What are the best tech to buy for boomers? It just needs easy access to youtube and I'm not paying shit for subscriptions
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What are the best tech to buy for boomers? It just needs easy access to youtube and I'm not paying shit for subscriptions
Chromecast
>need to download an app and remote through phone
cringe
My dude, the newest Chromecasts come with a remote.
You can even program the remote to control the TV's power, inputs and volume.
I own this little dongle. Best purchase I made in years. It also supports PLEX.
it's kind of shit tbh especially for boomers
I have it and never use it
all android TV and Google TV OS's (inlcuding fire TVOS) are pure shit
fire stick has an even more shit menu, but you can sideload new launchers
but alas I never have because even though I haven't tested it I bet it would break recast functionality
I just got 4k fire sticks and a recast for OTA TV
because homerun requirements are ridic
plus it's great for boomer parents , can use Alexa to change channels
while CC has POS broken GA and no networked tuner option and requires you to sub to some shit service
it's all just shit IMO , buggy AF OS , CC sucks worse because GA never works right
I sideload movie apk's and I can use voice for search field on 4k fire sick but doesnlt work with ~~*Google*~~ , all content is pure shit these days anyways , I only watch kino 80/90's maybe early ot's stuff or news , I am not paying to support holowood pedos or subbing to any services
besides free NF that comes with my cell carrier hat is in 480 but I never use anyways
Google TV is just like android TV ,low effort diversity hire trash that have had no innovation in nearly a fricking decade
> all content is pure shit these days
Mostly correct, but if you have an edu mail account, get yourself a MUBI account (4 years free for students) for international quality films
>program
It's a function with HDMI-CEC.
Firestick is the best video consumption device regardless of age.
Lmao. Enjoy your ads.
I bought a mini Asus piece of Shit pc and connected it to the TV. Ad free YouTube bruh. I also have a snes emulator on it.
>ads.
>Oh no I see a banner of tv shows and films from Amazon prime before I open jellyfin. However will I cope.
calm down Black person
STFU homosexual, you know damn fricking well i was talking about youtube ads.
have a nice day you Black person loving mexican trump voter.
You said nothing about youtube ads.
You shouldn't use software that shows you youtube ads
>you know damn fricking well i was talking about youtube ads.
Amazon App Store -> install "Downloader" -> allow "Install unknown apps" for Downloader -> install "SmartTubeNext" via Downloader -> open SmartTubeNext as your YouTube app, it has no ads and opt-in SponsorBlock
got firestick for my 61yo tech ignorant mom and gave her my old 1080p tv and she's happy with it
I have one for my bedroom TV and it sucks shit.
My Shield TV is great except for the price.
A pc with a browser and ublock origin installed. The youtube app is unusable because you can't block the ads.
Use smartyoutubetv
>naming your tv-based youtube client "youtubetv"
what a fricking moron
? Its named SmartTubeNext
>smartyoutubetv
You mean https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext
Can you log in with this? Newpipe doesn't allow you to log in and it's utter garbage because of that
You can log in with this. It also has opt-in SponsorBlock.
I bought the cheapest FireTV (when it was on sale), installed WolfLauncher (to not have Amazon spam and ads on the home page, also it speeds up shit significantly) and installed:
- SmartTubeNext for ad-free YouTube
- MUBI for quality international indie-film streaming (free for students for 4 whole years)
You may also want to install Kodi with some piracy addons. Or disable OS updates and tracking connections through DNS blocking.
It's called NewPipe and because it was made for Smartphones primarily, its UI is not as good for TV remote control as SmartTubeNext.
>I bought the cheapest FireTV
Which one?
Now the cheapest available is the Fire TV Stick Lite.
Can it be modded?
I indeed bought the Fire TV Stick Lite.
>Can it be modded?
What do you mean modded? You just need to download the "Downloader" app in the Amazon App Store. Then allow sideloading in developer options ("Install unknown apps") for "Downloader". Then you can install other apps via Downloader like WolfLauncher and so on.
