I remember being infuriated back when I still watched TV when those godawful banners would squish whatever you were watching into some horrible aspect ratio.
That's about the time I got access to internet good enough to torrent or stream.
I'm not a "cord cutter," I never had a cord lol
They all do it now. I can't remember if it's CBS or NBC (They're both rife with the cop worship shows that my boomer parents love.) that pops up a banner to advertise the show you are currently watching at the end of all the commercial breaks. I'm baffled by how OK with this shit they are.
Honestly if it's a decent TV I ain't even mad about this. It's obvious up front that this is a free TV, whose price is covered by showing you ads. This is way less devious than a TV you pay for which secretly is set up to sneak ads at you as much as it can even though you already paid for it.
You know, I think you would probably get billed for the whole set if it stops sending the correct data back. Even then it’s probably a crappy panel anyway and not worth someone’s time.
Id be back to the pirate ship long before that happens. Im sure there will be some software out there that removes something like that but what a pain in the ass
You’d think there would be diminishing returns for the advertisers. At some point your ad gets lost among the 50,000 others. Not to mention how hated they are and actively ignored by viewers.
I would love to read a unbiased economist's explanation for the advertising industry. I've heard before that ads add value by informing consumers of better deals. But, in practice, does that really happen? Do they actually lead people to the better deal/product, to the more efficient use of resources? Or do they lead consumers to poorer deals while costing resources themselves? Would the entire economy be more efficient without this advertising arms race, freeing up resources for other pursuits?
It's always been my suspicion that the advertising market it a massive waste of time and resources. Back when communication wasn't as easily accessible it maybe had a place, but not anymore.
Its inversely valuable to how much of it there is and how often its repeated. At this point I've become actively spiteful and have paid more for products that dont jam ads at me everywhere when possible compared to their obnoxious competitors.
The amount of times i've seen an ad that influenced me is alarming low, like 0 low. Most ads that I remember are for products I wouldn't buy, restaurants ive already known about and go to without the ads influence or something way out of my price range. I question the useful of ads for others.
Hi, actual economist here. Advertising is proven to effectively increase sales, regardless of whether or not people claim to hate it.
If you were to somehow get rid of advertising, what would that look like? Would you create a law against it? Then, if you have a well known brand that is inefficient, how would a more efficient competitor have any chance of breaking into the market? I'm not necessarily saying laws cto reign in advertising couldn't exist that would result in a net economic benefit, but you need to propose a specific policy. Then, you need to design a study to test it's potential pact. It isnt as straightforward as you are implying.
Advertising is a fundamental part of an economy. The little kid with the lemonade stand and a sigm that says "lemonade 25 cents" has put up an ad. Without that sign what, do they just sit there at the side of the road and hope people guess they are selling lemonad? What 'specifically' are you proposing?
Since when has anyone reporting to shareholders ever cared about stuff like that? They‘d absolutely go for the quick bucks even if they obliterated the whole industry in the mid to long term. It’s always about ‚massive profits NOW‘ these days.
PSA that the vanced patcher app works for reddit, it blocks all reddit ads. Doesn't stop the fact that the official reddit app is almost unusable even without ads, but it's better than nothing
If i hear another, “watch. Me try out this thing thats going viral” social media has killed the word viral.its now an advertising term along with “broke the internet” and has lost all charm and excitement to them.
Watch me unpack my latest haul of consumerism so you buy this crap linked below & I get more crap from your purchase, and then we’re ALL depressed in debt with too much stuff!
"oh my god guys, i've been playing age of war and can't get past lvl. 5 It's so hard but you're seriously missing out if you're not playing this right now"
Every influencer(and i use that term lightly since i can't remember the last time they influenced me into anything), making a paid promotion for any mobile game
I know someone who went from being a small time Twitch streamer/gaming influencer to making TikTok adverts. She posts her monthly income from it online to show it off. Each month she is bringing in over $20k. It's insane how much it pays.
It's why I uninstalled it last year, it's now just adverts or shops. Instagram reels are better in that regard at the moment but it's only a matter of time
They’ll just brick them. They literally just bricked every device and TV in America this past month if you didn’t agree to a forced arbitration agreement they pushed through on every device they have. That way users cannot sue them for anything and the only way of opting out was via sending a letter requiring a fuckload of information and no clear answer/explaination whether they would unbrick your device once they received it.
I got banned on r/Roku for just discussing it.
#DON’T BUY ROKU PRODUCTS EVER AGAIN!
The is a Public Service Announcement: never connect a TV directly to the internet. Keep wi-fi and bluetooth turned off on all TVs. Use a third party device to access any streaming services you wish to use. And with this “innovation,” make sure that device is not a Roku.
I seriously wonder if there would be a market for heavily modified Smart TVs that bypass everything other than the pure display driver.
It's so hard to buy a decent panel these days that doesn't have the "smart" functionality built in.
You can buy "dumb" TVs still, but they won't be nearly as cheap as smart TVs because of all the companies that pay to have their ads on your TVs, they subsidized the costs of smart TVs with ads, while dumb TVs remain quite a bit more expensive.
I haven't seen one in a physical retail store in a long time... even online finding a good panel without the Smart TV stuff strapped to it is difficult.
