Fire TV now also displays full-screen video ads on its homescreen | Hacker News Reader

Fire TV now also displays full-screen video ads on its homescreen

flatpanelshd.com

80 pointscroes108 comments

I have a Fire TV 4K. When I used to switch it on, right up until a few weeks ago, it would show a half-screen banner ad, and the "Home" icon on the row below would be selected by default. I would simply press the right button on the remote a few times to reach the app I wanted (usually Nebula).

Since a few weeks ago, they silently changed the default focus to the ad banner carousel! Now when I press the right button (because of muscle memory) it switches between the ads! So ridiculous and outright user-hostile!

Set it to Store Mode and it'll become very close to a classic display panel. You can't use streaming apps, it just lets you change HDMI inputs, volume, and picture settings, but that's a feature for me. Plus no spying.

Oh I meant the Fire TV 4K streaming stick, not their actual Fire TVs. Their naming has become really confusing. They used to call the previous ones Fire TV Sticks, but I think they dropped the "Stick" from the name in the recent versions.

Although I should look into the Store Mode setting for the Samsung TV which is connected to the Fire TV. Thanks for the suggestion!

That sounds awful, why would one get such a TV in the first place?

The abuse will continue until you wise up and throw it away.

Ok, I thought it might just be me. I have a FireTV Cube attached to my old plasma TV and I recently changed the "Ad Personalization" settings for it. When the full screen ads for "Monday Night Football" started appearing I thought it was something I did.

We have an Apple TV upstairs and I'm replacing the FireTV Cube next week with an Apple 4K+ unit. The FireTV Cube was supposed to be Amazon's premier video streaming device, but it's still not Matter certified and probably never will be. The Apple unit (with Ethernet) has Thread capability and should be future proofed.

Bye Alexa / Amazon!

Can it be returned under warranty, as they literally broke it?

This is what happens when a giant tech conglomerate expands into every business without regulation. You should only expect for this to get worse.

I miss the days of "owning" a VCR or DVD player or TV.

On the other hand I watched an old DVD the other day, took 3 minutes from putting it in to the film started with various unskippable "features", warnings, accusations of me pirating it, etc.

Moral of the story -- torrents give the best service.

This is always the thing people forget about the state of physical media post-VHS but pre-streaming. You still didn’t own it! You definitely owned a piece of plastic, but one with magic legal powers to grant you a revocable license to watch it in only in certain ways and only after being subjected to unskippable content. At least it was technically feasible to get around those, but it’s not like physical discs were some universally user-respecting media during that time.

Physical media can't spy on you (Sony rootkit notwithstanding). The standard for respecting the user isn't very high.

Once I decided to go all legit and shit, and went to buy a handful of DVD instead of trying to pirate the movies.

Two years later all the dvds had rotted and were unreadable, so it was a ton of money down the trash.

I've never really heard of that being a thing except for ones you burn yourself. Optical media is pretty stable unless (re) writable, so I'm surprised. I've played 20 year old DVDs without issue, fwiw.

Yep, nope, these were “pressed” discs - quite puzzling.

Consolidated list of why Apple TV is 7x the cost of competitors:

- seamlessly use iPhone for input, including password manager integration through the keyboard

- AirPods seamless pairing/handoff, including really great spatial audio implementation

- It is really, really fast. So much faster than the streaming sticks. And it stays fast.

- It does not cram in more ads on every update.

- Now Playing integration with the watch, great for pausing quickly.

- Supports AirPlay for streaming from iPhone or Mac, and it works well

- Fitness+ is great, huge library of workouts and integrates well with Watch

- Really solid apps like OwlFiles, Infuse, VLC, and Synology for accessing network content

- Solid support for multiple users

I truly didn’t expect it to be so good when I first got it (workouts was my main reason for purchase, used Xbox for streaming previously).

What features did I miss?

I have an Apple TV as well, and here are some things that really annoy me. First of all, the useless button on the side of the remote that I press by accident ALL THE TIME. Putting a button on the side of the remote where you grab it to pick it up is such a smooth brained idea. Second, Apple TV can NOT output uncompressed audio for whatever magical reason. I would prefer to have my amplifier process the audio, but it's not possible. Third, I had to buy the more expensive model to get an Ethernet port. Very silly.

