Watching Roku steadily decline from a trusted brand has been something. For a time, they were the alternative to the other bigger more Ad driven companies. I’ve owned 2 and used to enjoy them overall. Now, they’ve slowly become just as bad or worse than their competitors in some regards. When history looks back on streaming boxes as a failed delivery method, Roku might just get to be the example in the forefront.
Technology
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
Uh huh, but collecting Blurays is just silly I've been told.
Get to the endgame. Just strap us to a chair and make us watch your crap ads Clockwork Orange style.
But the eyelid things look like they're really uncomfortable. Any chance you can just hack into our brains and stream advertising consistently while I'm in a coma?
Roku box: Bye, bitch!
Aaargh matey!
I have a Roku ultra in my kid's room.
I do not want her subjected to ads when she turns on the TV.
This is unacceptable to me and I will be replacing all my Rokus immediately.
Roku is the one that bricked peoples TVs unless they agreed to their new terms of service.
Bought a Roku back in 2020 or 2021 because the Apple TV was more expensive.
Now I know why.
For what it is worth, I have Roku set up as a REGEX in my Pi-hole so for the most part, any of this nonsense is completely blocked on my Roku.
Needless to say, I shouldn’t have to do this shit with a device I paid for and mainly use for Plex streaming.
I know it's being lazy. But if you have the regex you could post, I'd appreciate it.
I had this happen to me just a few days ago. Within the hour I bought an Nvidia shield and came up with a plan to install the projectivy launcher and button remapper.
I'm mostly happy, it's much more snappy but it's missing a couple apps I used on the Roku (WGN and Marquee Sports). At least I can use my own pictures for the background and screensavers.
Think of any invasive streaming devices in your house. Samsung, Google Chromecast, ATV, LG etc. Roku is by far the worst.
This was shitty, but the giants are worse than the smaller companies. Roku works fine and ad-free if you block the ad/tracking domains. Try separating the ads/tracking from the stuff you need on a Google device.
I think this happened to me last night with an ad for Moana 2 playing automatically. I just assumed I accidentally hit a button. I was on the home screen but it enlarged and played in the basically the top quarter of the screen. I hit Close and it closed.
Also, the Netflix app is absolute garbage on the TCL Roku TVs. Constantly freezes and crashes, sometimes while not even try to rewind or pause/resume. It just decides its had enough and causes the TV to restart lol.
I thought the Netflix issue was just me! I also got the Moana 2 ad yesterday and assumed that I’d hit something, too. Good to know it wasn’t me, bad to know it was intentional on Roku’s part.
We have several TCL Roku TVs and Netflix is trash on all of them. Netflix is fine on the streaming sticks though. And every app seems to take some time to load as well. The TVs are pretty old so that's probably why.
Can i pleace find a decent TV without smart-capabilitys? I just want HDMI thats it
Don't give your TV wifi access, use a separate device to watch stuff (Chromecast, FireTV, Android box, etc..)
If this happens on my box I'll be taking them to small claims court and let you all know how it goes...
Just a heads up that you probably "agreed" to binding arbitration...
So glad I blocked my TVs access to the Internet at the router level. Never complainrd about not setting up a network if the network doesn't work.
So this is the Moana garbage?
I have a pihole blocking most of it, but these were playing.
There's surely a way to jailbreak these things.
Anybody notice the Max app on roku requires clicking twice to pause and then twice to unpause? Very odd and annoying glitch or feature.
FWIW Roku doesn't make the apps. That's on Max. The Paramount app is trash too, resume doesn't work.
This is why I disconnected my parents Roku tv from the internet last year, when they started to get updates that wouldn't download, and freeze the whole tv, i said enough is enough