Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

play.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 507 posts

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#41

Post by alisonkisk »

LegitShady wrote: post #24
cf100clunk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People bought devices that did not show the ads. Now Google has forced those ads onto those devices. So, hindsight being 20/20, this is yet another abuse.

You're not wrong, but what should be the narrative to any future devices like this is: "They change it after selling it to you for the worse, don't buy their products." When that becomes the reputation the problem will solve itself when they stop selling them from bad reputation.

It's still vandalistic destruction of property Google doesn't own. Google and their hardware partners owe refunds to all these customers.

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#42

Post by vincnetas »

NietTim wrote: post #29

If history has taught us anything: this will blow over in a few weeks or months and everyone will get used to it in the end. The small percentage of users who (sometimes only temporarily) stop using the service is offset by the new income and the majority of users do not care.

They will ratchet, small step at a time. Not sure how the rope snapping will look like...

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#43

Post by alisonkisk »

hughrr wrote: post #21
designium wrote: post #5

I suggest using an old laptop or desktop and install Kodi or Plex to solve for this.

I did this for ages. It sucks. Maintenance, broken things all the time, bugs, ugh. I just torrent stuff on my Mac now and use a USB stick to ship it to my dumb TV.

Dumb TV can play video from USB? That's pretty smart.

The Mac can't act as a mass storage device for the TV? That's a shame.

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#44

Post by yuters »

luffapi wrote: post #13
Ansil849 wrote: post #7

The way to combat this is not to buy products that have this and then complain about them. The companies that make them do not care, they have already gotten your money. The way to combat this is to not buy products that have this in the first place. edit: a lot of comments are saying that the ads were added later, after purchase. This doesn't change my opinion at all, because people still bought products that have t…

I’d love to buy a “dumb” tv. How do I do that?

I have searched far and wide last year for a dumb tv and couldn't find one. Like another said there's the Sceptre TVs, I've stumbled upon it earlier this year with this article: https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/in-defense-of-dumb-tvs

I've even started to look into buying just a big monitor and an external tv tuner.

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#46

Post by antiterra »

Ansil849 wrote: post #35
jordemort wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't like the option of it happening, and as this example illustrates it can clearly happen, then do not buy products that have the capability of having ads added retroactively to the product. So, don't buy anything capable of receiving a software update?

> So, don't buy anything capable of receiving a software update? Not quite. Don't buy anything that forces updates. Updates are obviously important for security, compatibility and a slew of other reasons. But updates which are forced on the user are no bueno.

And if a fix for a critical vulnerability and an ad feature are both in the same update?

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#47

Post by herbst »

luffapi wrote: post #30
herbst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just buy a cheap smart one and attach a device that fully controls it via hmdi. My bedroom TV boots to Kodi and the original remote is attached as well as a small keyboard. Basically the best solution I found

I’d be worried that it was still phoning home even when I was on a different input. It’s a good solution if you have to have a smart tv though.

IMO these problems should be solved with a firewall either way. You can never know when they start talking home.

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#48

Post by judge2020 »

cf100clunk wrote: post #39
NietTim wrote: post #29

If history has taught us anything: this will blow over in a few weeks or months and everyone will get used to it in the end. The small percentage of users who (sometimes only temporarily) stop using the service is offset by the new income and the majority of users do not care.

History teaches us that HN readers are generally quite caring of these sort of intrusions into their previous "just right" setups and don't tend to just let it ride.

Keyword “HN Readers”, not users. I’d be surprised if even 1% of all Android TV users were HN Readers.

Re: Reviews of Android TV launcher after Google added ads to the homescreen

#50

Post by herbst »

cf100clunk wrote: post #23
herbst wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kodi also works surprisingly well as Android app :) sorrily way snappier than on the RPI (v4, 8gb ram I think) that was explicitly recommended from the kodi website :/

Which do we value more, speed of the UI or susceptibility to undesireable change? Libreelec (Kodi) on Pi4 skews away from the latter.

I have Kodi on my cheap android TV which performs much faster than on my pi. So I prefer that. My RPI even crashes from time to time, even thought it has active cooling. Elec just can turn into a resource hog, especially if you switch between apps often. I am just still pissed that I spent $150 on a pi with case for elec when it obviously isn't the optimal device. And want others to avoid the problem :)

As said somewhere else, calling home issues are just a question of your firewall / DNS setup

Post reply on HN