Comment by FloatArtifact

13 hours ago

Open source all you want! It doesn't change the fact that they're spying the contents of your screen no matter what input is being used with Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology

https://docs.roku.com/published/acrservicepolicy/en/CA

30 comments

FloatArtifact

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psadauskas  5 minutes ago

My router has a separate network for "appliances" (roku boxes, thermostats, etc) that has a very restrictive firewall that only allows internet access according to a manual allowlist.

riedel  12 hours ago

The original idea of open source or rather free software is to bmactually "own" the code in a way that you can modify it to your needs. Guess this is not the case here, then. But I guess also most of android falls in that category that by now. I guess we should be using better,more attributes when describing open source

  • miki123211  4 hours ago

    There's at least:

    source available - whether you can read the code

    open source - whether you can run (a modified version of) the code on some piece of hardware you own

    open hardware - whether the hardware they sell you lets you run modified versions of their code

    open contribution - whether they want your modifications

    free software - whether your modifications have to be open source too

    If it's at least source available, it can have any combination of these.

    • JacobKfromIRC  1 hour ago

      I think your definition of "free software" is too strict, otherwise public domain software would not be free software

    • nwah1  2 hours ago

      open hardware to me means that you have access to all of the specifications for building the hardware. Things like when the laptop company Framework posts github repos full of CAD models. Or, initiatives like RISC V.

      And, alongside that, there's also open firmware.

      Unlocked hardware is maybe what I would call hardware that enables swapping out the software. Although, historically, we didn't even need a term for that, because that was the default aside from outliers like Apple.

  • bogwog  4 hours ago

    "Free software" has always been a misleading term, unfortunately. Maybe calling it "Freedom software" instead would be clearer.

    But when you conflate free software with open source, you get confused people cheerleading their own abuse. Android is probably the worst offender here. Google Chrome, VSCode are others that come to mind.

  • functionmouse  4 hours ago

    The idea of free software, yes, is to own the code in a way that you can modify it to your needs. The idea of "open source" as a mantra is to confuse and muddle the ideas of free software in order to subvert the ideologists in that camp into supporting and furthering the goals of billionaire corporations. "Open source" as a calling card is intended to kill free software.

ornornor  5 hours ago

Samsung does that too and use it to sell you stuff, show you ads, and retarget you across devices! (Not saying it’s a good thing, but rather pointing out how common this is)

  • mijoharas  5 hours ago

    I'm really sick of the enshittification of smart TV's.

    A while after I've had my LG TV, and found every arcane different menu you need to remove all the ads. They started sending me ads via the notification pop-up.

    This continued even after finding and removing the consent for advertising (that I'd missed in one of the consent pop-ups.)

    I've considered and looked into "dumb" TVs, but I don't think they're for me. I just want one that's not enshittified!

    • rdschouw  2 hours ago

      Why not disconnect your smart TV from the internet and use [insert favorite streaming box]?

      I use Apple TVs on all my smart TVs and none of them have ever been connected to the internet. No ads with consistent interface across TV brands.

    • snapplebobapple  2 hours ago

      the only good smart tv is one with no network connection. As long as the manufacturer has any control of the compute on your device they will always be pressured to abuse it to grow revenue. You need to budget 200 to 600 additional dollars for a linux box and use that

      1 reply →

    • ornornor  4 hours ago

      FWIW I’m pretty happy with my Panasonic OLED (2019 model), it has totally optional smart features (ie it has a Netflix app), works well offline, and turns on instantly.

blackjack_  2 hours ago

Yeahhhh I had to disconnect mine from the internet due to this (I don’t want a display ad on the menu screen when I turn on my TV like WTF, my TV just enshittified itself randomly with an update that added this a year or two ago). Which would be fine but you can’t change the TV menu tile layout if you are disconnected from the internet… Just incredible layers of design stupidity here.

  • jp191919  42 minutes ago

    I use pfblockerNG(like pi-hole but for pfsense) to block ads to my roku. And I set up pi-hole at family members houses to block ads and telemetry on theirs.