9 ms·

Roku is no longer a neutral platform after today’s Roku OS 9.1 update

106 points by e1ven 8y ago

jordigh 8y ago
I have kind of enjoyed Roku, but I've wished to install adblock on it, and perhaps an alternative Netflix interface that doesn't have any kind of autoplay. Is this currently possible? Someone must have already figured out how to truly own their own device, haven't they?
- e1ven 8y ago
  I'm not sure about an alternative UI, but for ad-blocking could you use Pi-hole?
- vaishaksuresh 8y ago
  Look into PiHole. That is what I have, some ads still get through, but for the most part, ads are blocked across the network.
  - jlgaddis 8y ago
    Just for the Roku itself or are ads in "channels" blocked as well? I only rarely watch anything on TV but the girlfriend complains quite a bit about all of the (often repetitive) ads on Hulu -- and I'm pretty sure we even pay for it. Deploying Pi-Hole has been on my to-do list for a while but if it can block ads on Hulu I'd move it up to the top of the list!
    - vaishaksuresh 8y ago
      Everything, including apps. Although, recently YouTube has been bad for me. Earlier i would almost never see ads on YouTube. I just pay Hulu more, so I've not tested that.
      - tracker1 8y ago
        I just broke down to pay the $x/month for ad-free youtube. I watch a lot of streams with regular updates (Tim Pool, Keto Connect, etc). I get far more value from YouTube than I do from Hulu... that's just me though.
    - tracker1 8y ago
      Hulu is a mixed bag, that's not going to stop with Pi-Hole. If you're using the "live tv" on versions of the app that support it, you will see ads, you may see replacement ads on "recorded" tv as well, which are often replaced in blocks by hulu's injected ads. Some can be skipped, others can not. If you have "live tv" you may lose access to those shows you would have access to for the regular streaming, still available on platforms not supported by the current apps with live tv (android tv in particular). If you have streaming only, there are two tiers for that as well. The lower tier has ads. The higher "ad free" tier still has some (fewer) ads on some networks. Hulu also has third party network options and "value add" options, which is annoying as well. I mention all of this, because my GF is a reality tv junkie and the only reason I even have Hulu + TV at all... I've gone back to my seedbox, nas and kodi.
      - drewmol 8y ago
        >I've gone back to my seedbox, nas and kodi. I use a good digital tuner (HDHomeRun) hooked up to my rusty old 1950's rooftop antenna usually using KODI as front end, it's awesome and satisfies my live TV need which is very minimal. I couple that with real-debrid which offers plentiful and reliable supply of cached 4K (actually high bit rate) torrents and it's a much better experience than any of the alternative, crappy, ad-laiden streaming services I've paid for. Once KODI has seamlessly integrated voice control it will be in a league of it's own. I'm not sure how services like real-debrid can work out such great licensing terms to allow their offer of such affordable, ad-free and limitless content catalogs but I assume it's a very technical, economy-of- built-for-scale redundant kubermnetes based on-demand cloud container architecture benifit that wouldn't interest me anyways so I'm not even gonna try and understand it ;-)
        tracker1 8y ago
        I've looked into real debrid but got more complicated than I had time for the couple times I looked. I should probably check again.
        drewmol 7y ago
    - kbenson 8y ago
      > the girlfriend complains quite a bit about all of the (often repetitive) ads on Hulu -- and I'm pretty sure we even pay for it. Hulu Plus has two offerings, an ad supported one for $5.99/mo, and an ad-free one for $11.99/mo. I subscribe to the ad-free one, and if you watch more than a couple hours of Hulu a month I think it's worth it (but I can't stand watching commercials, so maybe other people find then less onerous).
      - ridiculous_fish 8y ago
        I pay for the ad-free, live-streaming Hulu and there's still ads. My movie was interrupted with an ad for an erectile dysfunction pill, drove me crazy.
        kbenson 8y ago
        Maybe there's a bug in the live streaming setup that Hulu offers then? I just pay for ad-free Hulu, and I haven't seen an ad from them since a week after they announced that plan (I didn't head about it immediately, but I upgraded as soon as I did). I've watched in a browser, the on the Roku, and on an Amazon Fire TV.
        extra88 8y ago
        The more expensive Hulu subscription is not 100% ad-free, some of their content contracts don't permit them to show the content ad-free.
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      I gave up on most internet radio stations - not because they run ads, but they often only have one ad, which they run over and over and over and over ... It drives one mad.
- groovybits 8y ago
  << adblock >> PiHole works well for this: https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net
  - jftuga 8y ago
    This is on my PiHole blacklist: austin.logs.roku.com captive.roku.com scribe.logs.roku.com (^|\.)logs\.roku\.com$ (^|\.)sw\.roku\.com$
    - richjdsmith 8y ago
      Thanks for this!
- ukyrgf 8y ago
  The only way to stop Netflix's insane autoplay feature is to stop subscribing to Netflix.
  - keepmesmall 8y ago
    It's configurable in the web version. More of a TV-with-closed-software problem.
    - PretzelFisch 8y ago
      Autoplay clips/preview not the autoplay of next episodes that can be controlled by the website settings.
      - keepmesmall 7y ago
        No. Previews can not be disabled and I have disabled "next episode"-autoplay for my user profile. It'd be too weird if this was the other way around for a non-Dutch public, so I will assume you made an error formulating that sentence.
  - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
    Not sure if it's me, but it seems like just about every UI- and service-change that Netflix has made in recent years seems intended to make me unsubscribe.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
      It's designed to improve 'interaction'... ie, glue you to the screen.
    - mdekkers 8y ago
      It isn't (only) you. I unsubbed from Netflix due to intolerable UI, Autoplay, and rapidly shrinking catalog.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
I pretty much ignore the Roku search as it has too much PPV content. If I care about what's on the Roku channel I'll just navigate to it. What they really need to do is get rid of the high friction signup process for new channels. Why should I have to go to an external website when Roku should have all the identifying information third parties would need?
- shados 8y ago
