this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Own a Roku TV or streaming device? You're about to see a lot more ads on your home screen (www.techradar.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology
269 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Ugh. Roku was one of the platforms with fewer ads.

  • Roku will be adding more ads to the home screens of its devices and TVs in the near future.
  • The ads will be interactive and 'shoppable' and will cover a range of industries, including restaurants and cars.
  • Roku already has a significant amount of ads on its home screen, and it is unclear if users will be able to change their preferences for the new ads.
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Rumor has it Roku hard coded Google DNS nameservers on some devices so along with pihole, you have to block direct access now. FYI

I had a pihole that worked until an update. Had to block Google nameservers to restore blocking.

[–] ThePantser 16 points 11 months ago

Similar to what Google does with some Chromebook devices. They don't respect router DNS settings. So if I wanted to block YouTube on my kids machines I had to create a black hole on my router to send all requests from 8.8.8.8 and then and only then would the Chromebook use my adguard DNS.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I expect you can seal this off with pfblockerng.

The big issue is that they might start putting a checkpoint in place wherein the application (roku device) will not proceed unless it gets an expected response token from a call to an ad service. At that point we're at their mercy.

They could even run under their own VPN and hook up the ads on their side... Ugh...

[–] deweydecibel 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They could even run under their own VPN and hook up the ads on their side... Ugh...

I've always wondered why Google doesn't provide that to its ad clients. Companies send their traffic to Google, Google puts the ads in, mixes it all up in one pot, sends it to the user in a way DNS filtering can't block without also blocking the content.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago

At that point we're at their mercy.

Or maybe at that point you'll begin to realize that you might not need all of this stuff, and that happyness comes from other sources. But that is just my personal approach, by all means do whatever you like.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Interesting. So far so good for me.