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

arstechnica.com

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

#271

Post by averageRoyalty »

RajT88 wrote: post #3

My wife and I bought a Fire TV for a particular use case: - The hot tub room in the winter - The outdoor patio in the summer It was so cheap, we don't mind the ads on the home screen. If it dies from the moisture, we'll just buy another one. The apps are the key anyways, as I use a few totally ad-free apps to stream stuff: - JellyFin - VLC - HDHomeRun (for my antenna on the roof) PlutoTV is not ad-free, but has so mu…

There are still solutions out there:

https://gist.github.com/throwaway96/e811b0f7cc2a705a5a476a8d...

I also have a modern LG. I have rooted it, but it lives on its own VLAN on a default-outbound-blocked firewall config. I log all its requests, it's always trying to access something.

I give it access to a local DNS and NTP server (with restricted responses) and Jellyfin. I've also experimented with a squid proxy to allow specific web traffic that worked well (need to get around to setting up a CA and installing it on the TV). But for me it's just a Jellyfin streaminh screen.

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

#273

Post by MBCook »

devbent wrote: post #269
MBCook wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would put Sony in my second category above. High quality TVs, and a price to match. The fact they use Google gives me pause. My last TV was a Sony with Google and it was slow as dirt (Sony’s fault, since fixed on newer models). And it was a great TV otherwise. But I don’t trust Google not to find a way to shove ads in later.

Sony's tvs are broken into price tiers, they have low end ones with garbage picture quality, medium tier tvs with better picture and a better CPU, and high end ones with excellent image quality. Sadly neither Sony tv I have had (including one I just bought) are able to stay connected to my wifi for more than an hour or so before losing connection.... Sony is not known for the quality of their software...

Yeah I’ve been on the wrong side of their software quality before. It’s too bad. The electronics are top notch, as always.

PlayStation has the religion, but the rest of their consumer stuff doesn’t.

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

#274

Post by wkat4242 »

adamomada wrote: post #253
wkat4242 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ridiculously stupid yes. Came across this too when my fibre was down.

You guys are just seeing a message from the home screen but you can bypass it by holding down HOME and pressing right to go to the app quick launcher. The home screen doesn’t work without internet but anything else that doesn’t need it will work

Thanks I'll try that next time!

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

#275

Post by nunez »

MBCook wrote: post #248
devbent wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony sells TVs that cost just a bit more than the competition but you can easily not opt-in to ads during initial setup (they are not selected by default!). Sadly Google seems to insist on showing YT recommendations to matter what on Google tvs, but you can just opt into "app only mode" and then you get none of that.

I would put Sony in my second category above. High quality TVs, and a price to match. The fact they use Google gives me pause. My last TV was a Sony with Google and it was slow as dirt (Sony’s fault, since fixed on newer models). And it was a great TV otherwise. But I don’t trust Google not to find a way to shove ads in later.

Our 55" A95K has Google TV built in but we never use it and it has never seen a packet from an outside network since we got it. We use Apple TV with it, and for that purpose, it is very fast and easy to use.

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

#276

Post by gentleman11 »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #207
imp0cat wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can start most Google TVs in "dumb" mode, can't you? I know Sony definitely does have that option available when you first turn them on. https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en - Use your device without a Google Account - Use your device without an internet connection

Our previous TV used the Roku OS and also had the option to use the device without an account or internet connection. What we found was that it still dedicated a lot of space to features that required the non-existent internet and on more than one occasion it started suggesting that we should connect to the internet. I am pretty sure that if your kids accidentally click on some internet-required thing, it will take t…

We have a tcl Roku tv, but it’s nothing but 3 inputs we set up and some stuff below I’ve never read, presumably something Roku related. Never connected it to the internet, just to consoles or Apple TV. it’s been great. Low input lag it seems too

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

#277

Post by theage »

gosub100 wrote: post #246
disposition2 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's kind of neat that the internet has finally come around to make cable TV obsolete. As a counterpoint, decisions by the FCC (during the previous presidential administration), are effectively making the internet a requirement for OTA TV in the new ATSC 3.0 spectrum.[1] Here’s hoping we get more consumer focused considerations in the future. The internet features are nice (if you have internet access) but…

I just watched that video a day or 2 ago. I was pretty surprised to see that, and I agree it makes no sense for the case of broadcast TV. My guess is it's a push from sports networks (90% NFL) and they'll arrive at some "compromise" to only turn it on during NFL and NBA games. Not only is it oppressive to viewers, but I think it's a terrible move for local broadcasters by actively blocking people who are already leav…

Many broadcasters are positioning to accepted the broadcast part of their business as the freemium entry point into their online app. The ads will never be turned off everywhere but the better experience will only be found over the jump.

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

#278

Post by manicennui »

achates wrote: post #135
manicennui wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a fairly expensive Google TV and I have to navigate past rows of promoted content to get to the streaming apps I actually installed and want to use.

If you dig down into the account settings there is an "apps only" mode that brings back the grid.

I did try to use that, but it removed some other fairly useful functionality that I can't remember now. They clearly don't want people to use that feature.

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

#279

Post by moribvndvs »

joezydeco wrote: post #88

If you own a FireTV stick or display you'll notice that the FreeVee streaming app has started to become more and more prominent. It's deceptively simple - they are taking old shows like Murder She Wrote and streaming them non-stop on a "channel" much like the old terrestrial broadcast networks did. They're solving the streaming problem for older customers that don't grok Netflix or Hulu. These shows take pseudo-comme…

Amazon Video is also now including FreeVee garbage entries blended into “included with” results and it’s easy to miss unless you train yourself to check the source line above “Watch now” before pressing play. It seems this is mostly evident when looking at Customers also watched recommendations but I’ve seen it happen in the home sections, too.

I hate it.

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

#280

Post by zzzcsgo »

whalesalad wrote: post #7

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's until they default to using the cell network when it becomes cheap enough
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