  I literally gave up on Funimation because every time I had to login, and looked at my password manager's randomly generated password, I died a little inside, since they didn't use the typical "just enter those couple of digits from the website and you're good to go", which is a nice compromise. Dunno if it changed, it was a while ago.
  - clintonb 8y ago
    Blame the channel creators. I'm surprised Netflix still doesn't have the option to input a code on a website. Amazon, Showtime, and numerous other channels support this feature.
- tracker1 8y ago
  Because they actually care about security and potential data leaks... or do you want all your billing data accidentally going to a fart app developer your kid clicked on?
- toast0 8y ago
  > I pretty much ignore the Roku search as it has too much PPV content. The search can be pretty iffy, but it's faster than searching in each app, and sometimes it catches things is fringe apps I wouldn't have thought to install. (although, those usually have terrible interstitial ads -- TV shows have built in slots for commercials, use them please, people!)
- clintonb 8y ago
  > What they really need to do is get rid of the high friction signup process for new channels. Why should I have to go to an external website when Roku should have all the identifying information third parties would need? Are you referring to the friction of inputting the code on the service provider's website? If so, I think that is a much better solution than having to input the password generated by my password manager. Even if Roku wanted to serve as some form of identity provider, you'd still have to go through some small bit of friction to associate your Roku account with the service provider. Given that we are talking about security and access to saved credit cards in some cases, I think a small amount of friction is warranted. The short codes are an excellent balance of convenience and friction.
desireco42 8y ago
I think TC is overreacting and being sensationalistic here. We should treasure Roku especially today when every platform is blocking every other platform, they are place of sanity. At least I do.
- tssva 8y ago
  Especially when all the new "exclusive" to the Roku Channel features are either actually already available for other channels to take advantage of or will be shortly.
Nextgrid 8y ago
Anyone has a link that doesn’t involve tracking & stalking? The scum at Yahoo/Oath don’t allow you to deny tracking on their GDPR wall.
- swebs 8y ago
  Use uMatrix to block everything except CSS and images. It makes modern news sites 100x more usable. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/
  - richjdsmith 8y ago
    How often does that break the internet with our "modern" always-build-spa's world?
    - swebs 8y ago
      It really depends on the site. But you can quickly toggle which resources to load and save settings on a per-site basis. Very few sites actually need cookies to work (unless you need to log in, of course) but many require javascript. Some nicer sites like Google or DuckDuckGo redirect you to versions of their site that use plain HTML with no javascript. Hacker News works perfectly fine as is. It's a pain in the first week setting up settings for your most commonly visited sites, but it's worth it to be rid of Oath's nonsense.
cptskippy 8y ago
Roku previously sold content but then it was transitioned to FandangoNow.
dgellow 8y ago
Wow. TechCrunch is hijacking the back button on mobile in a really bad way. After opening the link I see 5+ entries in my browser history, meaning I have to use the back button really a lot to go back to HN! What a great way to make me feel I shouldn’t have agreed to the the Oath screen ...
- gloflo 8y ago
  Press and hold
- jolmg 8y ago
  I have to use it twice. That's still pretty bad.
- jackewiehose 8y ago
  And when you scroll down to the end of the page you will be redirected to some other page and you cannot scroll up back to origin. What is wrong with you web developers? Have you ever used a mouse-wheel before??
  - reificator 8y ago
    I have no clue why so many sites break the scroll wheel, break the back button, break default functionality that you'd otherwise get for free. I've successfully pushed back against requirements to do this, and I've unsuccessfully pushed back. I've tried to not do this kind of thing in my own work whenever possible. Usually it's very easy to do so, because it's the default behavior that you get for free.
    - dwighttk 8y ago
      It a/b tests well for some metric they love
      - mamon 8y ago
        Yes, being forced to hit back button 5 times equals 4 additonal page views :)
phjesusthatguy3 8y ago
I just bought a Roku for my elderly in-laws; I was expecting the experience to be awful but instead it was very nearly everything I could hope for from an embedded device. If these changes mean they get pointed to free content first (above what the thing already did!) I'm going to have to say this is a good change. They're going to be watching live TV on Sling for the most part. We're going to add on an AirTV so they can get PBS in the Sling interface as well. They already watch Netflix on their Vizio TV, and hopefully we can get them to turn off the TV's internet connection with the Rokus.
- asark 8y ago
  Now that all TVs are "smart" the ones with built-in Roku are just about the only ones I find tolerable. Pretty fast booting, especially from "sleep", compared to the rest, and the interface isn't garbage. The remotes are pleasantly simple and normal. You can use your phone as a remote if you lose it. You can "upgrade" older TVs to have the same interface with one of their cheaper stick products. Pretty nice. Like the poor (frugal) person's Apple TV, and not as big a compromise in experience as one might think. I kinda like them better, in fact.
  - tssva 8y ago
    I sold my Apple TV and replaced it with a Roku Premiere +. I found the Apple TV to be a usability nightmare.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Roku’s interface is slow and ad ridden compared to the Apple TV. I have three Roku TVs and like them. But, I have two ATV 4Ks (free because of the DirecTVNow promotion) - one attached to our main TV. But Roku is the only non-Apple tv platform that I can stand.
      - stult 8y ago
        Get a pi hole. Totally eliminates the ad problem.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
scarface74 8y ago
Roku has never been neutral. The CEO said himself that he doesn’t see Roku as a hardware company. Roku has always made money by advertising. From the ad that takes up half the home screen to the hardcoded short cut buttons that go to the highest bidder. https://www.recode.net/2018/9/13/17852908/roku-anthony-wood-apple-google-amazon-tv-competition-peter-kafka-media-podcast https://www.recode.net/2018/9/13/17852908/roku-anthony-wood-...

