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Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

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Re: Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

#31
post #27

But how exactly can you pull a website off, i mean it is a web site..

User-agent tracking will work just fine.

In a more non-corporate environment this would be the beginning of an arms race to try to figure out how to fiddle with headers to either block or not block the device, but since we're discussing corporate behemoths with legal teams larger than most companies, it'll stop here, because no legal team would sign off on the idea of fraudulently identifying yourself in a header in order to obtain services from a hostile competitor.

Re: Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What issues did you encounter? And how can you call a $35 device "expensive"?

My brother took his to uni and couldn't log into the Wifi - I assume he has to enter uni credentials for it and the Chromecast doesn't support that Wifi authentication model.

Authentication is one issue. The biggest is the fact that UPnP is disabled on many university networks. Chromecast relies on UPnP for device discovery.

Re: Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

#36
post #29
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

roku is freaking terrible. have you even used one? compared to the seamlessness that chromecast plus the price, why would you use anything else.

>>seamlessness that chromecast how is it seamless, I want a independent device to watch videos on, not a device that have to connect with my phone, tablet or pc then "cast" video to it. I want a self contained video streaming device with its own physical remote, processor and OS that does not need anything else but a internet connection Roku and FireTV are different classes of Devices than a ChromeCast

The cool thing about chromecast is that you can drag and drop a video file into chrome and it will play on your tv. I don't want to see ads on youtube, so instead of using the built in chromecast support i just stream the window to my tv with ublock origin installed -- no ads.

That's actually all i want, a wireless hdmi cable. But I'm in a tiny minority.

Re: Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

#37
post #27

But how exactly can you pull a website off, i mean it is a web site..

It's really an app on the device that uses the YouTube HTML5 API. If you violate their TOS they can prevent access to those API's anytime they want.

Okay, but how is Amazon violating TOS; they are using it the way it is meant to be used.

Re: Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What issues did you encounter? And how can you call a $35 device "expensive"?

My brother took his to uni and couldn't log into the Wifi - I assume he has to enter uni credentials for it and the Chromecast doesn't support that Wifi authentication model.

For setup, it need to be on the same subnet as the device you're using to register it. Most university networks are split into many subnets making this extremely difficult to do, and use after registration. The best workaround is using a router as a middle man for the phone and chromecast, but it's a pain.

I have a chromecast, but gave up on making it work in university.

Re: Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

#39
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for me at least, amazon's copycat worked first time out of the box. Chromecast, alas, turned out to be an expensive plastic brick.

What issues did you encounter? And how can you call a $35 device "expensive"?

$35 for something that does nothing (a brick) is expensive. I'm not in the habit of throwing away that much money, and there are many other things I could use it on.

Interpreted more literally, $35 is quite expensive for both an actual brick:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/8-in-x-2-1-4-in-x-4-in-Clay-Bric...

And a plastic brick:

https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-DUPLO-Creative-Duplo-Building/dp...

Re: Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

#40
post #25

The big winner in this would seem, to me, to be Roku - one of those rare cases where being independent actually helps.

roku is freaking terrible. have you even used one? compared to the seamlessness that chromecast plus the price, why would you use anything else.

I love Roku and use it alongside my AppleTV. Haven’t used Chromecast or FireTV as comparisons but I have nothing bad to say about Roku.
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