of the TV and it will come with a mandatory enrollment in Truth+ and Fox Nation ๐คฎ
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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...in 2027.
Gives users a year to find an alternative and dump their new 'Fox News' overlords.
FYI: Roku intends to do mass layoffs prior to the sale in order to "save" $400 million.
Off the shelf Plug and Play (Jellyfin is NOT PnP) alternatives in no specific order:
- Apple TV
- Nvidia Shield
- Amazon Fire Stick
- Walmart Onn 4k Pro
Firestick is moving away from android to their own thing.
If you choose to get an Nvidia Shield, I would recommend the Projectivy Launcher to avoid the "recommended" content from Google on the home screen.
Canโt speak for them, but I am never buying something from Nvidia again.
Any tips on how to keep Projectivity Launcher as the default? I tried setting it up, but eventually the default launcher took over again. I haven't looked into a more permanent solution.
I mean, you can technically remove the default launcher entirely via ADB if you want to.
if you run windows, you can use Android TV Tools to run the ADB commands for debloat and launcher control without having to type them out, but there are plenty of guides to do it via ADB manually.
on Shield TV I was able to just install projectivy and set it as the default launcher, never had an issue after that, but i still do some debloat to remove extra google and nvidia background tasks and trackers.
I use button remapper to intercept the home button to go to Projetovity. You can also remove the Google launcher which can help with resources on the system too.
Jellyfin is PnP if you get someone else to setup it up for you ๐
If you're on Lemmy you're probably savvy enough to install jellyfin.
That doesn't help the layman, but, idk.
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Great, 3 other ethically terrible companies or a 4th option that costs $150 per television... What a wealth of options!
Which is the non ethically terrible company in that list?
I've never heard anything bad about Nvidia but it's certainly possible that they could also be horrible
It's so expensive I didn't really bother to check.
I'm currently looking up how to run streaming services on my Raspberry Pi 5
I have a Pi5 8gb running a version of LineageOS that is pretty much a blank slate to roll-yer-own Android TV, at which point you can install Stremio and be off to the races. Requires a little bit of Nerd-Level setup, but wasnโt too bad. Pi4 ran a little hot, but the Pi5 crushed it. Any ole BT remote works. I started with a Firestick remote and upgraded to a 10โฌ remote later. Have to control my soundbar separately, but whatever. Iโm freeeee to sail the seas!
Edit: me am a stupid typer
They're plenty scummy but granted it's probably not at the level of the other ones.
Apple TV is $129, Nvidia Shield is $149. I guess thatโs closer to the real retail price of a device thatโs not expecting to supplement revenue with user data?
Raspberry Pi's were like $65 last I checked. Not exactly plug and play but it's not difficult to flash lineageOS or even Android TV.
Theyre definitely been increasing in price lately
Just hypothetical idea here, what if we token max using billionaire class subsidized llm, on a pi5 like device and make our own roku with ab openscad body. Put the client on every TV possible and the thumbnail is a middle finger? Just hypothetical of course wouldn't actually use overly subsidized AI coding agents for open purposes... That's crazy talk.
I understood maybe half of that paragraph, but LibreELEC exists if you have a Pi already.
No Pi? OSMC Vero is a Pi-like device in that regard. It doesn't have a middle finger thumbnail, but I'm sure something could be figured out.
Or just get a second-hand mini PC that's a few years old for like a hundred bucks and set it up to do whatever you want.
All of these devices would be standalone, so I'm not sure what you mean by putting the client on every TV. If you want to do a server / client type thing, I'd go for Jellyfin. The client for Jellyfin is already available on most smart TVs, but I don't condone the use of "smart" features built into TVs. All of the abovementioned devices will have a Jellyfin client available as well. For the server, you can use your existing laptop or PC, or cobble something together / pick up another mini PC to act as the server.
fucking rip to the eleventy billion roku smart TVs out there
My Roku TVs have been so shit, riddled with ads to the point that they lagged on start, for so many years that they've both been factory reset without internet connectivity and set to boot directly to other hardware that runs the only app I used on the damn things better than they did despite being $40 purchases
I had a patient today who could only repeat Fox News articles, and was mindlessly speaking into his remote while regurgitating what he heard on Fox News. He was without capacity, he voted for Trump last election cycle. He's not alert or oriented. This is America.
The noisiest thing on my network by a mile is that damn Roku. It's spyware manifest so it's only going to get shittier.
You must not have any microslop devices on your network then. I have my sons Xbox and my work pc. The telemetry data it tries to call home with is insane. Roku however does send telemetry data to scribe.logs.roku.com quite often.
"Smart", proprietary tech and with mandatory internet access = do not buy. If you do: expect not to own, but be owned, and suffer enshittification at some point down the line. The only way to win the game is not to play it.
Random plug for Matter, which is adding casting support while being open
https://gabellioni.com/matter-casting/
Still under development but there's already clients and servers available and you can run it on a Raspberry Pi hooked to your TV just fine
Ooh, Matter really keeps impressing me
Well shit
Time to disable every Roku TV in my house! Just got rid of any Fire TVs for their secret updating even when not connected.
I noticed a cheap TCL had updated ads despite never being connected to the internet. Turns out some proprietary radio built in. Fuuuuck that! I'm not paying for a cheaper TV with my data!
Can you jailbreak a Roku and install something else onto it?
I have a Roku speakerbar because all new TVs speakers are horrible.
I looked into it a while back and the consensus seemed to be yes, but no one really works on it because there's hundreds of TV models out there and no way to universalize the process.
I only use my Roku for...
Never mind, I got rid of that shit like 5 years ago.
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The benefits of having an old CRT and no/minimal interest in modern movies and series.
I just bought a used commercial display. it's so nice to have a device who's only purpose is to be a display for your content.
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I primarily use my Roku TV to cast my phone screen so I can watch things that aren't native to Roku's OS: Twitch, pirated stuff, etc.
Wonder if this change will impact me. I'd wager Roku still tracks what I cast to my screen, so it's probably best to look into a better solution like a dumb TV + Raspberry Pi or something
I've been thinking of putting miniPCs on my TVs and getting rid of Roku. This might be the tipping point
Running a mini PC with drive partitions for Linux and Android TV sounds like a super good idea, you're right.
Anybody have any recommendations for mini PCs? Are Raspberry Pis good enough for someone who barely tinkers with a Framework laptop?
RPI with a SSD hat was cheap-ish and easy to work with. Performance is plenty good enough
I ended up factory resetting mine and never connected it to the internet again to avoid the ads/slowdown from updates and probable surveillance. The user experience is way better treating it as a dumb TV and attaching a RPI or laptop to it
RIP
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