But if I recall correctly Amazon has updated FireOS to block custom launchers from replacing the stock launcher, so installing SmartTubeNext for YouTube works, and WolfLauncher as well, but you'd see the stock launcher every time you hit home.
>But if I recall correctly Amazon has updated FireOS to block custom launchers from replacing the stock launcher
Is there a way around that yet?
Don't know, I disabled updates via DNS blocking (Pi-hole) before that happened.
nice
>he doesn't still have Vanced
lmao
lol
>Vanced
dead software
WOMM
For free content including YouTube, it's Roku.
Agreed-- it's Roku. You just plug it in and go. All the other shit takes more than 30 seconds to figure out how to use.
I have a Roku that I regularly use. The TV in the living room is an Android TV with YouTube on it. At work, we have a TV with FireTV built in. The YouTube app is pretty much identical across all three.
Though as much as I hate them, go for a "smart tv" with the streaming stuff built in. Then it's one less device they have to deal with. No need to teach them how to switch the input source so they can use the streaming box ... in which case they probably won't bother to. Just hit the ..*cringe*.. YouTube button on the remote.
It's getting to the YouTube app that the Roku makes easier. I have a FireTV stick (because Roku doesn't support proxy servers), and it's totally unintuitive to find the app I want. Terrible UI.
>I have a FireTV stick (because Roku doesn't support proxy servers), and it's totally unintuitive to find the app I want. Terrible UI.
It's like... right there
>home
>right
>right
>right
>right
>right
>ok
Imo Roku has the best user interface out of all the streaming platforms. It never has a bunch of BS filling the screen except the apps.
The worst was samsung
This is only a good solution in theory, in practice not really.
The problem is that the built in SoC and software are typically absolute garbage. They have made some improvements in the last year or so to address this. But long term support will still be an issue, as well as being the least supported for app bugfixes/features etc. Unless switching inputs is somehow a major issue, a dedicated streaming box is almost always the better choice. If streaming only, you dont even need to change inputs.
Even the hardware in TVs can be absolute shit. I have a Sony 4k tv thats a few years old. Not only did they cheap out and go for 10/100 Ethernet, the nic is on the USB bus. The TV manufactuers only care about checking boxes for features, and doing it as cheap as possible. Properly implementing them and making the usable isnt a priority. My Apple TV 4k solves all this nonsense quite nicely.
>switch the input source
The TV remembers your choice every time it's turned on though?
I don't know if you heard, old people like to watch regular (cable) TV too.
Why not just Newspipe?
install gentoo for your grandma, she will love it
Either a kindle or kobo. Gotta force them to exercise their neurons and memory
You just posted it.
how bad is it? (picrel)
I have the Mi Box S and it's really nice.
It's pretty comfy emulating all my childhood games on the tv and playing them with a PS5 controller.
i would only use it for media playback, but can it sideload easily?
Yeah, you can use a simple sidelauncher and install pretty much every android app on there.
But for simple consooming it's also great.
I have mibox 3 and it's awful
I would never but that mi stick trash
I love xiaomi too but this is their worst product
box constantly wakes itself and turns the TV on 50 times a night then it doesn't do it for a long time then if you use the box (which I rarely do because I mostly just use fire TV stick 4k)
also i use it to run a bridge app for broadlink and it will not stay away , box goes into deep sleep constantly and then I can not control my devices
I ended up buying a Tivo stream from wulmurt because it was on sale for $15
haven't got around to de tivo ing it and setting it up yet though
but it runs on the same S905 ( S I think) as the CC with Google TV so $15 not a bad deal
even if I end up just using it to run the bridge app for the boradlink
even the ONN TV box is a much better option than the mi stick it was on sale for like 19.99 before not sure what it is now though
I think that uses the S905 too
emulation is shit on all TV devices tho
even pi 4
I just got a preorder coupon for the rock 5 , this board looks like it will be an absolute beast and handle GC, WII, and PS2
pi4 was such a disappointment, N64 emulation was pure trash
I tried to give one of these to my boomer parents and they didn't even use it, too complicated for them
The onn android box is like $20 and works wonder without having to go through Amazon shit.
just get an old computer attach it to the tv and set it up to launch a browser with a youtube page on boot
I just use one these bad boys.
