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

Fox to buy Roku

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 444 posts

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#21

Post by thebiglebrewski »

So what are the alternatives?

I have mostly Frame TVs and a projector. I always loved the Roku experience, it really felt like the best media player software, they just kept improving it, and having all TVs on the ecosystem made it even better. One app for virtual remotes, bluetooth listening, searching with your phone keyboard, etc.

I don't want to go back to the Frame's software. I really like the Backdrops app and so many other features.

But it just seems like this acquisition can only accelerate the ensh*tification of Roku. They already changed the default home screen a few weeks ago to show recommendations, SO MANY ads, etc and you change it in settings.

But as other commentors have mentioned, now we'll probably have Fox News and Truth Social front and center whether we want it or not.

So many apps have DRM that prevent you from running it yourself in any way. Is there another way that lets you run Netflix, Paramount+, HBO, all the majors without any trouble that is as integrated as Roku, or at least anything heading in that direction?

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#22

Post by mplanchard »

newaccountman2 wrote: post #13
pickleglitch wrote: post #7

So now the same corporation that owns Fox News is going to own Roku? No thanks. Guess it's finally time to switch to a custom Android TV box or Apple TV. Or roll my own, but I've tried that and found it pretty difficult.

I would not recommend Apple TV. I like the computers and the phone, but the TV is disappoint. Would recommend Nvidia Shield or something. What I am going to do down the line personally is just buy a gaming laptop and use that. Can play games via Steam and watch stuff via Windows apps (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll). Only problem of course is the laptop will be pricier, but if someone was going to buy a tv s…

Agree Apple TV is not especially impressive (like, it’s fine, but I especially dislike the remote). I mostly just use my playstation, but there are some apps (criterion being the main one) that are not on the PS, so I use the Apple TV for those

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#23

Post by giancarlostoro »

I never liked the idea of Roku since I always felt like they could "go away at any moment" since that is all they sold basically.

Fun fact, Roku sells security cameras at Walmart, they're technically rebranded Wyze cameras (look just like them, same hardware) with Roku software on them. If you did buy one of those Roku cameras, maybe a good time to switch off to Wyze if you don't like this direction.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#24

Post by nosioptar »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #15

gross, is there any TV is that isn’t Google or Roku that is halfway decent? Bring back dumb TVs

I picked up an android TV box for $25 that works with LineageOS.

It sucks because its android, but at least its degoogled.

Edit: for a TV, I love my 30 year old Panasonic. Paid $20 for it at the Mormon goodwill. Only 720p, but has the best speakers of any TV I've owned.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#25

Post by giancarlostoro »

baggachipz wrote: post #6

Time for the 'Fox News' button on the Roku remote. Truth Social tweets on your screensaver.

Actually, a more likely button might be "Sports" which would either open your preferred sports app (smarter way to do it) and default to Fox Sports, or a "Stream TV" type button that opens up Tubi which is already run by Fox, and surprisingly had decent content on it.

I'm not surprised they're going this route, and would not be surprised if News becomes a drastically smaller piece of Fox over the coming years.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#27

Post by Octoth0rpe »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #15

gross, is there any TV is that isn’t Google or Roku that is halfway decent? Bring back dumb TVs

I was dreading my most recent tv purchase (last fall) for exactly this reason, and ended up with TCL google tv. One can apparently setup a google tv as a dumb tv and never sign it into the internet. It acts exactly how I'd want a dumb tv to work now, simply auto uses the most recent hdmi device, or the active one if the most recent one isn't active.

It has never connected to the internet, and it never will. My long term concern is that google will eventually put cell modems in their tvs, and then using my next tv as a dumb tv will no longer be an option. For now though, this is your best bet.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#28

Post by pastor_williams »

A year ago I started moving away from Roku. I think they've always had ads on the home screen which I blocked with a DNS blocklist but the seasonal ad sections that continued popping up in the menu despite my continually blocking them wore on me. I've upgraded to an nvidia shield using projectivy launcher which allows me to set a customized and very clean interface with the just the apps I use and nothing else. I definitely recommend it.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#30

Post by dylan604 »

andrewla wrote: post #4

As a long-time[1] customer of Roku I am tentatively extremely pessimistic. I have always been unhappy with Roku's decision to get involved in streaming content at all, because it could potentially cut into their service-agnostic architecture. Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware, but way worse when they are actively competing with streaming services. And now it loo…

> Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware

I mean, of course they did. If you were running a company and had to choose between a one-time relatively small fee vs a life time of near constant ad driven income per user, which would you choose?

Post reply on HN