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Comment by b15h0p | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone recommend a decent streaming client to make a dumb TV or a Beamer "smart"? I have an ancient PS3, but it's kinda noisy and I am afraid it will stop working for Netflix, considering Sony will soon shut down the PS3 Store. Also, there is no Disney+ on the PS3.

  * AppleTV is really long in the tooth right now
  * Amazon hardware is probably slow
  * Google knows too much about me, anyways
  * Raspberry PI/Kodi is probably fiddly

(btw. I am in Germany, so not all hardware might be available here).

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Using LibreELEC myself. It's designed to be less fiddly than RPi/Kodi.

I'm also in Germany but not using Netflix so no idea how well it is supported.

My favourite thing is my tiny little device: Cubox i4pro. Bought it five years ago and still humming along well. Though support is kind of suffering. But the list of hardware that LibreELEC supports well looks interesting.

Nvidia Shield TV Pro is probably the "best" (read: least worst) option.

However it runs Android so you can't escape Google if you go that route. In terms of functionality and quality is it the best option available though, their "AI" powered upscaling is pretty damn impressive.

At the risk of stating the obvious: you can always set up an alt Google account without a phone number or credit card...

Any purchases can be paid for with gift cards.

Or not log into a Google account at all and use F-Droid/side load any applications you need.

If only that were a practical solution. The open-source community doesn't have everything, sadly, and some of the best applications are only available in the Play Store, behind a pay wall.

I like drawing and note-taking with my S-Pen enabled tablet. There's no good open-source alternative to Artflow or Nebo (both paid apps).

Sure, you could pirate it... even with morality aside, I'd rather trust Google than random APKs acquired from the dark corners of the Internet.

And with this setup, Google doesn't really have much information about my person, so I don't care if they have info on the device (assuming you take proper steps to keep the device anonymous).

It is occasionally realistic, depending on your use case. The open source situation on Android is not nearly as lamentable these past couple of years compared to earlier. In the context of specialist paid software and hardware, it's of course less likely to be possible.

It also comes with a pretty hefty price tag.

I just bought a new Roku Premiere, I've got no complaints with it so far. It's cheap, easy to use, and supports all the streaming services I use.

Hm, apparently it does not support Amazon Prime Video in germany.

I have the latest Fire Stick 4K and it works great. Zero lag or sluggishness, and I got it for like $30.

How about the user interface? I recently read somewhere that it is being filled with ads more and more.

There aren't any traditional ads, but it will recommend shows to watch which you may consider annoying or not. Basically looks exactly like this – https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/A...

Have a look at the OSMC Vero 4k.

That seems to be geared towards the UK market (the AC adaptor has a british plug and it is not available on the german Amazon store). Am I overlooking something?

Well I'm in the UK, so probably I'm missing something. I'm sure you could get a different plug.

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