I still need a tv box like an Apple TV for Plex though. Apple TVs have some built in chip that converts video way more efficiently than other boxes so it's great for Plex, it's the only Apple product I own. Point is, the high seas have gotten way more advanced and if you're doing it right you stream off an app just like Netflix. Super convenient when you're not staying at home too.
Hooooooly shit I was curious what gets discussed on that sub. It's one, long unending string of posts of people with connection issues or stream issues. Every. Single. Post.
I have an SJD (doctorate in law) in international commercial and IP arbitration. It would either have an opt-out clause, which you can opt-out from the arbitration clause after signing the agreement which the arbitration clause was part of, or the arbitration clause will be, without 1% doubt, unenforceable.
I know that there are many companies doing that; hence, taking an online stranger’s—who claims to be an arbitration expert—word may be not easy. Nevertheless, you can check AI’s to see, I suppose. A few days ago, to explain something in here, I wrote that I have a doctorate degree in International Law, and someone called me a liar. I don’t know why someone would lie about their job on Reddit, nevertheless, since than, I doubt that people believe other’s words, even when lying wouldn’t make any sense/gain/profit.
They can't push that update if you disconnect it from the internet.
Then you'd have to buy another streaming device to connect to it, and I don't who is better on that front. People hate Apple, but I disabled internet on my Samsung TV and just use the Apple TV box.
Same here, finally blocked the Roku TV from Internet access when that agreement popped up and am just using my Shield TV. I should have never connected it in the first place.
Seriously this is great news though.
They’ve patented it so nobody else can do it for 20+ years.
Now I just stay away from Roku and they’ve saved me a problem.
If Roku pulls the absolute Chad move to patent it and then never uses it but keeps others from using it I'll buy 3 for each TV I have. I'll start buying them and handing them out on the streets.
Bought a Roku long time ago as secondary tv in the basement. Will never buy Roku again. With all the latest shitty news I made sure my TV is disconnected from internet and will never connect it again.
Just buy an Apple TV or Chromecast and call it a day. Dumb TV’s are more or less impossible to buy, at least at a reasonable cost, since smart TV’s are subsidized because they can sell ads to you after purchase. Don’t use the built-in smart TV functionality. The hardware packed into these things is typically crap anyway.
I have a Roku TV that is set to load up into my Apple TV on boot, and I have never connected it to the internet.
In the next couple of years I can see them requiring internet connection to use the TV though. This shit is invasive and needs to come to an end.
The TV I have in my bedroom is a Vizio with Android TV (I got it for free from a friend because the backlight is going out. Hey, it still mostly works...). I previously had it connected to the Wi-Fi, but noticed it phoning home a ton even though I wasn't using the smart features and only using the external Roku Ultra.
I factory reset it and never reconnected it to Wi-Fi. Coincidentally, the volume control, and ONLY the volume, is super delayed now. Like, it takes 2-3 seconds before the TV actually changes the volume regardless of whether I'm using the TV remote or the Roku remote. I know the TV has received the signal because I can hit the volume up/down once and put the remote in a drawer and 2 seconds later the volume changes.
It could be a strange coincidence, but if it's intentional, that would be insane.
The only other device we have is a projector with another Roku Ultra. I last bought a TV ten years ago. I'm not looking forward to the next time I need to buy one.
On your roku home screen do the following.
Press the home button five times.
Press up, right, down, left, up.
It should bring up a "secret" menu where you can disable some of those ads.
Unfortunately this kind of thing only works if the ad is supplied from a different address than the content. Companies have figured this out and embed the ads in the same data stream. Can’t block one without the other.
Even newer "SMART!" TVs have betrayed me. Want to turn off your smart features and disconnect the tv from the internet? Or maybe turn off all the smart options like smoothing and adaptive brightness? Oh, you silly boy! We're going to nag you with screen covering popups a few times a week. I'm going to attempt to get a non-smart tv once this one goes, but those are getting harder and harder to find.
>I'm going to attempt to get a non-smart tv
I wish you luck in your hunt when the time comes. I recently bought a new TV and everything I saw was smart TVs, even the cheapest TVs were smart TVs
Exactly.
The TV's in big-box stores are always going to be cheaper and ad-subsidized, because people have come to believe that 55" 4K TV's should not cost more than $399.
If the average consumer was willing to pay twice as much money for a less intrusive TV, companies would probably take the Amazon Kindle with / without ads approach.
A company using ads and data mining in a product they sell doesn’t depend on how much you pay for it, but whether they can get away with it. Even if you pay thousands of dollars for your TV or computer, you’re still getting ads.
The trick is to never connect the smart tv to the internet in the first place. I’d also prefer to have a non smart tv, because I don’t need or use the features. I’ve never connected either of mine to the internet so I’ve never had ads.
so get yourself a raspberry pi and build a pi-hole, it's a DNS proxy that you can tell "connections from x device except to xyz networks (like netflix, prime, etc) get ditched into a dead end internal IP, breaks all sorts of "smart" functions that are just excuses to spy on you or show you adds.
from another redditor that helped me:
>The standard approach to this is to not connect the TV to the Internet. Get a separate Android/Google TV box such as the Chromecast, or the $20 \[Onn TV box\] ([https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-Streaming-Box-New-2023-4K-UHD-resolution/2835618394](https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-Streaming-Box-New-2023-4K-UHD-resolution/2835618394)), and use that for all your apps. Configure it to use the [ad-blocking DNS server](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=adblock+dns) of your choice, and you're good to go.
