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Plex to block all servers hosted at Hetzner
- LeoPanthera 3y agoThe notice does not specify the provider, but I host my Plex server on Hetzner and received the notice. (And I don't host any pirated material, nor share my server with anyone else. This is beyond infuriating.) Discussion on Plex Forum: https://forums.plex.tv/t/not-allowed-to-use-hetzner/853570 https://forums.plex.tv/t/not-allowed-to-use-hetzner/853570 Discussion on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/16iqwf4/anyone_else_get_this_plex_notice/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/16iqwf4/anyone_else_g...
- thedaly 3y agoI also host with Hetzner and I also received the notice. The consensus on reddit and the plex forums is that the hosting provider in question is Hetzner. Very poor decision on Plex's part. I've been using the service for over 8 years and will now have to start considering alternatives.
- fragmede 3y agoYou may not be hosting pirated material, but apparently it is popular to setup a plex server in hetzner and an auto-torrenter, and then sell access to it.
- oliwarner 3y agoSo why don't they just block those accounts? If they're all authenticating centrally for access to these servers and I assume lots of accounts per server, they could just stick a fair client limit on accounts (eg limit the number of new clients from multiple IPs, existing clients could roam networks without limit). What they're proposing seems like a very shortsighted grasp for the cheapest solution, ignoring the fact that many paid users are looking at Jellyfish et al.
- mplewis 3y agoSo what does this have to do with me?
- fragmede 3y agoI don't know. Who are you? I responded to LeoPanthera.
- hoffs 3y agoIt might be popular but in forums people generally advocate against since their tos has clauses for that, while there are seed box friendly hosts elsewhere
- salawat 3y agoInteresting. I'd thought that Plex was a self-hosted streaming platform? Am I to understand that while they may provide that functionality, they are maintaining another set of servers in the stream that can be used to cut off end users from streaming backends on servers that are operated by private individuals? I.e. I set up plex for myself, use their app, and then conceivably they have a gatekeeping capability that could cut me off from my own stream box? If that's the case, then WTF Plex? If I actually cared, that'd be a custom Server/client rewrite and loss of business from me.
- LeoPanthera 3y agoPlex clients require central authentication. They don't work without logging in. So it's reasonably trivial for them to add a check in the loop that says "if hetzner then abort".
- darknavi 3y agoAFAIK they do work locally without central authentication if you set up the correct IP masks for the clients.
- donmcronald 3y agoIt takes a registry hack for the server and I couldn’t figure out how to make a PS5 client work without signing in. It’s bloated garbage compared to Emby and Jellyfin.
- rovr138 3y agohttps://support.plex.tv/articles/200890058-authentication-for-local-network-access/ https://support.plex.tv/articles/200890058-authentication-fo... Just set the IP address/netmask and that’s it. This is at the server level.
- donmcronald 3y agoYou can’t get to those settings without logging in unless you change a registry entry (assuming Windows for the server).
- sourcecodeplz 3y agoIt appears (from reddit that): 1. People rent Hetzner servers to load-up with movies 2. They sell access to those servers to multiple users (sometimes dozens). 3. The opinion is also that Hetzner is a cesspool of the Internet: >> Hetzner seems to be a cesspit of internet, outside of russia. They're more than willing to host Indian scammers VoIP systems, as well as scam websites. They're willing to host just about anything as long as they aren't responsible for the content, and you don't get caught. >> hetzner is the worst. whenever we have an attack at work, 7 out of 10 times its coming from hetzner
- tmikaeld 3y agoShould providers scan the contents of their customers and filter what can and cannot be hosted? From what I've gathered about Hetzner for the last 20 years, they take down illegal content when the law is involved. Hetzner is also one of, if not THE, biggest provider in Europe - of course they will have abusing users.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Tenoke 3y agoIt seems like their real problem is with cheap hosting. Hetzner is just the most popular one. Calling it the cespool of the internet makes it sound like one of the Eastern European hosts that don't take services down unless really forced, which isn't the case with hetzner.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoCheap hosting isn't a "problem". It's a "good". The problem is problematic behavior of individuals. Blaming the hardware, Plex, or the sky is quixotically misguided.
- rfoo 3y agoIt sounds like AWS dodged such an accusation by making their services extremely and unfairly expensive. Otherwise I'd bet it would become: "whenever we have an attack at work, 99 out of 100 times its coming from AWS". Abusers are smart enough to design their architecture to avoid vendor lock-in, so they head to whoever provides cheapest traffic.
- simonhorlick 3y agoI recently switched from Plex to Jellyfin. It's far more stable and hardware decoding works out of the box.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ggeorgovassilis 3y agoJellyfin is great. I run it with docker on my NAS for several years now.
- AlfeG 3y agoI've bought my first 4K TV and tried to view my videos. And Plex App constantly stutter and saying that my connection is not enough (seem like TV were not able to decode fast enough). But Jellyfin showed everything instantly and without stutter. Deleted Plex - as there is no reason to maintain both.