You can connect multiple AirPods to it so that you can quietly watch TV without disturbing others (which is particularly useful when you have young children.

Or the opposite. We trained ours to sleep with tv on

Native Tailscale VPN support! I take my Apple TV while traveling and use it to stream my home media library from anywhere

Does Apple TV have Miracast support? I think of Miracast as "open" and airplay as "closed".

There are “ads” in my Apple TV Home Screen, but it’s just posters for content I have locally in Plex! :) Very targeted and useful!

It’s a perfect plex client box.

And you can pair controllers to it and play games.

The voice recognition works.

It does FaceTime now with your phone and using the TV as the output.

I have a Fire TV and I just bought an Apple TV to be my smart-tv interface. It's amazing what a difference it makes. The Apple TV's interface isn't laggy. I guess that's what happens when you get a 10x faster processor. The interface isn't chock full of ads. Some might quibble that Apple does have some previews, but it just isn't the same at all.

With the Fire TV, getting to my apps was such a pain. With the Apple TV, they're right there. There aren't horrible dark UI patterns distracting me from my stuff. Literally, Fire TV would have suggested apps on my main screen that I already have installed. I'd click on it, it'd bring me to the app store, and from there I could launch it.

My Fire TV would launch with a full-screen ad and I'd have to press down to even see the UI. So I power on my TV and see a JCPenny Black Friday ad. Ugh. I scroll down and there's "continue watching," but only from Amazon Prime. Then there's a full row Starz ad. Then "up next for you," but most of the shows there I haven't heard of. Then recently used apps. Then some "guide and on now" garbage for apps I don't have. Then "Netflix recommends" which isn't based on what I've been watching from what I can ascertain. Then "subscription deals" where they try and push all sorts of subscriptions. Then "holiday deals on devices" to push Amazon stuff. Then more and more content that I don't subscribe to - presumably so that I'll start paying for more subscriptions. More recommended apps, recommended things to rent or buy, etc. And everything is constantly auto-playing!

Yea, Apple TV has a preview, but the sound is off and it just goes away if I touch anything. Plus, I can just go into settings and replace it with "Up Next" which shows things I've been watching for apps that support it. It's a nigh-and-day different experience. It feels so calm by comparison. The Fire TV is just distractions everywhere while the Apple TV doesn't feel like that.

Apple TV is only a tuner, not the screen, so this Fire TV can still show you ads, even if you have set the source input to an external device.

This will almost certainly become a reality when a sufficient #users buy an Apple TV, through a remotely activated update (of the Fire TV).

It's possible, but right now it doesn't show me ads. I turn on the power and it goes to the last input.

I doubt that it will happen because I don't think enough people will buy Apple TVs and because I think adulterating an external input might be a bridge too far. It would be hard to integrate that into the experience without feeling really jarring.

I guess the problem I have with your comment is that it's the type of thing you could say about anything. Apple could decide to change the Apple TV interface to be 90% ads. Amazon could decide to disable HDMI ports on the TVs. Amazon could decide to stop making the Prime Video app for platforms that aren't Fire TVs. All streaming apps could decide that streaming is BS and go back to physical media. Net neutrality could go away and ISPs could mandate insecure connections where they could inject ads into stuff. The comment feels like the equivalent of "you can't prove god doesn't exist!"

Your comment isn't wrong, but it's also kinda useless. A person can buy an Apple TV today and enjoy its experience. Yes, that might change in the future. Our world is always changing and nothing you purchase will be good forever. However, from a practical standpoint, the Apple TV is offering a wonderful experience today and likely will for years to come. If I listen to your comment, why do anything because someone could come along and make it crap?

Did you read the article? A user bought a Fire TV that was sort of OK, but then they remotely changed it so now it is showing more ads. Why is my scenario unlikely? It is just Fire TV taking it one step further. A predictable cat and mouse game.

> This will almost certainly become a reality when a sufficient #users buy an Apple TV, through a remotely activated update.

Apple's business model is incompatible with that user experience. First, Apple already makes a profit on the devices themselves. Second, there's a healthy attach rate for additional Apple devices and services for people who have a positive experience with Apple TV.

It's not Apple I'm worried about. It's the TV.

I have a FireTV Cube feeding my old plasma TV and I'm seeing the same full screen ads, so this is not limited to FireTV units.