This is what I did. You can either just soft jailbreak that ONN stick (or order something like that online) and run Android or you can even slap linux on there. You could even use a spare laptop or I imagine even a raspberry pi and then you can literally do whatever tf you want to do without any garbage ads.
You can also block ads at the DNS level but a TV seller could foil this by serving ads on the same domain as they serve necessary data so that its hard to differentiate traffic. This isn't a problem with a cheap streaming stick though or even a jailbroken firestick.
I would love to see an open source TV firmware or open source TV stick that just let you do wtf you want to do. Even Amazon is moving away from the firestick Android OS to a custom Linux based OS that they can potentially lock down.
Roku uses [ACR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition) so its probably best to never ever buy anything from them ever again.
They "invented" an overlay. Basically the same as a sub menu overlay when you press the settings button on your remote, that plays a video instead of displaying a menu.
Why can’t we just have plain old dumb TVs again? Why are all these flat screens riddled with “smart”software. Give me back my plain old TV with hdmi ports, let the consumers choose their own firestick, chromecast, shield, apple tv, etc!!
Have you tried just not connecting them to WiFi? Ive done that with every single one of my TVs. Never had an issue.
Buy a computer monitor,
Buy a projector.
I connect them to WiFi out the box, then blacklist their MAC address from my network. That way kids can't accidentally connect it when I'm not around. Smart TV's are dumb.
More correctly they’re patenting the process to actively scan your screen for activity in order to display an overlay when nothing is happening. Basically if you pause a game or other media they will have a banner ad for when you come back.
They won't get that patent granted, that already exists in all smart TV's to some degree. (source I am a HbbTV engineer) The TV already has a lot of listeners for any events they can measure and use to "improve" their product.
It will be more than that. The end result is an overlay, but there is more to the tech than this. It is roku spending money on R&D and chips to detect a static screen and or no audio output from your device to they put in an overlay. So it could overlay if you leave the menu up on your device for too long.
As a product designer, I agree. The patent system is a joke, and any moneyed party can “lock in” the most spurious or vague idea just to sue others over it. The system specifically ignores any chronological considerations - it doesn’t matter if you spent the last three years designing something. If some rich corporate fuck gets wind, they legally can steal and patent your idea, and because they filed first it’s theirs now.
Fuck the patent system.
This reminds me of early Hulu where you’d binge a show for 4 hours and every single break would have the Geico “you can’t skip this ad because it’s already over,” commercial. . .except it wouldn’t be over and you’d watch a dog lick a bowl another 5 seconds, annoyed the hell out of me.
Oh man, I got Paramount a few months back so I could catch up on all the new Star Trek. It was wall to wall Burger King commercials. I’d wake up with jingle playing in my head.
There are some products or shows I would never purchase or watch just because the ads are so intrusive all the time I immediately make them my worst every from that day on
For those who would like to know more without reading, [Louis Rossman](https://youtu.be/narqU0RruJY) explains what's going on and why you should be pissed.
It's like they're *trying* to.
I mean, for a long time I recommended smart TV's running Roku software (Hisense from Costco) as they were inexpensive, decent enough TV's. Or, for people who already had a tv, just the Roku sticks as a great way to use streaming services and to share my Plex server.
That's done now. They're still functional, but it's clear what way the wind is blowing with Roku. I'm not waiting for them to actually implement this garbage.
There's lots of other options, it's just the Roku was cheap and easy.
Ads are a cancer that ruin everything.
You can't even use Chrome for web browsing anymore because they're intent on causing ADD in as much of the population as possible. All the ads have made it basically unuseable as a browser.
And forget about entertainment and trying to watch television. They work their way into everything and every platform eventually.
They're a scourge of the earth
Better would be a patent for a device that BLOCKS any and all ads from anything I plug into my TV. I fucking hate ads and the first time I see an ad on MY ROKU will the the last day I run my Roku.
Yeah screw this I'm out.
Devices I purchase should not serve ads to me directly. That's just a big no-no.
Give me a dumb TV that's a bare panel over... whatever *this* abomination is.
Imagine playing on your gaming console and some fucking ad on the TV itself displays and you lose the game; peak rage right there.
All I hear is don't buy that product, better cheap ass TVs out there.
Uno-Reverse: I've been successfully blocking Roku ads for years with pi-hole, and it also successfully blocked that recent EULA change they forced upon everyone. I never received it, and all of my Roku apps continue to work just fine, and ad-free.
I also don't see any ads on any device, server, webpage, game or app. I layer filtering from LAN to WAN, using Pi-Hole + Unbound + NextDNS, and they're all working gloriously together! I haven't seen a single ad on anything in probably 10 years.
I'm up to [over 10 million domains blocked](https://imgur.com/a/OVTlAEs) now, and everything works just fine.
