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

Post by malcolmgreaves » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

yellowfish wrote: post #111

techlaw wrote: post #106

I am hopeful that now that the FTC has a pro-consumer Chair that some of these anti-consumer acts will be curtailed. I would also argue that some of these bad acts could be considered to be false / deceptive trade practices under the various state laws (in the U.S. at least). For example, some people would never have bought a FireTV cube for streaming video if Amazon had revealed that they would be adding advertiseme…

there's nothing wrong with ads on stuff like this; televisions aren't sacred ground.

Post by Ansil849 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

relax88 wrote: post #32

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…

Yep. I’m not really looking forward to buying a hospitality or commercial version for my next TV but I fully expect that is how it will go when I tell the local electronics store that I just want a display. It’s similar to the whole online advertising thing. I have no qualms about closing your website because of a cookie banner dark pattern or an annoying ad that makes it past my filtering. I’ll never come back eithe…

Post by Ansil849 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

dasyatidprime wrote: post #93

Ansil849 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if a fix for a critical vulnerability and an ad feature are both in the same update? Can you point to actual real-world examples where this has been the case? I don't see the point of this stretched hypothetical. If it were to come up, then you could deal with accordingly - for instance by getting the update and then blocking the ad server somewhere upstream in your network path.

They don't actually have to be in the same update, the security fix just has to come after the ad antifeature with no separate patches presented, only a linear series of versions. And that linear model is extremely common. Anything using the linear model that has both antifeature updates and security updates at unpredictable times is very likely to run into the “can't install the security update without accepting the…

Post by MrVitaliy » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #77

Question to HN users: I have a dumb display attached to an nvidia shield. The Shield is nice: It's powerful enough, runs decent version of the common apps I care about (netflix, plex, youtube, spotify are the ones I use), and the remote is minimalistic and nice to use. Let's say I want to opt out of Google for this. What the hell do I do? I do have a Windows PC attached to the TV, for gaming, but if I wanted to run t…

Post by indymike » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

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.