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Own a Roku TV or streaming device? You're about to see a lot more ads on your home screen (www.techradar.com)

submitted 10 months ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Ugh. Roku was one of the platforms with fewer ads.

Roku will be adding more ads to the home screens of its devices and TVs in the near future.
The ads will be interactive and 'shoppable' and will cover a range of industries, including restaurants and cars.
Roku already has a significant amount of ads on its home screen, and it is unclear if users will be able to change their preferences for the new ads.

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[–] Malice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (12 children)

I just recently started using my Samsung TVs as dumb screens because they're slow as shit, but a nice side effect is zero ads.

ONN 4k streaming box for $20 at Walmart.
Install a custom launcher.
Install a button remapper for the remote.
Install SmartTubeNext for YouTube (no ads, SponsorBlock).
Install whatever other apps you need (Plex, etc).

FAR better experience. Turn the TV on and it's ready to go in a few seconds, not the ~60-90 seconds it takes the Tizen nonsense to "warm up."

It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better. Can recommend, especially for only $20.

[–] Proxima_Centauri11@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Your comment inspired me, so I picked one up today for my Roku TV, and I had it running in under an hour! We really don't know how many ads we'd been seeing until we stop seeing them. I already had a PiHole on my network, but getting SmartTube running is so nice.

[–] Malice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm glad you're having a better time with it! Honestly, if you watch any amount of YouTube on your TV, it's well worth the $20 just for SmartTubeNext. Such a massive improvement to skip all the sponsor, promotion, intro, etc segments.

[–] Proxima_Centauri11@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Thank you! For me, that's half of it. The other half is removing everything that's not my subscriptions on the home page so I'm not seeing a bunch of "the algorithm". And then being able to boot to the subscriptions page too is so nice.

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