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"Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

arstechnica.com

11–20 of 56 posts

Re: "Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

#11
post #8

I recently bought a new "smart" TV --- but only after confirming that my selected model could be operated in "dumb" mode without any network connection. Roku just validated my purchase choice.

From all of them I’ve used, ironically enough, Roku TVs are probably the best for operating without a network connection and don’t have any unremovable networked apps that pollute the screen. They just get much worse once you connect them, but they’re also easy to factory reset.

[deleted]

Re: "Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

#13

So...what is the current state of the art for people who want to defend against endless ads, have a minimally invasive install relative to the users' current setup, have to tweak every device in, and not have to do more than say quarterly maintenance? Every time I visit a non-technical friend's home I am absolutely horrified by what their tech experience has become. Browsing, oh my goodness. What a dumpster fire. Wha…

In my experience, browser extensions are more one-and-done than network-level ad blocking like pi-hole. I can’t think of any time I’ve had to override a UBO rule but many popular pi-hole blocklists have a fair number of false positives.

Re: "Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

#15
post #7

I switched from the Roku ecosystem to Nvidia Shield about a year ago because of Roku’s increasingly user hostile ad and tracking decisions and have been pretty happy with it. Android TV gives me enough control with a custom launcher that I can prevent ads.

I have my Roku-based TCL setup to immediately switch to my streaming device on boot. It’s a little slow to load, but I’m hoping this will bypass whatever Roku ads might have shown.

Re: "Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

#17
post #14

Is AdGuard Home a solution for this, will a Roku still work with DNS ad blocking?

Some TV boxes now have hardcoded dns to prevent this

Over :53 can be blocked/re-routed to your recursive DNS server by your router.. although that's more than many user's ability, sure.

Seems unlikely it's DoH[0] (:443) since that would be.. hard coding an IP or a DNS lookup loop (turtles.. all the way down). But it's possible in combination with :53 above (you'd need to recursive-block the common DoH domains https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query https://mozilla.cloudflare-dns.com https://dns.google/dns-query but possibly also some device-specific IPs.. dns.roku.com?)

DoT[1] (:853) could also be used (1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, 9.9.9.9)... guess it's worth watching traffic/blocking that port (if that's your concern).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPS

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_TLS

Re: "Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

#18

So...what is the current state of the art for people who want to defend against endless ads, have a minimally invasive install relative to the users' current setup, have to tweak every device in, and not have to do more than say quarterly maintenance? Every time I visit a non-technical friend's home I am absolutely horrified by what their tech experience has become. Browsing, oh my goodness. What a dumpster fire. Wha…

In the context of watching TV?

Re: "Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

#19

So...what is the current state of the art for people who want to defend against endless ads, have a minimally invasive install relative to the users' current setup, have to tweak every device in, and not have to do more than say quarterly maintenance? Every time I visit a non-technical friend's home I am absolutely horrified by what their tech experience has become. Browsing, oh my goodness. What a dumpster fire. Wha…

just firefox and ublock origin goes a long way to un-shittifying browsing.

ublock origin full automatically update itself and needs essentially no human interaction.

Re: "Awful": Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

#20

So...what is the current state of the art for people who want to defend against endless ads, have a minimally invasive install relative to the users' current setup, have to tweak every device in, and not have to do more than say quarterly maintenance? Every time I visit a non-technical friend's home I am absolutely horrified by what their tech experience has become. Browsing, oh my goodness. What a dumpster fire. Wha…

Apple gear if you can afford it.

Else: some conglomeration of raspberry pi dns server filters, and other miscellanea that a friendly nerd administers for you until he gets tired.

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