Live data from Hacker News

After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

arstechnica.com

11–20 of 292 posts

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#12
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how you think that TV can be throw away when used You're like a Environmental Hero to me.

You'll notice I did not mention what we do with it when done with it. Point of fact, we use the (many, free) electronics recycling programs available to us in our area. Thanks for making dumb and uncharitable assumptions.

Recycling the TV is better than not doing it, but not wasting it is even better for the environment.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#15
post #2

Amazon's FireTV experience is pretty bad. Even as someone who pays for Prime, it's hard to escape the "ad carousel" interface when you just want to watch TV. That being said , I still use mine regularly for one reason; sideloading. You can install YouTube clients with SponsorBlock and ad-skipping built in. You can download Steam's streaming client and connect a controller, or load up Kodi with SFTP streaming from you…

Yeah, tbh, the fact that they allow side loading makes up for this, IMO. I still wouldn't necessarily buy one. I've found that I like the Google TV ecosystem a little better.

But being able to sideloaded whenever needed makes it much better to me than some of the "less intrusive" options.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#16

The trick is to never give your TV access to the internet and to pair it with an Apple TV. If you buy a TV and it won't even boot or work without an internet connection - return it and get a different one.

That works fine with a TV. I bought one knowing that the "smart" features weren't all that great. I tried connecting it to the internet, and it felt more sluggish, although it's a brand new 2023 model. I was able to reset it to factory defaults and it's working well enough for what I bought it for (the image is very good, at least for my needs). For reference, it's a TCL with Google TV.

But the Fire TV TFA talks about... well, the whole point of the thing is to stream internet content. So not connecting it to the internet kinda defeats 90% of the thing's purpose.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#17

Well don't worry. You buy a premium "lifestyle tv" like a Samsung Frame, and the moment you connect it to the internet, it too slams every user interface panel full of advertising. This amazon is shit egregious, but par for the course. They're hardly the only ones. TVs are enshittified pretty badly. Thankfully my Samsung forgot those ads after wiping it to factory defaults. So now it is only connected to the apple tv…

I think this is the real value prop of the Apple TV now for many people, particular non technical types or those who just don't want to monkey with networking etc. Usable interface and isolates your TV from the network.

I met someone doing something similar with a PS5 but that seemed awkward.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#19
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See - that would work if our TV was sending out DNS requests. It doesn't though! Like, it seems like it has its own truly internal DNS resolver, which gets updated I presume via OS updates.

It could be doing dns over https (DoH).

yeah probably doing this, or using a secure vpn/tunnel or both.

Re: After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

#20

Google has started to do the same thing making my nvidia shield a paperweight to me.

Chromecast as well. Everything shall be enshittified.

Chromecast has ads now? I just bought one because it was cheaper to buy a new chromecast 4k plus ethernet adapter, than replace my apple tv remote
Post reply on HN