Begin? I haven’t heard anything positive about Roku in 10 years or so. They had to race to the bottom to compete with Amazon and Google. And maybe they mostly survived til now, but all I hear is complaints about ads.
replyNah. I have a Roku 3 stick and a brand-new $700 projector with Google TV. The Roku 3 is light-years ahead in terms of speed and UI ergonomics over the Google machine. And both are better than the smart TVs I've used.
replyBut I fear this need means this time is ending, and we'll only be left with crap.
I think the complaint about ads is mostly a knee-jerk reaction by certain online communities. The ads are not particularly obnoxious - they are always off to the side and don't interfere in navigation in any way.
replyFurthermore, I'm on a Roku looking for content and the ads highlight content. It's not that different than seeing posters on the way to a movie theater.
They routinely override the user-defined navigation to include whatever new content they are pushing. It was sold as an appliance without ads or subscription. Now it has become an ads platform that the user has less and less control over.
replyOn my Roku the ads aren't just off to the side. When I go to the home screen there are now "recommended" shows above and below my channels, and they are initially selected, so I have to scroll down past them to get to my actual channels.
replyEvery one of those sections can be trivially turned off in the settings. Mine just have the list of apps I installed on my device.
replyYes, which you have to do repeatedly after every software update when they change your settings.
replymy household and extended family has been running on roku for literally over a decade, in multiple countries, and not one person has complained. all of us, myself included, are perfectly happy with it
replyI’d be shocked if the Jellyfin App survives this. Plex probably will, as a for-profit company it has the war chest to buy placement/attention/app approval. But i prefer jellyfin because it doesnt try to sell me anything or tell me what to watch.
replyFox owns Tubi, which has a similar model to PlutoTV.
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