this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2026
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92
It's time to dump Roku (www.engadget.com)
submitted 2 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] ryan_@piefed.social 30 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (3 children)

Instead of a Roku Stick, you could use the Google TV Streamer or Apple TV 4K…..…..Amazon's Fire devices are also an option, but I figure anyone with moral qualms against Fox may have similar issues with anything tied to Jeff Bezos.

I got a kick out of the article recommending Google and Apple like they’re the ethical option against Amazon here. Any sane person with moral qualms against Bezos will have plenty about Google and Apple too, so let’s not pretend that any of them are anything less than evil.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 points 29 minutes ago (1 children)

I mean, the Apple TV is doing significantly less sketchy shit, selling your data, and spying on you.

It also doesn’t have Home Screen ads and ads stuffed everywhere.

Of the options, regardless of how you feel about Apple, it’s the only viable commercial tv box.

[–] kobra@lemmy.zip 1 points 18 minutes ago

The creepiest thing mine has done is have the Peanuts cartoon screensavers be relevant to the weather in my area. Seeing Snoopy and Woodstock get blown around on a windy day is oddly nice haha

I don't actually know its happening, I might just be more aware of the windy cartoons or rainy cartoons when I'm actually experiencing that weather 🤷‍♂️

[–] malios@lemmy.world 13 points 1 hour ago (6 children)

What suggestions do you have for simple media players that techy people could recommend to their families? It seems like for the most part we're limited to Android-based devices or the Apple TV.

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 10 points 1 hour ago

Build a media stick out of something like a pi seems like the only option? I wouldn't want to deal with that though and I'm not aware of anyone selling a plug-n-play ready options like that unfortunately.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 1 points 34 minutes ago* (last edited 27 minutes ago)

It's not there yet. But I'm hoping KDE plasma big screen continues to receive love. If it gets into mainstream distributions. It will likely be big. It's a much more smart TV like shell for the KDE desktop. All the familiarity of your Google TV, Apple tv, fire stick, Roku etc. But none of the advertisements or lockdown. With Wade Droid it should even be able to run most of your Android applications as well as all the native Linux and KDE applications. But again this is something to watch for. Not quite ready for deployment yet.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I would suggest using a PC with a Kodi or Jellyfin and the arr stack to automatically download all of your shows and movies.

Paid streaming services won't work because of DRM, so you need to host your own.

[–] malios@lemmy.world 1 points 50 minutes ago

I have the hosted part taken care of but the other half of the issue is the media player side for people that are not technical at all. They basically need a device where they can open an app that just works and have a simple interface to navigate around and play media.

[–] 0ndead@infosec.pub 1 points 45 minutes ago

All kinds of media player distros for raspberry pi

[–] amgine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I was just looking into this recently and CoreELEC came up. That or LibreELEC that run kodi. The hardware that was recommended would be a ugoos x4q

[–] malios@lemmy.world 2 points 46 minutes ago

Depending on how maintenance-free this is once it's configured (because non-technical people are not going to mess with things), this actually looks like a pretty solid solution. Thank you!

[–] FullPenguin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

An Onn box with protectivity launcher, all bloatware removed, and ReVanced apps is the simplest/cheapest way to go.

[–] programmer_belch@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 14 minutes ago
  1. Buy a second hand Google TV or amazon Firestick so your money doesn't go to the tech overlords
  2. Change the android rom to linageOS
  3. Profit
[–] LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe 11 points 1 hour ago

Way ahead of you.

[–] Kandy4me@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

What do we do with existing TVs that have the Roku OS? I imagine alternative FW isn't an easy option since so many different HW brands use Roku

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago

You can reset the tv and set it up without internet. It still works as a “dumb” tv.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

I want to know what I can do with an existing Roku Ultra box I have. I've been using it in my office lounge ever since I was gifted it by a recruiter, but only have experience hacking Fire TV devices.