Looks like I'm switching to an Apple TV then if there is no way around this. I'm now kicking myself for recommending Fire TV to my parents as well years ago when they decided to cut cable.

Huge price difference between Apple TV and Fire TV (or Google TV). Amazon and Google are eating Apple’s lunch when it comes to the living room hardware.

I just bought a new Apple TV and I love that thing. The quality is so much nicer, the remote control feels great, you get Dolby Vision, and no ads anywhere in the main app. It's my third one, they tend to last a long time IMHO, you get what you pay for.

The first generation apple TV remote is comically bad though.

Can't conceive how a team of professionals released it. it's intentionally built to not be touch-intuitive. it's a smooth rectangle with no obvious way to feel front/back. the touch pad is too sensitive and not precise so you're always always overshooting your intention. there's no back/forward button, they are "menu" and "screen" ? i have no fucking idea what they mean to this day. screen is "home" and if you press it you lose all navigation. "menu" is like select and back... but not really. i have never pressed the mic or play/pause, cuz that's what the big touch button does too. there's no mute...

i can think of this remote and laugh on demand, it's just so impressive how bad it is.

https://images.app.goo.gl/4AxqwdXJtfxsQPxb7

I got to build on the 4th gen Apple TV way back before it launched on some dev kits, and call me crazy or biased, but I always liked the remote. Ofc I was fully drinking the Kool-aid at the time, and I have seen many of my friends and colleagues fail at using the remote over the years.

Making it out of glass was crazy though. I shattered one pre-launch from a light fall.

Adding a rubber protection to it highly improve the experience. I love this remote too. So compact and inobstrusive. I love how I can startup my tv through hdmi and using only one, the most basic possible remote. KISS at its best and definitive life improvement. Apple in a nutshell. I used to love being nerd and doing/breaking DIY setups for my media players for years and years but now I just love the simplicity of things just working and making my life easier.

That’s not the first generation remote. That came out in 2007 I think and it doesn’t look like that. I actually didn’t mind the remote in the photo, but I do think the new one is better.

But you don’t need to use the remote, iPhone or Apple Watch both do very well. I don’t bother with the remote at all anymore.

And the first generation remote hasn’t been in use for a long while now, anyway.

You do if you're using an android device, for which Apple has yet to release any sort of remote app or control scheme.

The general layout for the remote the parent poster was talking about was discontinued in May of 2021 (last being the Siri 1st gen remote), so it wasn't that long ago.

> The general layout for the remote the parent poster

And it seems to have been revived somewhat by samsung... at least my friends new remote from them has definite feel of apple TV remote v1.

It was an epic battle between Jony Ive and common sense and Jony Ive won that one.

On an unrelated note Jonny Ive is no longer with Apple and hasn't been for some time.

Maybe that's because they are assuming a revenue stream from ads?

I'm in the same boat with my in-laws. I even went so far as to set them up with a FireTV Recast box to DVR OTA broadcasts. Only later did I find out that Amazon had canceled the Recast program.

It's wild to me that there isn't more general pushback from ordinary consumers

Yeah I thought the system was supposed to be that businesses were incentivized to treat customers well or customers would stop buying their stuff and buy stuff from someone that treats them better. Seems just like we keep lining up for the abuse since there's not a lot of other options not doing the same nasty behavior, and what are we supposed to do - not buy TVs? What would we sit and stare at? ;)

I think people regularly trade quality for cheaper stuff. It's not exactly on the box that they have dark ui patterns too. It's also a moving target, they'll just creep the ads in until people start leaving

> they'll just creep the ads in until people start leaving

I think this is the crux of the issue, there are not really any alternatives, other than not having a new TV (as OP, who seems to have been downvoted for stating facts, highlighted). Even if one wanted to get a television just for OTA viewing, the increase in encryption for ATSC 3.0 makes it difficult to even get local news / broadcasting without having it connected to the internet.

It’s kind of like wanting to buy a new car (atleast on my somewhat limited investigation in the US), you cannot buy a new car that only has the basic creature comforts of AC / Heating and a standard radio. You have to opt in to lane assistance and all kinds of technology…even for the most basic model of the cheapest possible vehicle…there isn’t another option other than buying an old used car.

We often espouse the free market in the US but consumers are now beholden to whatever the companies wish to offer and there isn’t really an alternative if one wishes to buy a new product.