Second hand Xbox one. it works better than a firetv or chromecast and you can use it for more than just streaming.
For someone who has used all of them
Do NOT buy the Fire Stick as a boomer's first Streaming Device. It's a navigation nightmare. You might be able to figure it out easily but tech illiterate 60-70 year olds are absolutely not going to know where the frick they are. Pic related is the current Fire TV OS version.
Google TV is only slightly better at this since you can sorta customize it with the base version, but you still get the big banner ad plastered on the screen.
If you're gonna buy either or, I'd recommend figuring out how to sideload a custom launcher onto it and disabling updates so you can get rid of these baked in ads for good. Pi-Hole doesn't work, I've tried.
If you're gonna buy a Google TV device especially just for YouTube or whatever the Onn Walmart Android TV box is extremely good value if you live in the USA.
Roku or Apple TV are extremely user friendly, albeit limited. Definitely not limited to normalgay apps, it has almost everything they would need. It really gets them into ecosystem where down the line you could upgrade them to Fire TV OS or Google TV without a problem if ever needed. I bought my mom a Roku and she got absorbed into streaming very quickly, but changed the Roku out with a Fire TV 4K stick when Roku and Google had that massive shitfest over YouTube/YouTube TV for 2-3 weeks and it almost instantly clicked for her.
pls see
You go up down left right and click what you want.
That's not too complicated for anyone.
>anyone
someone hasn't met an old mom have a meltdown trying to order food from restaurants that only offer the big touch screen displays
I literally said to install a custom launcher
>You go up down left right and click what you want.
>That's not too complicated for anyone.
Look at the screen shot in
There is literally nothing on that screen that I want to put on my TV. The stuff I want to put on the TV is under a tiny icon for a third party application like BBC iPlayer or PBS Kids or PressTV. If I haven't used the app recently, it will be buried under the `...`. Why the frick should I have to look at 90% ads for shit I don't want to watch from services I don't even subscribe to every fricking time I want to stream something? Fricking terrible UI.
Roku's home screen, on the other hand, is just a list of apps you have installed, and you can choose the one you want and go there.
>I haven't used the app recently, it will be buried under the `...`.
>move to front
you can order apps how you want.
Not obvious from the interface. Still 90% ads for shit I don't want.
>what is WolfLauncher
how viable would it be to build a mITX pc that's connected to my TV and use it as a streaming rig, as opposed to any of these Fire Stick/Chromecast things? I'm thinking I could use that wireless Logitech keyboard that has a trackpad on the side as a "remote"
FireTV is OK. Or RPi4 or whatever. Install Kodi or whatever and there you go. Chromecast and Roku are garbage.
Any decent alternative that supports an adblocker of any kind and torrenting?
Apple TV
How would you block youtube ads on Apple TV without a premium subscription?
chromebooks
this is the type of thread i needed
i need something that can replicate the phone vanced experience (what my dad managed to learn) on a crt tv, what are my options? does a generic android tv box with something like smarttubenext or newpipe do the job fine? my issue is, does anyone have any experience with a setup like this?
Hmm. Does your CRT have HDMI? Otherwise you'd need a HDMI-to-Scart adapter.
Once you have one, a generic AndroidTV box or stick with SmartTubeNext does the job perfectly fine (it even has opt-in SponsorBlock).
I don't recommend NewPipe because its UI is mostly suited for touch control, not remote control. Also you can't log in into NewPipe, while with SmartTubeNext you can.
This is how you'd install it on e.g. a FireTV Stick:
The only downside of FireTV sticks with the current OS version is the cluttered home page. (They disabled the option for custom launchers to replace the stock one). You'd need to switch to your app like this, see the webm here (but ignore the Developer Options at the beginning)
or the pic related here
Also (and this is true for all manufacturers), the botnet with these devices (constant phoning home) is absolutely horrible, as can be seen (and blocked) with e.g. a Pi-hole or (easier, but not customizable and probably not as extensive) setting up Adguards DNS, i.e. 94.140.14.14 as your DNS.