I’ve been a subscriber for years. Even though it’s expensive there’s no question that my high level of usage justifies it. I get more per dollar than from Prime Video or Netflix, and that’s for sure.
I’m glad YT still has a zero ad tier. Prime now shoves ads inline during shows even though I’m a paying subscriber. Hulu always has. Netflix will at some point.
Paying to have your data stolen and sold sounds like a shit deal. Just use one of the many 3rd party apps for YouTube and Stremio for streaming. Fuck all those greedy shits. I support a select few content creators either via Patreon or their own website (Viva+), the rest can go fuck off. The internet was better when people made videos for shits and giggles. The best memes came from that era.
🤷♂️I was here for that too and it was wonderful - I still have a folder packed with wonderful things from that era. But I see that as a totally different thing. I know YT has a ton of trash on like Mr Beast etc. But it also has Veritassium! I use YT to learn so many practical things. I’ve learned gardening, woodworking, plumbing, all kinds of repair and on and on from YT. I also support some creators directly when I feel the urge. And I subscribe to Nebula. I have a full Plex and *arr setup with a massive library collected over years. I still use the shit out of YT! 🤷♂️ And I’m on my phone almost all the time so whatever desktop computer programs people run in Docker containers or browser extension spaghetti setups they have to get around this or that… that’s great for them. I’d rather pay $12 than fuck with all that and be tied to my gaming tower. 🤷♂️ I don’t consider it having my data stolen if a provider takes notes about how I use their product 🤷♂️
People allow their TV to connect to the interpipes? Tut tut, I thought y’all were better than that!
same with amazon. its the latest newness. I really miss rabbit ears.
I have rabbit ears hooked into my Plex server so I can record the few shows left on linear broadcast tv
im complaining a bit about the switch to digital to.
They have actually started serving ads with a skip button… That only skips to the next ad.
That’s been a thing for years now like back before I got premium which was at least 4 years ago the skip button would skip the first ad and then bring you into a timed ad afterward that you couldn’t skip, was obnoxious as hell
I got premium
Don’t expect things to improve after happily paying consecutive ransoms.
it’s improved for me, as someone who easily watches 20ish hours of video a week It’s worth it for me to not have to deal with all the hassle of ad block on it. I run a pihole for everything else but the cat and mouse game got old. I currently get my money’s worth, but if it raises much further I’ll cancel.
Not “if” but “when”. They have you and million others on the hook and already plan their next step to extract more money from you.
yea and when that happens I just cancel, then I can worry about all the ad blocking and stuff, but currently it’s worth it for me
Tubular fork of newpipe works on AndroidTV, don’t know if newpipe itself does but last time I checked it didn’t. So I use it on both tv and phone.
Is its UI adapted to Android TV? Or does it look like on mobile?
smarttube https://smarttubeapp.github.io/ for tv
yup that’s what I’m using. Wanted to know about this alternative too :)
Sadly it’s not, and navigating around it takes a little bit of getting used to (trying to close a video for example is a somewhat counter intuitive). But I’ll take it over adds in youtube. That being said, I used it sparsely, as I don’t have much I want to watch there except play the odd song or maybe one or two other videos a week.
For android TV you should use smarttubenext, same as tubular, but with a tv interface.
Honestly looking at the article this seems way less intrusive than pre-roll and mid-roll video ads. If this was to replace them I’d be ok with that. But this is Google so of course it’s just going to be as well as, so my adblocker is staying on for as long as it works
I’m just tired of my electronics doing “extra”. I want to pause the video/player, I don’t want that to activate other activities for my device to perform…I just want to pause the fucking video. They’re all guilty of this though, either they show ads or screenshots of what they want you to watch next. I can’t even pause a video anymore to look at something or show something. The amount of times I’ve paused to have a discussion and the distracting shit plays in the background annoyed me to the point I no longer use the “smart tv” to watch anything and only use the tv hooked up to the comp so I can actually control and have a pleasant viewing experience.
I also noticed that they started showing ads upon opening YouTube on Android TV.
Google sucks so bad.
Hot take: stop paying for Spotify and get YouTube Premium instead.
that is actually a really hot take but also really fucking stupid
pirate everything + get an adblocker
+ buy merch/patreon
Merch is just generating plastic trash.
Just give the person cash money that’s how you properly support somebody for their labour.
How many times will you wear that shiti hoodie?
I don’t get ads. I pay 🤷♂️.
Yeah, apparently paying for a service you use and enjoy is stupid or something. 🤷♂️
I used to watch on ps4, but couldn’t stand the ads anymore so I bought a new PC and repurposed my old PC into a Linux TV box. Now I watch freetube on my TV with no ads and no tracking.