106 points by e1ven 8y ago

I have kind of enjoyed Roku, but I've wished to install adblock on it, and perhaps an alternative Netflix interface that doesn't have any kind of autoplay. Is this currently possible? Someone must have already figured out how to truly own their own device, haven't they?

e1ven 8y ago
I'm not sure about an alternative UI, but for ad-blocking could you use Pi-hole?
vaishaksuresh 8y ago
Look into PiHole. That is what I have, some ads still get through, but for the most part, ads are blocked across the network.
- jlgaddis 8y ago
  Just for the Roku itself or are ads in "channels" blocked as well? I only rarely watch anything on TV but the girlfriend complains quite a bit about all of the (often repetitive) ads on Hulu -- and I'm pretty sure we even pay for it. Deploying Pi-Hole has been on my to-do list for a while but if it can block ads on Hulu I'd move it up to the top of the list!
  - vaishaksuresh 8y ago
    Everything, including apps. Although, recently YouTube has been bad for me. Earlier i would almost never see ads on YouTube. I just pay Hulu more, so I've not tested that.
    - tracker1 8y ago
      I just broke down to pay the $x/month for ad-free youtube. I watch a lot of streams with regular updates (Tim Pool, Keto Connect, etc). I get far more value from YouTube than I do from Hulu... that's just me though.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    Hulu is a mixed bag, that's not going to stop with Pi-Hole. If you're using the "live tv" on versions of the app that support it, you will see ads, you may see replacement ads on "recorded" tv as well, which are often replaced in blocks by hulu's injected ads. Some can be skipped, others can not. If you have "live tv" you may lose access to those shows you would have access to for the regular streaming, still available on platforms not supported by the current apps with live tv (android tv in particular). If you have streaming only, there are two tiers for that as well. The lower tier has ads. The higher "ad free" tier still has some (fewer) ads on some networks. Hulu also has third party network options and "value add" options, which is annoying as well. I mention all of this, because my GF is a reality tv junkie and the only reason I even have Hulu + TV at all... I've gone back to my seedbox, nas and kodi.
    - drewmol 8y ago
      >I've gone back to my seedbox, nas and kodi. I use a good digital tuner (HDHomeRun) hooked up to my rusty old 1950's rooftop antenna usually using KODI as front end, it's awesome and satisfies my live TV need which is very minimal. I couple that with real-debrid which offers plentiful and reliable supply of cached 4K (actually high bit rate) torrents and it's a much better experience than any of the alternative, crappy, ad-laiden streaming services I've paid for. Once KODI has seamlessly integrated voice control it will be in a league of it's own. I'm not sure how services like real-debrid can work out such great licensing terms to allow their offer of such affordable, ad-free and limitless content catalogs but I assume it's a very technical, economy-of- built-for-scale redundant kubermnetes based on-demand cloud container architecture benifit that wouldn't interest me anyways so I'm not even gonna try and understand it ;-)
      - tracker1 8y ago
        I've looked into real debrid but got more complicated than I had time for the couple times I looked. I should probably check again.
        drewmol 7y ago
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > the girlfriend complains quite a bit about all of the (often repetitive) ads on Hulu -- and I'm pretty sure we even pay for it. Hulu Plus has two offerings, an ad supported one for $5.99/mo, and an ad-free one for $11.99/mo. I subscribe to the ad-free one, and if you watch more than a couple hours of Hulu a month I think it's worth it (but I can't stand watching commercials, so maybe other people find then less onerous).
    - ridiculous_fish 8y ago
      I pay for the ad-free, live-streaming Hulu and there's still ads. My movie was interrupted with an ad for an erectile dysfunction pill, drove me crazy.
      - kbenson 8y ago
