Better and Cheaper Than IPTV • Hacker News Board

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#51

Post by bob1029 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 8:40 AM UTC

krackers wrote: post #7

I thought the whole point of turnstile was that it detects headless browsers and it's supposed to be "difficult" to bypass. Apparently this just simulates clicking on the checkmark. Is it really that easy?

People have been automating WoW for a generation using things like peripherals duct taped to oscillating fans despite multi-million dollar budgets designed to defeat things far more sophisticated than this.

I would think of headless browser automation in exactly the same way you would about cheating in FPS video games. The red team always has the initiative and can win if they want to spend enough time and money.

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#52

Post by maxweylandt » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 8:52 AM UTC

liquidnitrogen1 wrote: post #42

dtagames wrote: post #28

For a no hacks alternative, I built TV Explorer. It puts the channel's published HLS stream into your browser with no interim steps. Uses the public GitHub list of more than 10,000 free channels. https://tvexplorer.live

I think https://tv.garden/ has more channels than your especially if i look at Japan

Seems to depend on the country, tv.garden has nothing in Namibia, for example

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#53

Post by b112 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 8:56 AM UTC

normie3000 wrote: post #46

dtagames wrote: post #28

For a no hacks alternative, I built TV Explorer. It puts the channel's published HLS stream into your browser with no interim steps. Uses the public GitHub list of more than 10,000 free channels. https://tvexplorer.live

Just stays on the loading screen for me (Safari, iOS 26).

Same here. I wonder if it's hugged to death?

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#54

Post by stef25 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 9:01 AM UTC

Immediately worked for me on a simple Samsung bought 15+ years ago.

What's the best way to use it, write your own search to parse all the json pages https://vsembed.ru/movies/latest/page-1.json ?

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#55

Post by simondotau » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 9:05 AM UTC

hperrin wrote: post #29

> I built it because I couldn't cast web video from my laptop to my TV: no Chromecast, no AirPlay. Looks like Claude built it.

I'm pretty sure it was built by a compiler, using libraries provided by Google and others. Until Claude can directly output machine code packaged for distribution, it's just another middleman between the source of intent (the human) and the final deliverable.

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#56

Post by jeroenhd » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

krackers wrote: post #7

I thought the whole point of turnstile was that it detects headless browsers and it's supposed to be "difficult" to bypass. Apparently this just simulates clicking on the checkmark. Is it really that easy?

With the right simulated events, a headless browser becomes indistinguishable from a real browser without platform detection. It's not hard to figure out that these headless browsers are running a software renderer on Linux. In time, they're just going to have to detect Linux users and force them to fill out one or multiple challenges if workarounds like these keep getting used.

The checkbox is just a small part of what the checks are doing. It's monitoring everything the browser is doing and how the browser is responding to certain events up until you tick the checkbox, at which point it determines if you need one of those "are you human" challenges or if you can pass without interruption, based on how bot-like you are.

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#57

Post by m00dy » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 9:45 AM UTC

>Castor launches headless Chrome with a randomized fingerprint and stealth scripts to hide automation.

you lost me in there.

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#58

Post by m00dy » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 10:04 AM UTC

m00dy wrote: post #57

>Castor launches headless Chrome with a randomized fingerprint and stealth scripts to hide automation. you lost me in there.

I work with browser fingerprinting, so I took a look at the repo to see what it actually does. From what I can tell, it only patches navigator, the Audio API, and the Canvas API. That is pretty basic, so it will likely get flagged easily.

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#59

Post by severine » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 10:36 AM UTC

jusonchan81 wrote: post #34

dtagames wrote: post #28

For a no hacks alternative, I built TV Explorer. It puts the channel's published HLS stream into your browser with no interim steps. Uses the public GitHub list of more than 10,000 free channels. https://tvexplorer.live

This is incredible! It loaded so fast on my mobile and I’m able to watch channels from all over. Amazing stuff man. It requires a thread of its own

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325624

Re: Better and Cheaper Than IPTV

#60

Post by dizhn » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 10:43 AM UTC

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #48

Can this be used without a TV, lets say if I just want to play the streams with VLC?

I would hope it would do the "find and extract stream source" on the web page bit well. (This is quite hard on some sites). From there VLC can handle it.

I use "Web Video Caster" on Android to stream videos from websites to my TV. Free version is fine.