New media box, but no android, amazon, apple or microsoft products

grunviz

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Hi there,

I have been taking a bit more notice of mine and my families digital privacy. Up till now, I have successfully employed a couple of Nvidia Shield TVs, both the 2015 and then the 2019 models. I have also used Amazon Fire TV too. Recently, I have noticed the increased advertising on the Shields to services I do not subscribe too, and there does not seem to be a way to turn this advertisting off, which I dislike.

Therefore I am thinking about where I might like to go next, however with any new products, I would like to avoid anything android, amazon, microsoft and apple, however this becomes increasingly difficult as you can imagine.

The new box would need to be able to act as a plex client (server on local NAS), have access to Netflix and UK streaming services.

I have looked around, tried openelec on a rpi4, but performance was not great. Any thoughts on potential options? Thanks!
 
That's a tricky one for sure, you pretty much want to steer clear of Google products if you care about digital privacy.

The smart TV's all harvest data by default as does Roku, you can turn some of this off or use a network level blocker (Pi hole) with TV blocklist but this may also break apps.

The least worst of the bunch is probably AppleTV the UI has just one top row of icons that change the banner dynamically (app store, arcade, photos) but the more apps you have installed you dont even see the top banner any more.

I dont know what the data collection is like on PVR Freeview set top boxes but some do have the streaming apps and you could use the TV app or other device just for Plex.
 
Recently, I have noticed the increased advertising on the Shields to services I do not subscribe too, and there does not seem to be a way to turn this advertisting off, which I dislike
Use a different launcher, problem solved
 
Thanks, any recommendations?

I have been looking around, but not seen anything yet.
 
Thanks, any recommendations?

I have been looking around, but not seen anything yet.

there was one mentioned recently in the main nvidia shield thread here
 
That's a tricky one for sure, you pretty much want to steer clear of Google products if you care about digital privacy.

The smart TV's all harvest data by default as does Roku, you can turn some of this off or use a network level blocker (Pi hole) with TV blocklist but this may also break apps.

The least worst of the bunch is probably AppleTV the UI has just one top row of icons that change the banner dynamically (app store, arcade, photos) but the more apps you have installed you dont even see the top banner any more.

I dont know what the data collection is like on PVR Freeview set top boxes but some do have the streaming apps and you could use the TV app or other device just for Plex.
Thanks for the reply. I have been trawling around yesterday look at different options and I think I agree with you re the Apple, but I don't think I have exhausted all possibilities yet. I wonder about a bespoke box, maybe an Intel Nuc, possibly running linux, or something similar....
 

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