        Maybe there's a bug in the live streaming setup that Hulu offers then? I just pay for ad-free Hulu, and I haven't seen an ad from them since a week after they announced that plan (I didn't head about it immediately, but I upgraded as soon as I did). I've watched in a browser, the on the Roku, and on an Amazon Fire TV.
        extra88 8y ago
        The more expensive Hulu subscription is not 100% ad-free, some of their content contracts don't permit them to show the content ad-free.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    I gave up on most internet radio stations - not because they run ads, but they often only have one ad, which they run over and over and over and over ... It drives one mad.
groovybits 8y ago
<< adblock >> PiHole works well for this: https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net
- jftuga 8y ago
  This is on my PiHole blacklist: austin.logs.roku.com captive.roku.com scribe.logs.roku.com (^|\.)logs\.roku\.com$ (^|\.)sw\.roku\.com$
  - richjdsmith 8y ago
    Thanks for this!
ukyrgf 8y ago
The only way to stop Netflix's insane autoplay feature is to stop subscribing to Netflix.
- keepmesmall 8y ago
  It's configurable in the web version. More of a TV-with-closed-software problem.
  - PretzelFisch 8y ago
    Autoplay clips/preview not the autoplay of next episodes that can be controlled by the website settings.
    - keepmesmall 7y ago
      No. Previews can not be disabled and I have disabled "next episode"-autoplay for my user profile. It'd be too weird if this was the other way around for a non-Dutch public, so I will assume you made an error formulating that sentence.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  Not sure if it's me, but it seems like just about every UI- and service-change that Netflix has made in recent years seems intended to make me unsubscribe.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    It's designed to improve 'interaction'... ie, glue you to the screen.
  - mdekkers 8y ago
    It isn't (only) you. I unsubbed from Netflix due to intolerable UI, Autoplay, and rapidly shrinking catalog.
- onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

I pretty much ignore the Roku search as it has too much PPV content. If I care about what's on the Roku channel I'll just navigate to it. What they really need to do is get rid of the high friction signup process for new channels. Why should I have to go to an external website when Roku should have all the identifying information third parties would need?

shados 8y ago
I literally gave up on Funimation because every time I had to login, and looked at my password manager's randomly generated password, I died a little inside, since they didn't use the typical "just enter those couple of digits from the website and you're good to go", which is a nice compromise. Dunno if it changed, it was a while ago.
- clintonb 8y ago
  Blame the channel creators. I'm surprised Netflix still doesn't have the option to input a code on a website. Amazon, Showtime, and numerous other channels support this feature.
tracker1 8y ago
Because they actually care about security and potential data leaks... or do you want all your billing data accidentally going to a fart app developer your kid clicked on?
toast0 8y ago
> I pretty much ignore the Roku search as it has too much PPV content. The search can be pretty iffy, but it's faster than searching in each app, and sometimes it catches things is fringe apps I wouldn't have thought to install. (although, those usually have terrible interstitial ads -- TV shows have built in slots for commercials, use them please, people!)
clintonb 8y ago
> What they really need to do is get rid of the high friction signup process for new channels. Why should I have to go to an external website when Roku should have all the identifying information third parties would need? Are you referring to the friction of inputting the code on the service provider's website? If so, I think that is a much better solution than having to input the password generated by my password manager. Even if Roku wanted to serve as some form of identity provider, you'd still have to go through some small bit of friction to associate your Roku account with the service provider. Given that we are talking about security and access to saved credit cards in some cases, I think a small amount of friction is warranted. The short codes are an excellent balance of convenience and friction.