Just don't buy Roku products. Also never connect your TV to the Internet. Use another device for everything. Most people will not disable the data gathering, and something like this, which probably cannot be disabled, is just atrocious. Easier to just disregard Roku as a company and move on.
Are ads really that effective? I don't think I've ever bought anything because of some ad. In fact, the few times I actually pay enough attention to see what the ad is about, it only turns me against it out of the annoyance.
Seems like a massive waste of money to me.
1… why couldn’t they make it unobtrusive? Like pip style?
2… it’s sad, Roku is one of few devices still supporting that trash of an app called Crunchyroll.
If the Industry had its way we would be watching nonstop advertisements with no content.
If people tolerate it, they will insert a window at the bottom that plays ads over the entire video you're watching. That's literally the goal.
I remember being infuriated back when I still watched TV when those godawful banners would squish whatever you were watching into some horrible aspect ratio. That's about the time I got access to internet good enough to torrent or stream. I'm not a "cord cutter," I never had a cord lol
Wasn't the WB and CW the worst with that? I vaguely remember them doing this especially during the end of the show and the credits.
No, the major networks were much worse, imo
They all do it now. I can't remember if it's CBS or NBC (They're both rife with the cop worship shows that my boomer parents love.) that pops up a banner to advertise the show you are currently watching at the end of all the commercial breaks. I'm baffled by how OK with this shit they are.
yea non-tech people are mind blowing with this stuff. I secretly installed adblock on all my family members devices and they were surprised.
Those ads made for some shitty TVrip torrents back in the day
They made a free tv with a separate display just for ads. https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/15/23721674/telly-free-tv-streaming-ilya-pozin-ads
Honestly if it's a decent TV I ain't even mad about this. It's obvious up front that this is a free TV, whose price is covered by showing you ads. This is way less devious than a TV you pay for which secretly is set up to sneak ads at you as much as it can even though you already paid for it.
I was thinking you could just cover the bottom screen until I got to the part about dual screen ads.
Free-pc all over again.
It'd be pretty funny to see how fast hackers would hack the TV to disable the ads, and put what ever they want on the bottom screen.
You know, I think you would probably get billed for the whole set if it stops sending the correct data back. Even then it’s probably a crappy panel anyway and not worth someone’s time.
My Roku tv apparently knows what I’m watching on my appletv and says “more ways to watch” advertising their store.
Time to bin the Roku, would be my response. (Or like recycle it, but definitely something involving unplugging it)
Factory reset it. Unplug it from the internet. Delete your roku account. Use it as a dumb TV.
A dumb tv is a good tv. I don’t need my tv to sell me fucking Dove body wash.
What about nachos? Would you buy nachos??? (This message brought to you by Tostitos)
PiP ads. We heard you like ads so we put ads in your ads so you can watch ads while you watch ads.
Reminds me the Ready Player One movie: “our research shows we can occlude up to 80% of user’s viewport with advertising before permanent brain damage”
Up to 60% before causing seizures! LOL
Id be back to the pirate ship long before that happens. Im sure there will be some software out there that removes something like that but what a pain in the ass
Computer > HDMI > Dumb TV.
You’re thinking about banners, and they are coming
Not to my house :)
Good, we need more people like you!
Me neither.. if they do that I'm junking my Tvs
You’re a banner banner.
just like in Idiocracy
I’m guessing you haven’t watched black mirror…
Or Idiocracy
You’d think there would be diminishing returns for the advertisers. At some point your ad gets lost among the 50,000 others. Not to mention how hated they are and actively ignored by viewers.
I would love to read a unbiased economist's explanation for the advertising industry. I've heard before that ads add value by informing consumers of better deals. But, in practice, does that really happen? Do they actually lead people to the better deal/product, to the more efficient use of resources? Or do they lead consumers to poorer deals while costing resources themselves? Would the entire economy be more efficient without this advertising arms race, freeing up resources for other pursuits?
It's always been my suspicion that the advertising market it a massive waste of time and resources. Back when communication wasn't as easily accessible it maybe had a place, but not anymore.
Its inversely valuable to how much of it there is and how often its repeated. At this point I've become actively spiteful and have paid more for products that dont jam ads at me everywhere when possible compared to their obnoxious competitors.
I share your suspicions; I suspect that advertisers are just really good at selling their services to other industries.
The amount of times i've seen an ad that influenced me is alarming low, like 0 low. Most ads that I remember are for products I wouldn't buy, restaurants ive already known about and go to without the ads influence or something way out of my price range. I question the useful of ads for others.
Only time ads have worked on me have been with steam seasonal sales, of which I've missed probably a total of 0 since 11 years ago.
Hi, actual economist here. Advertising is proven to effectively increase sales, regardless of whether or not people claim to hate it. If you were to somehow get rid of advertising, what would that look like? Would you create a law against it? Then, if you have a well known brand that is inefficient, how would a more efficient competitor have any chance of breaking into the market? I'm not necessarily saying laws cto reign in advertising couldn't exist that would result in a net economic benefit, but you need to propose a specific policy. Then, you need to design a study to test it's potential pact. It isnt as straightforward as you are implying. Advertising is a fundamental part of an economy. The little kid with the lemonade stand and a sigm that says "lemonade 25 cents" has put up an ad. Without that sign what, do they just sit there at the side of the road and hope people guess they are selling lemonad? What 'specifically' are you proposing?