How do you control it? Any fancy integration or just good old mouse?
At first I connected the PS4 dualshock controller to the PC via bluetooth and configured it to move the cursor similarly to how the ps4 works, but the virtual keyboard on Linux Mint kept popping up and going away randomly so I bought a mini Bluetooth keyboard with a small touch pad instead.
I did also try voice commands and it worked great, but I didn’t want to carry a mic around so I never really used it.
Didnt noticed it with smarttube https://smarttubeapp.github.io/ or https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular ;)
This is the way
deleted by creator
This is specifically about TV apps.
if you have an apple tv and an iphone, use youtube in the browser with adguard and airplay. No ads, no bs
Or get a Chromecast and smarttube…
you could also try this for iPhone: https://github.com/arichornloverALT/uYouEnhanced it has sponsorblock included too
Thats why i have a dumb tv with a little linux pc attached to it, so i can open piped and jellyfin in my librewolf browser.
Are you me? Except I use FreeTube instead of Piped. I am so happy with this solution. Years of discontent of watching services going through the enshittification cycle… everything just becoming so underwhelming. This has given me back freedom over my own media consumption. No ads. No endless scrolling through bullshit content. Just a nicely personally curated selection of movies and TV shows (on Jellyfin) and an ad-free YouTube-experience with sponsorblock and dearrow enabled, and blocking of live chats and shorts.
Tell me more, pretend I am in idiot…how do I do this?
- Go to <insert distro>.com
- Download iso
- burn iso to usb stick (ventoy!)
- install on pc
- install ublock origin on firefox
- done
also get a dumb tv ofc
edit: despite what people will say, ubuntu is still a rock solid distro. Alternatively, tumbleweed is brilliant too.
You don’t need a dumb TV, just switch the input. If your TV shows ads when connected to other inputs, yeet that TV out of your house today.
Disconnect it from your network. Hard to serve ads if it can’t contact the servers it is pulling them from.
Yup, working on setting up VLANs so I can keep the stuff I like (DLNA from the NAS) without the stuff I don’t (ads).
Got a new TV a month ago. Fucked up and connected it to wireless, no idea what I was thinking. The only way to kill the connection (from the TV side) was a factory reset.
Windows is like that now. Once you enter an internet connection, you’re screwed. No way out but a full reinstall.
despite what people will say, ubuntu is still a rock solid distro. Alternatively, tumbleweed is brilliant too.
real!! just do the thing to disable snaps and it’s perfect for anyone
EDIT: actually turns out snaps have gotten really good lately, ubuntu is still great!!!
I disagree. Native packages are still a bit more hassle-free, but snaps have gotten really good by now. And you can do some things that debs can’t, like setting up an entire nextcloud installation with a four-words-long terminal command.
huh, cool i didn’t know that!! i havent heard much news of snaps except for when they first came out and were kinda shit lmao
Set up a mini PC like a used Lenovo ThinkCentre, install Linux, and add a keyboard with trackpad. Run Jellyfin and Piped on your homelab, then ‘obtain’ media for your Jellyfin-Instance. Enjoy TV without distractions or tracking!
Follow ups,
Whats the trackpad for?
Any guide on jellyfin setup?
Also homelab 😂😂
Trackpad: Because i decided to not go with anything like kodi, i need a mouse and as i can not use a mouse when sitting on the couch i got a keyboard with integrated trackpad.
Jellyfin: There are a hole lot of guides on jellyfin. Just put it in to youtube and you will find plenty of stuff. The only thing is ‘obtaining’ the media to fill your library. There are a lot of ways and it depends on what language you need your content to be in to make any decision.
Homelab: Well if you want to run anything like piped or jellyfin you need a homelab. This could also be just a RaspberryPi. To get Piped with subscription feed running you can use my guide: https://gist.github.com/WreckingBANG/405235949c655cd8246188ba25c42277
Keyboard+trackpad so you can sit on the couch and have keyboard+mouse controls on the TV.
You could also use Chromecast with SmartTube. Works like a charm. Let me know if you need help with it.
Its not opensource tho, so you are still getting google tracking.
Sure, it was only meant as a way to circumvent ads on the TV
what model? im looking into getting a dumb tv myself but havent found anything good
Well its just old sony tv and i am looking for a replacement with better quality and it is pretty hard to find anything. I will probably just go with a smart tv and never connect it to the internet. You can hack samsung TVs to jump straight into a hdmi input so i will probably do that even tho i am not happy with it.