- jellyfinlol 3y agoI would like the drugs you’re on, plz. The server is a joke, most of the “functionality” is half/baked or outright broken. The “native” clients are laughably bad. Most of them cannot pass-through audio to receivers reliably. I really want Jellyfin to succeed, but it’s an incredibly long way from replacing the long-time dumpster fire that is Plex.
- woodruffw 3y agoThe only real issue I've seen with Jellyfin has been some stuttering on older clients (specifically, very old and crappy webOS TVs). I'm not sure whether this is a weak hardware problem, a network problem, or something else. Other than that, it's been very smooth. (Context: I was a Plex user and self-hoster for about 7 years, and switched to self-hosted Jellyfin about 2 years ago.)
- lsaferite 3y agoYou created a throwaway account just to trash Jellyfin? I'm not sure if I should be impressed or appalled.
- dave8088 3y agoWhy would Plex care about this? What motivates them to implement this ban?
- tmikaeld 3y agoPotential lawsuits I'd recon.
- donmcronald 3y agoI wonder if their forced login puts them in a position where they’re going to end up doing surveillance and betraying their users that are pirating content.
- upon_drumhead 3y agoPlex has been collecting user data for awhile now. The notice recommends hosting your server at home, tying the consumed media to a specific ip that can be used to tie to a specific person. Honesty, I think Plex is a honeypot and is going to be used to start massive legal suites against people.
- jokowueu 3y agoI doubt that it's a honeypot , they have been slowly banning private plex4shares for a while now this isn't new , they are all moving to other server/clients now
- Dalewyn 3y ago>tying the consumed media to a specific ip that can be used to tie to a specific person. A server in a data center will also have a specific IP tied to a specific person (customer of data center or ISP), assuming the server is supposed to be remotely accessible in a reliable way.
- kuschku 3y agoSome hosters will freely give out the personal data of who owns what, others won't. This would explain why only some hosters are affected and not others.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoDisclaimer: I have a lifetime Plex pass. I don't understand. What does Plex care if it's hosted on a cloud IaaS provider or on own equipment or VM? It's not Plex's business to police what I or anyone else does with software. If someone is selling access to pirated content using Plex, the solution is to handle the cases individually rather than kindergarten class punishment of particular server providers.
- sowbug 3y agoPlex is trying to reinvent itself, 10 years too late, as the next Roku. By changing the product's focus and drumming up anti-piracy PR like this, they're whitewashing the brand. That's why every major update of the software takes it farther from the thing you purchased (a nice frontend for your downloaded movie collection) and closer to something you don't want -- a bunch of recommendations for streaming services you've never heard of, while burying your media library ever deeper in the default UI. It's yet another form of Cory Doctrow's enshittification. Five years from now, Plex will have gone public or been acquired, probably by Facebook so that we can have Facebook TV for a couple years before that shuts down. The original Plex userbase will have long left for a better product.
- CSDude 3y agoIf you have an Apple TV, use https://firecore.com/infuse https://firecore.com/infuse. To be fair, it's not exactly the same as Plex. But it covers many of my use cases; - Organizes your media on the fly - Does not do useless transcoding (it was a huge issue back in ~ 2016 for Plex). - Can directly connect to SMB shares, my Synology NAS. - Does not require anything running on the server, so it does not matter your NAS has a decade old MIPS CPU. - List files from multiple cloud providers. - Can also sync with Trakt if you want to keep track of what you watch.
- sersi 3y agoInfuse is great especially coupled with jellyfin, there's also MrMC but the presentation is nowhere near as good.
- awill 3y agoHas Jellyfin caught up to Plex yet? I tried it a couple of years ago, and it was miles off.
- nine_k 3y agoOne important thing Jellyfin won't do is deciding to block something on its own.
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y agoTo actually answer your question without snark, it’s still miles behind. I give the competition a shot once every year or two to see what’s up. It’s never even close for someone that prioritises the things that I prioritise. Every Plex competitor I’ve used makes me feel like I’m using a Linux media player in 2008. Some people get off to that. I don’t.
- hasel 3y agoFor some reason the best clients are on Apple devices only, that Infuse and Swiftfin. mpv shim is ok too. That’s my only gripe since I barely touch the actual Jellyfin server interface, it just works. If I had Plex I would also use Infuse too so there’s really no difference except that one is open source, doesn’t phone home, and doesn’t require a monthly subscription.
- dopeboy 3y agoInteresting that Plex is taking on the risk here, rather than the service provider that hosts the content (or more accurately, the user who hosts content on said service provider). I suspect they'd prefer to pass the hot potato to Hetzner but their lawyers told them otherwise.
- RektBoy 3y agoMadlads if using proprietary software with phone-home functions to host pirated movies.
- TechBro8615 3y agoI've never understood why Plex phones home or why Plex the company has any insight at all into what's running on your Plex installation. I was never able to look past that, so I never installed it. After years without a media server, I've started using Jellyfin and it's great. It's self-hosted but still has decent client apps. And there's no sketchy corporation watching my server, which just runs on my laptop and streams to my phone via my local network.
- eklavya 3y agoI tried Jellyfin, doesn't work for most things, went back to plex. Everything just works. My use case is pretty simple, family photos and videos but somehow that was problematic.
