“One of the best reasons to buy Roku was the themes and less ads than competitors. But they haven’t added any new themes in years aside from sponsored ones, and they increased the amount of ads,” a Reddit user posted this week in response to Roku’s loss of the Aquatic Life screensaver.

Using the Google TV operating system with Projectivy Launcher is a far more versatile solution than Roku.

Roku will automatically switch the Aquatic Life screensaver on affected devices to the Roku City screensaver, another popular animation that includes subtle advertisements, according to the user notice

Ugh.

Roku has been a poster child of enshittification for a long time. I struggle to think of any ways they could get worse. But I'm sure they'll think of something.

Last month I took my Roku offline but let it connect to LAN so the Jellyfin app would work (for now until it gets too out of date probably). I knew Fox would fuck things up somehow and I was right sooner than expected.

As an aside, it’s still connected to my pihole and for about a week it tried to send logging data to 2 different websites every 3 seconds for around a week. It was funny seeing my blocked percentage at 91.5%, even funnier that it’s programmed to give up.

Piracy is the only moral choice when it comes to large services

Same fishtank screensaver as you might remember from the early 00s, in case you’re wondering.

My nephew has a Roku in his bedroom for the screen saver. He’s severely autistic. He is not good with change. Losing those damn fish will be a HUGE problem in that house.

CEOs are the dumbest pieces of shit on the planet. Roughly could have set up their own fish tank and recorded it for 10k and I'm inflating that number by about 9k. Then they would have owned it and paid no license at all

I was curious what the reason was behind this. As good of time as any to setup some different streaming sticks/machines I guess. Anyone have any suggestions? FOSS is preferred.

Well, this explains it.

I changed the screensaver to the fish tank because the default cityscape on has all those stupid ads plugged in.

The other day, it had a banner that said the fishtank was being removed. I couldn't figure out why.

I guess I will have to find a new streaming box? Sheesh.

I had long ago blocked all telemetry at my edge network box for the whole house. Now I presume it will not be sufficient.

I went all in on Roku years ago because it worked so well with Plex. The menus and remotes were consistent across all the TVs, so nobody had to learn anything new. Now Fox will probably turn it into another advertising platform. This sucks.

Any not terrible alternatives that my parents will actually be able to use without me?

Support standing up, support Sachs at Serene Screen!

Roku used to be the safe haven from ecosystem lockin.

Now with free-my-tv and other projects, this can be resolved.

Wait, is it Fox Disney, or Fox News?

I thought NewsCorp/Murdoch doesn't have ownership of MOST of Fox anymore, just Business, Sports, and News.

Odroid-c4 with LineageOS has been my favorite streaming box. Just need to get a wireless remote with a dongle (non-bluetooth).

WTF a screensaver on a TV that requires money? Is this like a free money glitch for doing nothing? Just bundle a few free images, buy them at a reasonable price (not $80k/year) or tell your company photographer to take them.

Also how often do you see a screensaver on a TV: Short answer almost never because a) you're watching stuff or b) you turn the device off

Also who buys this Roku trash in the first place? Apple users? Just plugin a laptop/PC via HDMI & Co or slap some Android/Linux TV device/Raspberry with Kodi behind the TV.