The one I bought can be rooted and I had planned to do so, but found it wasn’t needed.

You can use ADB by itself, but this tool makes debloating a breeze. Deleted packages can be easily restored if you make a mistake. ADB needs to be running for it to connect. Be aware the remote is a Bluetooth device so don’t make my mistake and turn BT off.

They’ve upped the price I see to $19.88 in the last hour. The nearby stores are now out too. What prices are you seeing?

Move them to a cheap Onn Android TV device. You can configure it with a completely clean interface with no ads at all, and no asshole company’s changing the menus constantly once you install an alternate launcher. You can also debloat it like any other Android device and shut off most of the tracking (as much as is possible with Google involved anyway).

I bought my first one yesterday. After configuring it and seeing what a massive improvement it is over Roku I bought a couple more today. 2K ones are on sale for $15 right now.

The Fox acquisition was the last straw for me too. I’ve watched Roku go from a user-friendly streaming device to a front end for an advertising company. A couple of years ago it became so irritating it finally pushed me to implement an Adguard Home DNS sinkhole after years of thinking it wasn’t worth the trouble. Roku has also made it difficult to block ads, big gaps are shown in the UI when you do, and some apps can’t be updated without disabling Adguard and downloading a bunch of Roku’s ads too.

Yesterday I bought an Onn streaming box (Android TV) and it’s like going from a abacus to a computer. After a couple of hours configuring, loading a new launcher, and using ADB to debloat I’ve got an ad-free, clean interface with much of Google’s tracking disabled (at least as much as possible). Even better, some things (like the remote’s volume control) work that never worked with Roku.

It was such a breath of fresh air I just ordered a couple more ($15 for the 2k model right now) and will have completely dumped Roku by the end of the week.

It’s been a long time coming.

You logged in yesterday and there was no response. It seemed you were ignoring the questions. Sorry to make that assumption.

You’re right, that’s really disturbing and there’s no reason to verify age for every single app. It’s just another government shot across the bow for open source apps.

You make an unsubstantiated claim, then fail to answer all questions about where it’s happening or who is sending you the notification and what’s involved.

I call bullshit.

Registering what with the government? Your app, phone #, account?

If there are no remaining mainstream browsers that support ad blockers that pendulum is going to take a long time to swing back.

Google doesn’t even need to get their hands dirty like that. IMO all they need to do is continue making it difficult for companies to support Firefox when designing their websites. That, in addition to making sure companies know that Google is tirelessly working to make sure Chrome won’t work with ad blockers is going to eventually kill Firefox completely.

I don’t feel bad for people who whine about “well, I have to go into the settings and change a thing”. How much did you pay for that browser again? Complacency is what keeps people in abusive ecosystems. Don’t be complacent or you’re part of the problem.

I’m having trouble making any sense of your word salad. Are you triggered because someone dared criticize a bonehead move by Mozilla, or are you upset that anyone’s using Firefox’s “abusive ecosystem” in the first place? Neither? Both?

Firefox has lost nearly all of their users and now has less than 4% of the market. Adding a “feature” that makes computers virtually unusable without any indication as to why is yet another reason that’s happened. Nevertheless, if poor implementation of a feature makes for an “abusive ecosystem” it means that by your definition all software is part of an abusive ecosystem.

Interesting running those… Haven’t had to worry about benchmarks on my system, both Chrome and FF are plenty fast. I do wonder how the performance of Chrome with ads would compare to Firefox with the same ads blocked? Every once in a while I use some one else’s computer and can’t believe how many animated ads show up on pages I frequent.

Do you just put up with the ads or block them another way?

Mozilla thought it would be a great idea to install AI features in Firefox and that brilliant decision may be causing your issue. Those AI features use an absurd amount of resources on some websites and when they’re enabled on my laptop, FF regularly shows ~50% CPU.

When all that BS is turned off CPU use drops to less than 2% most of the time. Search for “AI Controls” in settings and try shutting them all off.

The bad news is, if you’re not on Team Tux, you’re going to have to pay $60 for Brave Origin. Granted, you only need to buy it once, and you’ll get unlimited activations across all of your devices.

It’s amazing people still believe this BS.

Let’s see here…

• USB won’t function at all with some computers because “It’S tOo aDvAnCeD”.
• Bluetooth refuses to automatically connect to either of my cars and the phone regularly needs to be restarted to get it to connect.
• Audio apps are killed to “save battery” when playing a long audio file even when phone is charging no matter the app settings.
• Bluetooth volume control intermittently stops working and becomes an on/off switch, either full volume or silent. Recommended fix? Reset Bluetooth and wifi, deleting all devices and networks and starting again. The fix is a temporary solution only and after reconnecting and redefining everything you’ll have to do it again.
• Phone ignores DND settings, instead it alerts in the middle of the night inviting me to try new features or warning that “Crash detection won’t work with Location Off”.
• A firmware update cut battery life by 30%.
• When music apps like Poweramp and VLC are in use, phone alarms and timers break the audio output stream and do not release it. The apps must be killed and restarted to work again.

These are all known problems and there have been many, many more. I’ve had to shut off a bunch of features that I bought the phone for, block notifications and repeatedly go into Developer Settings to deal with all the issues. The Pixel 10 is the best advertisement for an Iphone that I’ve ever seen and I’d never recommend it.

Borrowed $250k ($550k in today’s money) from his family to start Amazon, has so much money now that money has ceased to have meaning. This asshole has never lived a normal life and yet he thinks he knows what kind of problems people are facing today.

I have long believed no one at Google actually uses their products. After buying a Pixel 10 and dealing with the ridiculous number of severe bugs they released with Android 16 I’m sure of it.

Let the enshittification begin.

That will absolutely decimate Oregon’s job market when companies take all 20 data center jobs to another state.

If it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

The problem is there are plenty of people out there (especially Magats) who are easily convinced the duck isn’t there at all. You know… morons.

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you that the preorder page is still up and taking stealing magat’s money.