desireco42 8y ago

I think TC is overreacting and being sensationalistic here. We should treasure Roku especially today when every platform is blocking every other platform, they are place of sanity. At least I do.

tssva 8y ago
Especially when all the new "exclusive" to the Roku Channel features are either actually already available for other channels to take advantage of or will be shortly.

Nextgrid 8y ago

Anyone has a link that doesn’t involve tracking & stalking? The scum at Yahoo/Oath don’t allow you to deny tracking on their GDPR wall.

swebs 8y ago
Use uMatrix to block everything except CSS and images. It makes modern news sites 100x more usable. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/
- richjdsmith 8y ago
  How often does that break the internet with our "modern" always-build-spa's world?
  - swebs 8y ago
    It really depends on the site. But you can quickly toggle which resources to load and save settings on a per-site basis. Very few sites actually need cookies to work (unless you need to log in, of course) but many require javascript. Some nicer sites like Google or DuckDuckGo redirect you to versions of their site that use plain HTML with no javascript. Hacker News works perfectly fine as is. It's a pain in the first week setting up settings for your most commonly visited sites, but it's worth it to be rid of Oath's nonsense.

cptskippy 8y ago

Roku previously sold content but then it was transitioned to FandangoNow.

dgellow 8y ago

Wow. TechCrunch is hijacking the back button on mobile in a really bad way. After opening the link I see 5+ entries in my browser history, meaning I have to use the back button really a lot to go back to HN! What a great way to make me feel I shouldn’t have agreed to the the Oath screen ...

gloflo 8y ago
Press and hold
jolmg 8y ago
I have to use it twice. That's still pretty bad.
jackewiehose 8y ago
And when you scroll down to the end of the page you will be redirected to some other page and you cannot scroll up back to origin. What is wrong with you web developers? Have you ever used a mouse-wheel before??
- reificator 8y ago
  I have no clue why so many sites break the scroll wheel, break the back button, break default functionality that you'd otherwise get for free. I've successfully pushed back against requirements to do this, and I've unsuccessfully pushed back. I've tried to not do this kind of thing in my own work whenever possible. Usually it's very easy to do so, because it's the default behavior that you get for free.
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    It a/b tests well for some metric they love
    - mamon 8y ago
      Yes, being forced to hit back button 5 times equals 4 additonal page views :)

phjesusthatguy3 8y ago

I just bought a Roku for my elderly in-laws; I was expecting the experience to be awful but instead it was very nearly everything I could hope for from an embedded device. If these changes mean they get pointed to free content first (above what the thing already did!) I'm going to have to say this is a good change. They're going to be watching live TV on Sling for the most part. We're going to add on an AirTV so they can get PBS in the Sling interface as well. They already watch Netflix on their Vizio TV, and hopefully we can get them to turn off the TV's internet connection with the Rokus.

asark 8y ago
Now that all TVs are "smart" the ones with built-in Roku are just about the only ones I find tolerable. Pretty fast booting, especially from "sleep", compared to the rest, and the interface isn't garbage. The remotes are pleasantly simple and normal. You can use your phone as a remote if you lose it. You can "upgrade" older TVs to have the same interface with one of their cheaper stick products. Pretty nice. Like the poor (frugal) person's Apple TV, and not as big a compromise in experience as one might think. I kinda like them better, in fact.
- tssva 8y ago
  I sold my Apple TV and replaced it with a Roku Premiere +. I found the Apple TV to be a usability nightmare.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Roku’s interface is slow and ad ridden compared to the Apple TV. I have three Roku TVs and like them. But, I have two ATV 4Ks (free because of the DirecTVNow promotion) - one attached to our main TV. But Roku is the only non-Apple tv platform that I can stand.
    - stult 8y ago
      Get a pi hole. Totally eliminates the ad problem.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

scarface74 8y ago

Roku has never been neutral. The CEO said himself that he doesn’t see Roku as a hardware company. Roku has always made money by advertising. From the ad that takes up half the home screen to the hardcoded short cut buttons that go to the highest bidder. https://www.recode.net/2018/9/13/17852908/roku-anthony-wood-apple-google-amazon-tv-competition-peter-kafka-media-podcast https://www.recode.net/2018/9/13/17852908/roku-anthony-wood-...