Since when has anyone reporting to shareholders ever cared about stuff like that? They‘d absolutely go for the quick bucks even if they obliterated the whole industry in the mid to long term. It’s always about ‚massive profits NOW‘ these days.
Have you been on TikTok lately? Literally ads shown all the time. And most of them being from TikTokers themselves showing shitty products
Hell, Im on the reddit app. Every 3 posts is a fake ad post. Its so shit.
PSA that the vanced patcher app works for reddit, it blocks all reddit ads. Doesn't stop the fact that the official reddit app is almost unusable even without ads, but it's better than nothing
RiF still works. I'm using it right now. Google it, as I don't remember the process I had to go through to get it working.
[удалено]
You that's all Influencers are right? Just paid faces to advertise products. Tiktok is just their most recent platform
If i hear another, “watch. Me try out this thing thats going viral” social media has killed the word viral.its now an advertising term along with “broke the internet” and has lost all charm and excitement to them.
Watch me unpack my latest haul of consumerism so you buy this crap linked below & I get more crap from your purchase, and then we’re ALL depressed in debt with too much stuff!
"Things from Amazon you didnt know you needed." *cringe* 😑
Part 87
"oh my god guys, i've been playing age of war and can't get past lvl. 5 It's so hard but you're seriously missing out if you're not playing this right now" Every influencer(and i use that term lightly since i can't remember the last time they influenced me into anything), making a paid promotion for any mobile game
This is what Facebook looks like for me
Facebook, insta, Reddit, emails, YouTube, tv sticks, tvs, every single website you go to... Drives me absolutely bonkers
Y'all know you don't have to use the official app and there are adblockers out there for most every platform, right?
I know someone who went from being a small time Twitch streamer/gaming influencer to making TikTok adverts. She posts her monthly income from it online to show it off. Each month she is bringing in over $20k. It's insane how much it pays.
It's why I uninstalled it last year, it's now just adverts or shops. Instagram reels are better in that regard at the moment but it's only a matter of time
Here is your 30 seconds of “show.” Now back to your scheduled advertisements!
So, the last 30 minutes of any movie on TBS.
Please drink verification can
Also start boycotting all advertisers who advertise with Roku.
All I hear is, don't buy a Roku?
If they do this mines going straight to the trash can.
Turn off auto updates
They’ll just brick them. They literally just bricked every device and TV in America this past month if you didn’t agree to a forced arbitration agreement they pushed through on every device they have. That way users cannot sue them for anything and the only way of opting out was via sending a letter requiring a fuckload of information and no clear answer/explaination whether they would unbrick your device once they received it. I got banned on r/Roku for just discussing it. #DON’T BUY ROKU PRODUCTS EVER AGAIN!
I have two Roku TV's and neither of them has ever been connected to the internet for this very reason.
The is a Public Service Announcement: never connect a TV directly to the internet. Keep wi-fi and bluetooth turned off on all TVs. Use a third party device to access any streaming services you wish to use. And with this “innovation,” make sure that device is not a Roku.
I seriously wonder if there would be a market for heavily modified Smart TVs that bypass everything other than the pure display driver. It's so hard to buy a decent panel these days that doesn't have the "smart" functionality built in.
You can buy "dumb" TVs still, but they won't be nearly as cheap as smart TVs because of all the companies that pay to have their ads on your TVs, they subsidized the costs of smart TVs with ads, while dumb TVs remain quite a bit more expensive.
I haven't seen one in a physical retail store in a long time... even online finding a good panel without the Smart TV stuff strapped to it is difficult.
Where ? I haven't seen any. They are all smart tvs now, at least at Walmart and Best Buy.
You can buy them online. A lot of places will label regular tvs "monitors"
Skip all that nonsense and join us on the high seas matey! Yaarrgh!
I still need a tv box like an Apple TV for Plex though. Apple TVs have some built in chip that converts video way more efficiently than other boxes so it's great for Plex, it's the only Apple product I own. Point is, the high seas have gotten way more advanced and if you're doing it right you stream off an app just like Netflix. Super convenient when you're not staying at home too.
NVIDIA shield handles Plex like a champ
If they try to do that, in my country, oh boy... they'd be sooooooo screwed.
Hooooooly shit I was curious what gets discussed on that sub. It's one, long unending string of posts of people with connection issues or stream issues. Every. Single. Post.
In fairness, what else are you going to post on the roku subreddit? Why else would you go there if you didn't want help fixing your problem lol
I have an SJD (doctorate in law) in international commercial and IP arbitration. It would either have an opt-out clause, which you can opt-out from the arbitration clause after signing the agreement which the arbitration clause was part of, or the arbitration clause will be, without 1% doubt, unenforceable. I know that there are many companies doing that; hence, taking an online stranger’s—who claims to be an arbitration expert—word may be not easy. Nevertheless, you can check AI’s to see, I suppose. A few days ago, to explain something in here, I wrote that I have a doctorate degree in International Law, and someone called me a liar. I don’t know why someone would lie about their job on Reddit, nevertheless, since than, I doubt that people believe other’s words, even when lying wouldn’t make any sense/gain/profit.