It just slowly gets worse over time. If it was a big drop in quality, it might—but Amazon knows just the right speed to make things worse, to maximize how bad their services get while minimizing consumer complaints.

The ordinary consumers that bought Alexa listening devices in the millions?

Have you seen TV? Magazines? Newspapers?

People are just used to overload with ads.

There was an experiment for a while of placing ads on the floor of supermarkets so shoppers would see them while walking through the store. I suspect it was maintenance issues/cost rather than customer complaints that caused them to go away. Any advertising delivery medium with a low enough cost will be exploited.

It’s a parasite, or a disease, or a cancer.

Bleh. Race to the bottom continues.

I’m surprised there isn’t a price cut Apple TV “stick”. Drop game support, low local storage, no Ethernet port, but leave 4K support. 4K support lets them charge the magic 2-digit HomePod mini price point of 99$ under the guise of “same video quality as the 130$ one”.

That would juuuuust crossover into the “good enough” zone for me, considering how clean apple tvOS is.

> I’m surprised there isn’t a price cut Apple TV “stick”. (a $99 price point) would juuuuust crossover into the “good enough” zone for me,

Is that $30 really make-or-break for you?

Apple TV's entry model is already only $129.00 USD, and the hardware is really really nice. Easily the fastest and most fluid interface of any "TV Stick" I've used (nicer than any Chromecast / Roku / Fire TV stick, nicer than any built-in smart stuff from LG/Samsung/Vizio), while also having the least amount of advertisements of anything you can buy.

I don't love Apple's high premium pricing on a lot of their products. But the Apple TV doesn't really have that, it's competitively priced with alternatives (a base Apple TV is only like $30 more than the equivalent Fire TV Cube, and only $5 more than the nVidia Shield TV)

Apple still grades their AppleTV boxes by local storage amounts. For 128GB it’s 150$. IMO that sort of weirdness positions it just a little too far from a chromecast/roku/fire stick for the average person wanting to escape their smart TV garbage OS. The 64GB box is still 130$, and people might not even understand why they need any disk space at all. (I don’t use much of my Apple TV’s 64GB) The fire stick at 40$ looks pretty good in that light. Why pay more?

It would just sell better at 99$ IMO, and there’s obvious things to cut to create apple’s usual “price ladder”. I’m not using the games, nor am I using more than 8GB of storage.

It is unlikely that Apple would make a worse product in this category to enter a price war that they cannot win. Part of the Apple strategy is to be seen as the best option, and pricing is a part of that.

You’re paying to have an experience that is about serving you rather than advertisers. If that’s worth money to you, buy it. Otherwise, you get what you pay for: as crappy a device they can get away with, subsidized by ads.

For me it was close battle between Apple TV and Nvidia shield pro. But no Stremio on Apple TV was deal breaker.

We made the mistake of expecting Amazon to continue improving their Prime Video selection and Alexa smart home device dominance, and they've completely nose dived since around Bezos' departure. Once we realized the devices were only useful to us as Spotify speakers or making announcements, and, Prime video selection was becoming infested with ads or ad infused content (Freevee); we Sold all the devices and cancelled our Prime subscription.

Cutting the cable originally meant decoupling from wasting time on nonstop marketing BS, but here we are again. I guess it was inevitable and great while it lasted, but time to cut the cable version 2. New smart home and streaming setup is independent and flexible, no more investing in anything linked to Amazon, Apple, or similar.

I also noticed that Alexa, in general, has become a lot less useful in the past 6-12 months. It's nothing huge but just little things keep tripping me up. For example, I have several "unknown" devices in my Alexa config and I don't know what they are.

So I went on a clean up spree the other day and accidentally removed my TV and now Alexa can't turn it on/off. The TV is connected to a FireTV Cube, which Alexa knows about. When I tell Alexa to turn on the TV it tells me it can't find the TV and to check it's network connection. This is maddening because Alexa (FireTV Cube) IS the network connection for the TV.

I'm beginning to think that I'll have to wipe my Alexa configuration completely and start over. If it comes to that I'll just buy an Apple TV 4K+ and move away from Amazon completely.

I haven't removed anything and got the same issue with the TV. They must have f*cked up something on their end.

this feels like a race to the bottom which every industry player except Apple is competing in. I never would have considered an Apple TV just a few years ago, but my Shield is gathering dust ever since I made the switch.

