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  • Hacker News
  • A company with the business practices of Fox News I will not buy services or products from. Same with regards to Oracle.

    I actually regret buying a Nvidia Shield TV. Yes, software support might be there. But what isn't there is the interface (without advertising, the cancer of the world) it came with. Thanks to Google. Thanks to Google, my children are now forced to see inappropriate advertising when the TV gets powered on.

    by Fnoord
  • So what are the alternatives?

    I have mostly Frame TVs and a projector. I always loved the Roku experience, it really felt like the best media player software, they just kept improving it, and having all TVs on the ecosystem made it even better. One app for virtual remotes, bluetooth listening, searching with your phone keyboard, etc.

    I don't want to go back to the Frame's software. I really like the Backdrops app and so many other features.

    But it just seems like this acquisition can only accelerate the ensh*tification of Roku. They already changed the default home screen a few weeks ago to show recommendations, SO MANY ads, etc and you change it in settings.

    But as other commentors have mentioned, now we'll probably have Fox News and Truth Social front and center whether we want it or not.

    So many apps have DRM that prevent you from running it yourself in any way. Is there another way that lets you run Netflix, Paramount+, HBO, all the majors without any trouble that is as integrated as Roku, or at least anything heading in that direction?

    by thebiglebrewski
  • I had to look to see whether this was NewsCorp Fox or Disney Fox. In the 00s I did some contract work at Fox Filmed Entertainment (the part of the company later bought by Disney) which was introduced during interviews as Fox Filmed Entertainment We Have Nothing To Do With Fox News.
    by dhosek
  • Some alternative sources

    - Fox PR: https://www.foxcorporation.com/news/corp-press-releases/2026...

    - Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/fox-buy-roku-...

    by andrewla
  • A year ago I started moving away from Roku. I think they've always had ads on the home screen which I blocked with a DNS blocklist but the seasonal ad sections that continued popping up in the menu despite my continually blocking them wore on me. I've upgraded to an nvidia shield using projectivy launcher which allows me to set a customized and very clean interface with the just the apps I use and nothing else. I definitely recommend it.
    by pastor_williams
  • Time for the 'Fox News' button on the Roku remote. Truth Social tweets on your screensaver.
    by baggachipz
  • I may be lambasted for saying this, but I do not believe that Fox (or any large media company, really) should be permitted to purchase direct access to the TV hardware of roughly 30-50% of american households.
    by nrmitchi
  • As a long-time[1] customer of Roku I am tentatively extremely pessimistic.

    I have always been unhappy with Roku's decision to get involved in streaming content at all, because it could potentially cut into their service-agnostic architecture. Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware, but way worse when they are actively competing with streaming services.

    And now it looks like it has happened -- a large content provider wants to buy the company, and while I hope that they can at least notionally continue to be service-agnostic, the temptation to cheat to favor your own services will always be there an when cost cutting and belt tightening is on the table, that is surely what will happen.

    [1] My order for the "Netflix Player by Roku": "CustomerID# 1162 Thank you very much for your Roku order. Your order number is 2472, placed 5/20/2008 at 10:01AM."

    by andrewla

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