- ornornor 3y agoI’ve never had any issues with jellyfin. Maybe your use case is outside of what it’s for, but for watching series and movies it worked with everything I could throw at it for me.
- abenga 3y agoSomehow my Jellyfin Android TV app became incompatible with the server application on my home PC and I can no longer watch videos, so had to head back to Plex or Kodi+NFS mounts.
- compsciphd 3y agoyou've most likely never tried to view subtitles. It's well known that its subtitle support isn't so good (to put it lightly). It seems to be unable to stream subtitles out of an MKV itself and has to extract them and send them separately. (or at least thats what it seems like from observation).
- thendrill 3y agoSame here. Jellyfin is good aslong as the content is not HDR and needs subtitles.... Also the chromecast support is very non-wife friendly
- inquirerGeneral 3y ago"Anyone else get this Plex notice?" https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/16iqwf4/anyone_else_get_this_plex_notice/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/16iqwf4/anyone_else_g...
- dewey 3y agoHow likely is it that OVH is next?
- LeoPanthera 3y agoFrom staff comments in the Plex Forum, it seems like the next steps will be blocking everything that isn't a residential ISP IP.
- dewey 3y agoTo me it seems like the better fix would be to limit the sharing feature of servers. This would cut down the „plex reseller“ use case pretty quickly.
- onedr0p 3y agoThere's already a 100 share limit per server, but it doesn't matter. People just create more Plex servers and continue to sell access.
- jimjambw 3y agoI have used Infuse for years. I just use a basic NAS with a torrent client and a watch folder. I have pretty fast broadband too, so all together it’s a really nice experience. Plus the devices I’m usually watching from are an iPad, Mac or Apple TV anyway, so it works super nicely for me. I’ve never really understood the appeal of Plex to be honest.
- hnarn 3y agoThis was the wake-up call me and my friends needed to stop using this proprietary piece of garbage. I moved to Jellyfin this morning and I was pleasantly surprised that unlike a few years ago, the Swiftfin app now works well on both iOS and tvOS. This kind of move by Plex only highlights that even though you’re running the server, they still feel they have the right to break your application at any time for reasons they decide. For me that’s completely unacceptable and I won’t spend a cent with them again.
- thiht 3y ago> piece of garbage That’s pushing it. You’re entitled to dislike that it’s proprietary, but Plex works great. You can like an alternative better without shitting on Plex for no reason
- shyn3 3y agoTrue it's a hot piece of garbage. Enshittification is probably a better word.
- Larrikin 3y agoIt's not though. You are both speaking in hyperbole. Plex is actually objectively better than Jellyfin. Skipping intros still doesn't work consistently in Jellyfin. But it is a company and I am glad that there is serious competition from Jellyfin. It isn't a publicly traded company, so pressure from an open source product can push it to be better and not necessarily turn it in to a money grab that makes the product shit. They've made some missteps the community hasn't liked, but they have also had improvements as well.
- earthling8118 3y agoTo me it seems "objectively better" and "capable of shutting down your server remotely due to your server host" don't belong in the same solar system.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- T3RMINATED 3y ago[dead]
- devwastaken 3y agoIn what way is plex's TOS being violated? Without anything specific, we can safely assume it's BS.
- darknavi 3y agoPeople are selling access to their Plex servers. Those servers are often hosted on Hetzner and Plex took the lazy way out and are blasting _all_ Hetzner hosted servers.
- shortrounddev2 3y agoI just have my home pc set up as a media server and I share my videos folder across the network. I have a roku with a basic file browsing app that let's me see the files and I just use that. Never quite understood why an entire server and app was required for something that has been supported natively by any OS for years
- Matir 3y agoI've been meaning to migrate Plex to Jellyfin. I don't even host at Hetzner, but this coming at the end of the week is perfect -- I'm going to do the migration this weekend!
- crmrc114 3y agoUse both Plex and Emby. This does not concern me since I think of Plex the same way as I think about a SIP provider. They provide the connection brokering so my devices and my server can handshake. I have Emby as a backup because some media might have issues with transcode on plex. Jellyfin is a distant third for me due to transcode issues with hdr 4k content. (When last tested) Either way, my content is for me- still not sure why people are crazy enough to pirate a ton of crap, buy space on a cloud provider then sell it on reddit. I am sure the backlash on this move will be on par with when Plex said they wanted to collect media hashes and everyone swiftly raged at them. The sad thing is Plex used to be awesome they killed camera upload and their podcast product is garbage cloud only trash. Plexamp is awesome. It just blows my mind they they don't create a podcast polling module where you can store data locally. All of their recent focus has been on trying to be a multi streaming site aggregator. If they took a lesson from ye olden dogpile I think they would see this is a bad cart to hitch your horse to- they really need to get back to self hosted stuff. This ticks me off... But their DVR and advert removal tooling for live TV tuners still rocks and I use for accessing my CATV and OTA channels. Someday I will drop them- this is just another bad choice by very schizophranic leadership at Plex. Plexamp is my main Android auto car music app, maybe I drop them for all but my live TV and music use? Curious why Emby is not brought up more- I love it much more than jellyfin for stability.