My girlfriend's Apple TV setup makes me jealous every time I use it. I don't even like TV, but Apple TV has the best interface by far, and the touchpad on the remote is perfect for scrubbing through video.

Can you view your own content on an Apple TV? Like with VLC? I don't own much Apple stuff anymore but I'm getting sick of all Android TV options getting so commercialised.

I don't currently subscribe to any streaming service though except Amazon prime (mainly because it's included with the shipping)

The Apple TV App Store is fairly extensive, and has apps for VLC and Plex

Thanks! I don't use Plex but VLC will do great.

Ps does VLC also permit playing from local samba shares?

Yes, VLC works on Apple TV for Samba shares, but Infuse is nearly perfection for it.

Thanks never heard of that app. But it looks good. Maybe I will switch over to Apple, I'm getting sick and tired of these ads.

Yes, but you can do better than that with JellyBean and infuse or whatever it is.

But VLC works fine.

Infuse app is great for streaming 4K MKVs from a NAS. Owlfiles is a great general purpose file browser with good media support.

Not sure about VLC, but I’ve a Plex server locally and Apple TV app works fine for streaming from the server.

Ah ok I don't use Plex. I don't really like it and the way it syncs my library to their cloud (in my country it's not fully legal and one does not 'take notes on a criminal conspiracy' lol :)

Yep!

You really want to be jealous, have a Mac, and seamlessly be able to use the AppleTV as a monitor

Or easily re-connect AirPods from the phone to AppleTV and watch at night without waking the whole house.

I use my Apple TV as a security camera system, in addition to acting as a TV and extra seamless monitor. Video chatting my whole family on a 65” screen is nice too.

do you mean through Airplay?

Yes, technically that's what it's called, but all I do on my mac is click on the second icon from top right of my screen, click on screen mirroring, and choose my AppleTV.

got it, thank you!

Biggest wins for me when recently switching from a Firestick to an Apple TV is how much faster it’s been to use and the lack of crud.

Seems the Firestick has some heavy subsidises they make up for with activities like this post.

The Firestick/Roku/Chomecast all sell for roughly the same price point. I cannot believe they are all losing money on the physical device. This just strikes me as continuing to enshitify the platform because they can.

Looking at this it looks like the vast majority of Roku revenue comes from their platform, not devices.

https://www.investopedia.com/how-roku-makes-money-5119488

Within devices/players:

> The segment reported a gross loss of $90.6 million in 2022, a deterioration from the gross loss of $37.8 million one year earlier.

Wish I had the link which was posted here last time.

Fire TV and Fire stick both can have the launcher replaced with something which respects the user more, using adb.

As an aside, the ads are not the worst part of the launcher. The worst part is it keeps getting slower and slower. I have 2 Fire devices and it is the same on both. Total dogs.

I've read that auto-update will remove these launchers, so if you're already using adb, you'd want to use it to stop auto-update. Not sure if that could break updates for individual apps.

What I have found with my LG TV (different animal I know) is that the app store and OS updates were served up from the same CDN seemingly. So blocking OS updates also broke App updates.

Link ahoy! https://gitlab.com/flauncher/flauncher

> The project is still at an early development stage and may be unstable. It currently lacks testing on real devices

Yeah, nah.

I plug this on every article about FireTV or AppleWatchbox or GoogleXstream.

Buy a desktop, can even be an old one I picked mine up for $200 from a used electronic store. Buy a wireless keyboard and mouse, buy and HDMI cord.

Setup a shortcut on your desktop to each of the major streaming services you want.

Boom everything you could want or need, if you don't like the idea of a mouse Vimium extension allows you to everything from the keyboard. Also you can install uBlock origin to deal with pesky ads.

You know who doesn't deal with a completely hijacked interface and can customize things to how he wants while also being able to play steam games on my TV? This guy.

If your skeptical just give it a try and prepare to be surprised.

I used to do that. Until I got a Chromecast + Remote. It's a tiny, clean remote that controls my tv, my soundbar and the chromecast, my main media streaming app (emby) is one click away after turning my tv on, performance "just works" and it handles 4k content no problem.

A HTPC is great in terms of flexibility amd configurability, but it does not come close to the simplicity and elegance of a tv box - be it apple tv or google tv. My father has a generic android tv box (mecool something something) and it's equally as perfect for their needs.

