It’s not in the chrome store, but Ad Nauseum. Between that and using the Vivaldi browser, I haven’t seen an ad on my desktop in literal years

https://adnauseam.io/

I have a Roku TV right now. Most of the ads aren’t too bad compared to the Fire tv, but you still get the obnoxious ones that take over the top third of the screen… BUT it’s probably the least aggressive of the ads I’ve seen from different devices, so…

I’m not much of a sportsball person, but I’ll keep that in the back of my mind anyways! Thanks!

Okay awesome! Thank you again! One last question… Is the setup you linked possible to do from an Android phone, for at least a little while? It’ll take a few months before I can pick up the Onn device, and brain demands this now, knowing there’s a way forward lol

Okay, awesome! I’ll look into this further! Thanks!

I don’t have an iPhone, or any other Apple devices aside from the two TV boxes, unfortunately. This house is a purely Linux/Android house lol That said, I definitely appreciate all this info, and may go digging for an android alternative, so this gives me an idea of what direction I can go in!

Awesome! Thank you for this! I only have a basic understanding of how IPTV even works, so the explanation even on its own is useful AF and gives me some avenues

Awesome suggestion! Only issue is… The gen 3 doesn’t have any app store or way (that I know of) of downloading anything new to the device. It’s kinda gotta go through some hacky method like hijacking existing apps on the system :/

Edit: unless you’re referring to something like the other guy that mentioned jellyfin is talking about? (Sorry, I just woke up, I’m kinda stupid rn lol)

I heard someone call these kinda of people “fence turtles”. Nobody knows how they got up there, they don’t do anything useful, and they’re not likely to come down anytime soon

Big fed energy here… Or you’re 12…

You won’t even have to worry about fire then!

This could entirely be me being tired, and thus a little stupid right now, but how exactly are you rebooting the system? If it’s by hitting the restart button, or powering off and back on, you may be having issues with something getting “stuck” in RAM, essentially. Try fully powering down the machine, disconnect the power cable (and battery if it’s a laptop), press and hold the power button for 30+ seconds, then hook everything back up and test again. That should be enough to drain any little bits of electricity stored in the system, thus fully clearing anything that might’ve been hanging around from RAM. Also, make sure the browsers are fully updated and no outdated extensions/plugins/etc.

Uhhh… Sure. I understand what you’re saying, but this isn’t really the right context for it lol

My distrust of Meta wants to say they somehow siphon everything, but you’re probably right. We don’t know for sure, and speculating is probably just crazy-making at the end of the day.

I’m seriously just considering setting up a self hosted Matrix instance and piping all my chat apps through that. Get the more tech literate friends on something more secure, and then be done with the rest lol I’m basically already the unofficial (and untrained) sysadmin for my property lol

Like everyone else said, funding=/=ownership. I do suspect, however, that part of why these big tech companies fund Linux is because they rely on something built on Linux in one way or another. Linux tends to be the better options for things like servers, low processing devices, and more, and if they keep funding it, it continues to exist so they can use it. You’d be surprised about how much of the world actually uses Linux in some way.

Okay, that’s both cool and scary lol and Fair, yeah. I think WhatsApp would be the last on my list. I’d rather my telecom company siphon the data over Meta, but I get you

That’s… Wow! Here, people prefer to use non-SMS options for messaging too, but if you give someone a phone number it’s pretty much assumed you’re getting an SMS unless they ask if you have WhatsApp, signal, or whatever else. That said, using Messenger is still pretty common here, as much as I’d wish it would die off. It is, slowly, but it needs to be quicker lol

I don’t think I’ve ever actually used WhatsApp. An old boss tried to tell me that it was mandatory for my job (there was a group chat where management insisted on tracking every single thing we did). Fortunately, Ontario has somewhat decent labour laws where if you’re required to use an app or something on your phone, your employer now gets to pay for your phone bill! Needless to say, she backed off pretty quick lol

Also, the concept of NEEDING WhatsApp for daily life is wild to me. It’s not the norm for businesses, banks, etc to require it, and if someone says they do, it’s probably a scam here…

If you ask REALLY nicely (or bribe me with a coffee), I’ll share my cat pics with you! We’ll take Grandma down!