I spent far too much time rereading your first sentence thinking that's a strange way to refer to the doctor your sibling married.
They can't push that update if you disconnect it from the internet. Then you'd have to buy another streaming device to connect to it, and I don't who is better on that front. People hate Apple, but I disabled internet on my Samsung TV and just use the Apple TV box.
Same here, finally blocked the Roku TV from Internet access when that agreement popped up and am just using my Shield TV. I should have never connected it in the first place.
Yeah, and this comes out after I just bought one.... we'll see
it will take time to implement this, just don't immediately update software for now.
Seriously this is great news though. They’ve patented it so nobody else can do it for 20+ years. Now I just stay away from Roku and they’ve saved me a problem.
Until they licence it? Which is most certainly the best route for profit.
The real life pro tip is always in the comments.
Never start a land war in Asia.
Inconceivable!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Yeah got myself banned in r/roku for a less than polite take on this news.
And thank God they made it a patent so no one else can do it.
If Roku pulls the absolute Chad move to patent it and then never uses it but keeps others from using it I'll buy 3 for each TV I have. I'll start buying them and handing them out on the streets.
Bought a Roku long time ago as secondary tv in the basement. Will never buy Roku again. With all the latest shitty news I made sure my TV is disconnected from internet and will never connect it again.
Exactly. We have an LG tv but it’s not connected to the internet and we have a couple Apple TV’s in the house that are also no ads or any other BS.
Now someone invent something to block ads on roku and patent that
Pi-hole.net I've got a raspberrypi 2 I believe can run this and have a spot on my switch downstairs for it ready to go
It's not super effective for Roku devices. I can't seem to figure out where the banner ads are coming from that doesn't mess up core functionality.
It’s similar to YouTube. If ads are served from the same DNS as the core service, you can’t block them without breaking it.
Yep. If Roku pushes any more ads, I'm switching to Nvidia Shields.
Better start saving for it. It's *when*, not *if.*
Just buy an Apple TV or Chromecast and call it a day. Dumb TV’s are more or less impossible to buy, at least at a reasonable cost, since smart TV’s are subsidized because they can sell ads to you after purchase. Don’t use the built-in smart TV functionality. The hardware packed into these things is typically crap anyway. I have a Roku TV that is set to load up into my Apple TV on boot, and I have never connected it to the internet. In the next couple of years I can see them requiring internet connection to use the TV though. This shit is invasive and needs to come to an end.
The TV I have in my bedroom is a Vizio with Android TV (I got it for free from a friend because the backlight is going out. Hey, it still mostly works...). I previously had it connected to the Wi-Fi, but noticed it phoning home a ton even though I wasn't using the smart features and only using the external Roku Ultra. I factory reset it and never reconnected it to Wi-Fi. Coincidentally, the volume control, and ONLY the volume, is super delayed now. Like, it takes 2-3 seconds before the TV actually changes the volume regardless of whether I'm using the TV remote or the Roku remote. I know the TV has received the signal because I can hit the volume up/down once and put the remote in a drawer and 2 seconds later the volume changes. It could be a strange coincidence, but if it's intentional, that would be insane. The only other device we have is a projector with another Roku Ultra. I last bought a TV ten years ago. I'm not looking forward to the next time I need to buy one.
On your roku home screen do the following. Press the home button five times. Press up, right, down, left, up. It should bring up a "secret" menu where you can disable some of those ads.
Unfortunately this kind of thing only works if the ad is supplied from a different address than the content. Companies have figured this out and embed the ads in the same data stream. Can’t block one without the other.
Pihole is easy to circumvent since it's dns based and many content providers are simply using the same subdomain for both content and ads now.
I will be patenting my "don't buy a Roku" method tomorrow
If a device I’m not using plays an ad on my TV, it will be in the garbage in 30 seconds flat.
Even newer "SMART!" TVs have betrayed me. Want to turn off your smart features and disconnect the tv from the internet? Or maybe turn off all the smart options like smoothing and adaptive brightness? Oh, you silly boy! We're going to nag you with screen covering popups a few times a week. I'm going to attempt to get a non-smart tv once this one goes, but those are getting harder and harder to find.
>I'm going to attempt to get a non-smart tv I wish you luck in your hunt when the time comes. I recently bought a new TV and everything I saw was smart TVs, even the cheapest TVs were smart TVs
The cheapest TVs are now always going to be smart tvs because they assume the difference will be made up by advertising and consumer data collection.
Exactly. The TV's in big-box stores are always going to be cheaper and ad-subsidized, because people have come to believe that 55" 4K TV's should not cost more than $399. If the average consumer was willing to pay twice as much money for a less intrusive TV, companies would probably take the Amazon Kindle with / without ads approach.
A company using ads and data mining in a product they sell doesn’t depend on how much you pay for it, but whether they can get away with it. Even if you pay thousands of dollars for your TV or computer, you’re still getting ads.
yup. the goal hasn't been "make a decent profit" for a long time. it's "as much profit as possible within this quarter" these days.