I'm not aware of any ads baked in to the google/android tv ui.

I did this more than 10 years ago. I had a G-Force 9600 GT with a FreeBSD desktop. And I used piano bar, the CLI program for Spotify, as my audio program. And then I just navigated the file system to play videos from my personal library.

In some ways it's simpler, but having a remote control and having the app user interface versus a desktop is nicer most of the time.

Hmm no. That uses too much power for me and I really want something with a simple remote.

You can get mini PCs or laptops that idle at 10 watts or less. If you suspend it when not in use it will be truly negligible. And there's no reason you can't use a remote with one, although I'd argue a wireless mouse is basically a remote.

So same as above with OpenElec or Kodi plus remote ?

That uses way more power than a streaming box, though. From what I found, an Apple TV uses about 6 watts when streaming 4k. I bet an old PC will use at least 100 to 200 watts when streaming, and at least 50 watts idle.

I've read that a pi 4 uses approximately 6.4 Watts. That's one alternative giving you a full desktop.

I don’t think a pi can do 4k 60hz? I haven’t used one since forever though, maybe they’re faster. In any case, the OP was talking about an old computer, not a pi.

I'm considering this with my pi 4 or a mini pc. The former may not be the best for streaming but if I avoid running anything else (like HomeAssistant, a server) I figure it will be fine for now.

Another story: I had auto updates disabled on my Nvidia shield, and for some reason decided to re-enable them. Afterwards I begin getting twitch streams interrupted by three or four minutes of ads at a time, in the middle of a streamer's match. That taught me never to have auto updates enabled again.

Combine that with the same thing that happened on the shield itself as what is happening this article, where an update that does nothing for performance or features of the device inserts ads to the home screen.

I think it just boils down to the price. The Black Friday price for a fire stick is around $20 whereas that for an Apple TV is around $149. So Apple is charging around 7.5x for the hardware. This is on top of whatever streaming fees that you will pay each month. Of course if you have the bandwidth to pay about 7x for streaming hardware, then go for the Apple TV.

There is a reason why fire stick and Android TV is more popular in the developing world. One reason is the cost , the second is the ability to load 3rd party apps that sometimes allow access to torrent files and other pirated media.

Fire stick to apple TV is apples to oranges. The real comparisons are with NVidia Shield pro, Fire TV cube etc. and the $ delta isn't that much.

It's true that Apple doesn't have a product like the fire stick, but it's also the sort of market they aren't interested in, so doubt they'll make one. The equivalent I guess is licensing to "smart" TV companies, some can play apple content directly.

I have had a FireTV Cube for 3 years and it just keeps getting worse and worse. These full screen ads are the last straw. I'm replacing it with an Apple 4k+ unit as soon as I can.

If pricing is the only decisive factor then Walmart Onn streaming box for $20 is better than fire stick. I have fire tv 4K stick, Walmart Onn, Nvidia shield pro. I rarely use fire stick now.

I would have gone for Apple TV instead of Nvidia shield pro if Apple TV had Stremio app support.

I just replaced my older TV that I sued a Fire stick with with a Roku TV because I'm sick of the ads.

I bought the First stick to stream and view my content, not have a advertising billboard in my living room.

You can disable the auto-play full screen video ads every time it starts up, though it seems like we are now stuck with a full screen still picture ad. I doubt Amazon will change this unless they get like 500k complaints and that's not likely to happen.

My options are: * Apple TV * Nvidia Shield * DIY something together using Android TV. Either a RPi (maybe one of the knock offs), or a low-end pc.

I would guess Apple TV probably has the best ui/ux. What's the Shield like? Are there apps for Freevee, Tubi? Plex? How is GeForce Now?

Anyone DIYed one?

They've done this for about a year or more in Spain. It's a PITA. Sure the hardware is cheap but this isn't cool.

Anyone know if a Pi-hole will combat this?

Regulators, now would be a good time.

Casual theft it is again then!

Absolutely. Amazon, not satisfied with being one of the largest companies in the world, is stealing from their customers, and will go whining to uncle sam once people start fighting back against the theft.

enshittification sure is speeding up, huh?

... i am pretty happy with my >40" OLED monitor that for some reason has a KVM built in and 4 outputs and speakers.

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