Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.
This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.
Is there an anti-ad community on Lemmy? Or another non-Lemmy place to work through blocking/avoiding this bullshit? I’m so fed up with the advertisement industry. I don’t want ads on my devices. I don’t want ads in my operating systems. I don’t want ads in my content. I don’t want ads in the sky. I don’t want ads in the ocean. I don’t want to be forced to see or hear ads while putting gas in my car.
I really can’t emphasize how much I am willing to go through to rid my life completely of advertisements.
If the gas pumps have those unlabeled buttons around a screen, try pressing all of em. The pumps around here (nebraska) will mute the audio when you press one of the buttons, it just isn’t labeled. I’ve taken to writing “mute” on the magic-button with a sharpie whenever I pump my gas.
Wait, the thing about ads while fueling your car is real?
WTF?!
Yep. Just shell stations around here (so far at least)
They’re super loud and in my experience usually political, think local office smear ads and oil lobbyist propaganda.
Well yeah how else are they supposed to make money? /s
Yeah no it’s real and it’s bullshit. They also have ad signage, but that’s been around my whole life, it just keeps getting worse constantly. I remember boycotting the first company to have gas ads, now I don’t have a no ad choice
Years ago I was talking to some engineers at one of the main gas pump manufacturers. They were venting about their company’s partnership with Verifone. While they used to handle credit card reading themselves in the magnetic stripe days, the switch to chip credit cards and readers in the U.S. meant they were going to partner with an established card reader company and Verifone (at least at the time) was the largest and most established in the new chip technology. Verifone was dominating the partnership and making life difficult for the gas pump company, insisting on all sorts of changes to the devices that weren’t necessary for the gas pump but were going to let them do things like run ads at the gas pump. If the pump manufacturer didn’t go along with it, Verifone seemed to have a very credible threat that they were just going to leave and go to the other main gas pump manufacturer. The gas pump companies needed the card reader a lot more than the other way around.
So, these ads have been a long time coming, but it wasn’t the pump manufacturer that had the idea or wanted to do it.
One of my local gas stations had that to where it was so loud you can hear them in the car. A few weeks after they installed them, someone came by with a hand drill and drilled out all of the speakers. Not sure what happened to that hero but we need more people like them.
While I never condone audio speaker violence, I do want to cheer/salute the activism of the person who did the work.
I’ve tried pressing every button at every pump I’ve used in my area and this trick doesn’t work. I want to epoxy the speakers and screen and glitter-bomb the entire thing.
I won’t. But I want to.
Sometimes it’s multiple presses. Around here for example I find that at my local Shell station it’s the second button down on the right side, two or three times.
At the 76 here its also the second down from the right but only needs a single press.
I was trying to figure out how to shut the one at my local grocery store up and discovered that you can get into the administrative menu if you push two buttons at the same time.
You should install Doom on it.
If there’s an exposed speaker hole, a long enough push pin or coat hangar wire can probably ruin the cone and coil.
I really can’t afford to commit a crime by damaging the pumps, but if I found a way to temporarily disable them I’d be all for it.
I reckon you could kill it with a pin in a casual enough way, maybe make it look like you’re just putting a hand there to lean? Also you have like 4 other people come throughout the day and get gas at that same pump, and they do a similar casual hand movement around the speaker.
You’d be safe as houses, probably!
Appreciate the response, but I will stick to my non-criminal protest against the ad industry.
Definitely had to resist the urge myself a few times to jam my keys into the speaker when the mute button method didn’t work.
Right side, second button down?
Left side, second from the bottom iirc
You’re doin god’s work, sir
♥️
Maybe try jamming something in too so it stays forever pressed and muted
I don’t know if they’re on the fediverse yet but Adbusters has been doing great work in this space for a long time.
Dammmn that takes me back! I had a subscription to their magazine in high school in the early 2000s. HOLY CRAP they’re still selling the Corporate America flag too! Seeing all those tech company logos on the modern version makes me feel so old though… Shit.
I remember when there were a lot more logos on that flag, too
“CONSOLIDATE ALL THE THINGS!!”
It’s not specifically anti-ad, but the lemmy privacy community regularly discusses ad-blocking as it very much overlaps with privacy.
Look into adgaurd or set up pihole software for dns and have a network device dedicated to blocking ads
Roku uses hardcoded Google DNS, so you’ll need to make some additional changes on your router to direct their 8.8.x.x addresses to your DNS service. Instructions at the below site are for Unlocator, but I think should work with any custom DNS.
https://support.unlocator.com/article/131-how-to-bypass-forced-dns-on-roku
You are a fucking hero. I couldn’t figure out why my Roku TVs were still able to get ads after blocking everything.
I already have Pi-hole with a bunch of additional lists to be blocked. I also cancelled all streaming services that service ads, and I use Adblock. I still see ads occasionally. What do you suggest for dedicated ad-blocking hardware?
Also, I don’t know what to do about the environmental ads.
Make sure you’ve got rules set in your router to redirect Roku’s hardcoded DNS to your custom DNS service.
Some ads can’t be eliminated - for example, if a service delivers ads through the same content servers that the show/movie is coming from.
Custom DNS probably explains how the fucking thing throws a pop-up display informing me that I can watch the movie I’m watching using their Roku app instead if I want to. I was wondering how it knew the name of the movies I have been watching, lol. I will probably just go and reset my WiFi password on my router and 50+ devices, or rip the WiFi antenna out of the TV, not sure which yet.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/roku-looks-into-serving-you-ads-on-whatever-you-plug-into-its-tvs-120016754.html#:~:text=While you’d probably prefer,to identify what’s on screen.
Roku’s current only saving grace to me is that I can block their shit conveniently. All my Rokus are on my Raspberry Pi in a special group so I can block specific things.
But would you like them on a train? Would you like them on a plane?
Ugh. Both of these exist already:
https://www.adquick.com/media/transit/train
https://simpleflying.com/inflight-advertising/
Sigh. They also have them in the rain:
https://www.streetadvertisingservices.com/discipline/rain-advertising
Jesus christ no. They’re bombarding adds on sidewalks AND putting some extra PFAS shit in the environment? Is this even legal?
I do not like green eggs and spam.
👏🎉
I can’t understand why anyone’s money entitles them to put their mental parasites into my attention space. They aren’t paying me, and I wouldn’t take their money no matter how much they were offering. For fuck’s sake, I don’t even want to experience the offer of money for ad attention.
They Live
Rate those places online to warn others. fucking hailCorporate nonsense
That only works while this is still a niche use case. Just wait until they find out how many more places they can shove ads while we are forced to stand/sit somewhere for 20 minutes!
Perfect. Then people can avoid ads at that gas station by going to another gas station with ads!
I’m still running an older version of NextPVR with three usb tuners and Comskip.exe - it gets most of the ads out of free to air automatically.
Ublock origin and / or expressvpn seem to block some ads on the catch up services, but not all.
YouTube with Ublock origin and Sponsorblock work well.
Newpipe Sponsorblock fork is good as well.