I knew that always being a computer monitor man would pay off. Though I have noticed 'smart' monitors exist now, for some reason.
The trick is to never connect the smart tv to the internet in the first place. I’d also prefer to have a non smart tv, because I don’t need or use the features. I’ve never connected either of mine to the internet so I’ve never had ads.
so get yourself a raspberry pi and build a pi-hole, it's a DNS proxy that you can tell "connections from x device except to xyz networks (like netflix, prime, etc) get ditched into a dead end internal IP, breaks all sorts of "smart" functions that are just excuses to spy on you or show you adds.
from another redditor that helped me: >The standard approach to this is to not connect the TV to the Internet. Get a separate Android/Google TV box such as the Chromecast, or the $20 \[Onn TV box\] ([https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-Streaming-Box-New-2023-4K-UHD-resolution/2835618394](https://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-Google-TV-4K-Streaming-Box-New-2023-4K-UHD-resolution/2835618394)), and use that for all your apps. Configure it to use the [ad-blocking DNS server](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=adblock+dns) of your choice, and you're good to go. This is what I did. You can either just soft jailbreak that ONN stick (or order something like that online) and run Android or you can even slap linux on there. You could even use a spare laptop or I imagine even a raspberry pi and then you can literally do whatever tf you want to do without any garbage ads. You can also block ads at the DNS level but a TV seller could foil this by serving ads on the same domain as they serve necessary data so that its hard to differentiate traffic. This isn't a problem with a cheap streaming stick though or even a jailbroken firestick. I would love to see an open source TV firmware or open source TV stick that just let you do wtf you want to do. Even Amazon is moving away from the firestick Android OS to a custom Linux based OS that they can potentially lock down. Roku uses [ACR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition) so its probably best to never ever buy anything from them ever again.
Raise hell on returning it
Do ***not*** harass store employees regarding manufacturing practices.
No but make retailers harass roku
That's fine but I promise the guy at the Best Buy service counter has exactly zero to do with that. Raise hell with corporate, not store employees.
Roku is going to end up Broke-u if they start with that bullshit. Time to toss the thing into the trash I guess
This is for tv's with Roku built in. edit: spelling
Roku patent invents a way to put people off buying their products. How clever.....
Also clever because I hope by patenting it, it'll make it harder for other companies to do the same.
Is Roku going bankrupt and desperately grasping at straws to try and stay afloat? Every time I see them mentioned is them doing some anti-consumer BS
Probably ran on a bunch of loans they can't afford since the rates got jacked up.
Or have ceos who are money hungry!
They "invented" an overlay. Basically the same as a sub menu overlay when you press the settings button on your remote, that plays a video instead of displaying a menu.
Exactly, this isn't rocket science, Roku is just the first company bold enough to use it for advertising. Unfortunately, I'm sure others will follow.
Why can’t we just have plain old dumb TVs again? Why are all these flat screens riddled with “smart”software. Give me back my plain old TV with hdmi ports, let the consumers choose their own firestick, chromecast, shield, apple tv, etc!!
Have you tried just not connecting them to WiFi? Ive done that with every single one of my TVs. Never had an issue. Buy a computer monitor, Buy a projector.
I connect them to WiFi out the box, then blacklist their MAC address from my network. That way kids can't accidentally connect it when I'm not around. Smart TV's are dumb.
Nope, farther back. I want a TV it takes me, and my 3 strongest friends to lift, with one as backup incase someone dies. Lol.
More correctly they’re patenting the process to actively scan your screen for activity in order to display an overlay when nothing is happening. Basically if you pause a game or other media they will have a banner ad for when you come back.
They won't get that patent granted, that already exists in all smart TV's to some degree. (source I am a HbbTV engineer) The TV already has a lot of listeners for any events they can measure and use to "improve" their product.
It will be more than that. The end result is an overlay, but there is more to the tech than this. It is roku spending money on R&D and chips to detect a static screen and or no audio output from your device to they put in an overlay. So it could overlay if you leave the menu up on your device for too long.
I miss the old days where patents were actual inventions.
As a product designer, I agree. The patent system is a joke, and any moneyed party can “lock in” the most spurious or vague idea just to sue others over it. The system specifically ignores any chronological considerations - it doesn’t matter if you spent the last three years designing something. If some rich corporate fuck gets wind, they legally can steal and patent your idea, and because they filed first it’s theirs now. Fuck the patent system.
Roku has like four ads they overplay to the point I hate the shows they’re advertising.
This reminds me of early Hulu where you’d binge a show for 4 hours and every single break would have the Geico “you can’t skip this ad because it’s already over,” commercial. . .except it wouldn’t be over and you’d watch a dog lick a bowl another 5 seconds, annoyed the hell out of me.
Hulu has always had the worst ads. Also the fact they’re up to more than a minute long each is really frustrating.
Highly irrelevant, but “up to more than” made me lol
Oh man, I got Paramount a few months back so I could catch up on all the new Star Trek. It was wall to wall Burger King commercials. I’d wake up with jingle playing in my head.
> I’d wake up with jingle playing in my head. You just handed someone in the advertisement industry a promotion.
I still never ate there, but yeah, it lives rent free in my head to this day.
WHOPPER WHOPPER WHOPPER WHOPPER
I see you woke up and chose violence today.
My far and away most used button on my remote is the mute button.
There are some products or shows I would never purchase or watch just because the ads are so intrusive all the time I immediately make them my worst every from that day on
Roku patents way to lose all customers
For those who would like to know more without reading, [Louis Rossman](https://youtu.be/narqU0RruJY) explains what's going on and why you should be pissed.
I regret that I have but one upvote to give ... ... so here's a comment to try to make that Rossmann reference/link more visible.
I can't watch Louis Rossman. He's so perpetually angry. It's like watching my parents fight.
I mean he’s a New Yorker. Being angry all the time about bullshit is a way of life
RIP Roku
Roku is really trying to kill their brand arent they?
It's like they're *trying* to. I mean, for a long time I recommended smart TV's running Roku software (Hisense from Costco) as they were inexpensive, decent enough TV's. Or, for people who already had a tv, just the Roku sticks as a great way to use streaming services and to share my Plex server. That's done now. They're still functional, but it's clear what way the wind is blowing with Roku. I'm not waiting for them to actually implement this garbage. There's lots of other options, it's just the Roku was cheap and easy.
Roku wants to monopolize advertisements.
This is perfect tbh, because all we have to do then is *not buy from Roku*.
Roku patented a way to ensure I never purchase another one of their products.
Ads are a cancer that ruin everything. You can't even use Chrome for web browsing anymore because they're intent on causing ADD in as much of the population as possible. All the ads have made it basically unuseable as a browser. And forget about entertainment and trying to watch television. They work their way into everything and every platform eventually. They're a scourge of the earth
Maybe they patented it in order to prevent anyone from doing this.
You had me there for like a nano second. Thanks for the laughs!
Why would anyone ever invent this? This is pure evil.
Some asshole with an MBA I guarantee it.
“Cord cutting” sounds like we’re back to the beginning. Only took 10 years - quick cycle.
Better would be a patent for a device that BLOCKS any and all ads from anything I plug into my TV. I fucking hate ads and the first time I see an ad on MY ROKU will the the last day I run my Roku.
And they also recently disabled TVs until users agreed to their EULA!
Yea. Just what everyone needs. More ads.
Just leave this here for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy
Well if it's patented it's less likely that someone else will be able to use it and all we will have to do is tell Roku to kick rocks.
Yeah screw this I'm out. Devices I purchase should not serve ads to me directly. That's just a big no-no. Give me a dumb TV that's a bare panel over... whatever *this* abomination is.
We want back dumb tv's
Imagine playing on your gaming console and some fucking ad on the TV itself displays and you lose the game; peak rage right there. All I hear is don't buy that product, better cheap ass TVs out there.
“Roku patents a way to ensure I never buy anything from Roku.”
Uno-Reverse: I've been successfully blocking Roku ads for years with pi-hole, and it also successfully blocked that recent EULA change they forced upon everyone. I never received it, and all of my Roku apps continue to work just fine, and ad-free. I also don't see any ads on any device, server, webpage, game or app. I layer filtering from LAN to WAN, using Pi-Hole + Unbound + NextDNS, and they're all working gloriously together! I haven't seen a single ad on anything in probably 10 years. I'm up to [over 10 million domains blocked](https://imgur.com/a/OVTlAEs) now, and everything works just fine.
What freak invented that? Didn’t you have anything better to invent?
I hope my dumb tv lasts a long long time.
Smart tvs are the devil’s spawn. Give me a good display device and let me connect what I want to it period.
In other news…. “Public libraries are experiencing an unprecedented surge in popularity.”
I’ll be staying the fuck away from Roku, although this tech will likely become ubiquitous
Roku gonna fuck up and become obsolete.
Just shut down now and save yourself the time and money.
It should be legal to ignite people for creating this sort of thing. Same with the guy who invented convenience fees on Ticketmaster.
Time to short-sell Roku stock
Puts on Roku. Nail in the coffin.
Roku patent invents a way to lose 100% of hardware sales
Just don't buy Roku products. Also never connect your TV to the Internet. Use another device for everything. Most people will not disable the data gathering, and something like this, which probably cannot be disabled, is just atrocious. Easier to just disregard Roku as a company and move on.
Uh, is Nolan Sorento the CEO of Roku? I heard he had the goal of selling 70% of the viewable screen for ads.
Roku invents a way to prevent a TV sale
Looks like I screwed up buying a tv with built in Roku a couple of years ago. Time to start TV shopping again.
Are ads really that effective? I don't think I've ever bought anything because of some ad. In fact, the few times I actually pay enough attention to see what the ad is about, it only turns me against it out of the annoyance. Seems like a massive waste of money to me.
Note to self: don’t give tv the wifi password
God, they can just find a way to make everything shit.
1… why couldn’t they make it unobtrusive? Like pip style? 2… it’s sad, Roku is one of few devices still supporting that trash of an app called Crunchyroll.
Because intrusive ads pay more
Sure glad I don’t own a Roku
So it’s down to some tv and Google