Plex now want to SELL your personal data
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How has immich been compared to photoprism? My issue with immich is that new releases kept breaking things. Has it finally stabilized? Lts are super important to me as I don’t want to spend every weekend reconfiguring services for my family.
I'm new to self hosting and I've only used it for about a month. During the last month all updates have been stable for me! But according to their roadmap they plan to do their official "stable" release a little later this year, so you could wait until then?
Also I'm running it in docker so that might help
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How has immich been compared to photoprism? My issue with immich is that new releases kept breaking things. Has it finally stabilized? Lts are super important to me as I don’t want to spend every weekend reconfiguring services for my family.
Forgot to mention- can't compare to photo prism as I've never used it!
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I have gotten into arguments here
Yes, that was the joke
is it a good thing for Home Assistant to provide a paid subscription service that will handle that for you?
There are so many differences between HA and Plex that it's almost difficult to pick which one is most significant. All i'd say is - if plex was at all the same as HA, I would have zero problem with it. If jellyfin adopted HA's model of paid development, I'd be thrilled. But HA's strategy is actually pretty unique, it'll take time for that structure to be stress-tested and propagate.
It does not need Google for anything here, having Google’s SSO doesn’t give them any information they already have.
Yea but not really - google accounts are usually pretty specifically identifiable to a person/ad account/collected internet and device activity. Might not be a big deal to you, but having those things tied together is problematic on a number of levels. You can self-host an SSO, and you can also have a security-focused third-party SSO - both would be marginal improvements over using google's auth system in terms of privacy.
It does give that to Google, but if your concern is the cops are going to bang on your door for all your illegal pixels that you stream then you’re just as boned. It’s borderline irresponsible to pretend otherwise.
Yes, 100%. If you're at all concerned about privacy, plex is a terrible idea, with or without SSO. I'm glad you agree.
How you get “I have nothing to hide” out of that is your own pretzel logic.
"What i'm doing is perfectly legal so it doesn't matter if they have my detailed data". You're not hiding it because you think you don't need to - that's exactly the argument you're making. Every step toward data privacy is valuable, even if your total data hygiene practice isn't perfect. It still matters.
I have a right to store, backup and access my own media and to keep a copy of it for private use
Good for you. Most of us do not.
I’m not keeping a media server performatively
Neither am I, but I guess I do feel quite passionately about keeping it private and I'm not shy about advocating for the practice. Probably for the same reason you're very tight lipped about what country you're from - you don't necessarily think you'll get swatted if you do, just that it's a pointless detail to share with strangers if you don't have to. Most of my family doesn't care enough about not using netflix or disney+ that they're happy to keep using them if my offering is too complicated. I'm happy to help them set up and learn how the server works if they're interested, and a number of them have become enthusiastic self-hosters themselves as a result. If I was operating a mission-critical service on my server then maybe i'd care more about minimizing UX friction but since it's not, I'm happy with prioritizing privacy and control over polish. That's a pretty common mentality for a server administrator - i'm not running a SAAS here. At most I'm just the enterprise IT manager trying to keep the office slack channel running.
For the record, I don’t have any misgivings about FOSS as a concept.
You can say that, but boy oh boy is that hard to believe. You certainly don't think FOSS is worth any level of inconvenience. Looks to me like you're the kind of person who wants the best tool for every job, regardless of if you could get by with a middling one that supports a FOSS project. That's fine. I use adobe products for work because I can't really get by without it, but I still use GIMP or Inkscape when I can and I support those ecosystems with my time and money because it draws more people in. And I actually do want my FOSS tools to be built as side projects, at least at first. There's a place for polish and professional support, but a lot of this stuff needs to be built out and tested before that kind of thing happens. A lot of these projects act as beta testing for forks that will end up doing one thing really well to a high level of polish. Having a product that's maybe a little complicated but extremely accessible from a configuration standpoint lets more tech-minded people build on top of them and work toward more polished solutions.
But I certainly don't find VC backed projects entering into the FOSS space as a good thing. Maybe that competition drives positive movement in the open-sourced ones, but usually they turn out to be 'embrace, extend, extinguish' projects. Like, I don't think meta's Threads is a positive thing for federated social media, even though by this logic they are making it 'more mainstream' by their adoption of activitypub. There just isn't a way to separate the product they produce from the economic model they operate under, and plex has chosen a model that inevitably leads to enshittification and walled-off content gardens.
I just don't see any reason to blow smoke for plex. Their UX is fine (great, even), but they're doing basically everything else wrong. They're reliant on VC capital, they're collaborating with private media and tailoring their TOS to protect copyright holders, they're collecting data they don't need and forcing features that reduce privacy, they're changing their privacy policies to enable data sales and monetization, they're bait-and-switching users by placing popular free features behind paywalls, they're banning lifetime paid users for perfectly legal use of their services.... the list goes on and on. At some point, a company like Plex crosses the line from 'reasonable profit-seeking' to 'actively user-hostile', and I think they've already crossed that line. Maybe you think their UX is worth the abuse, but I certainly do not - not when there's a perfectly fine alternative that fits my needs and more.
If jellyfin adopted HA's model of paid development, I'd be thrilled. But HA's strategy is actually pretty unique, it'll take time for that structure to be stress-tested and propagate.
Well, hey, there we agree, then. I'd say that the setup for HA is actually fairly Mozilla-like, and people don't seem thrilled with THAT, so it wasn't a given you'd agree. Plex certainly isn't that. For one thing it's commercial and closed source. But crucially HA's commercial branch WILL have a bunch of your data, including voice processing and login info, if you do buy into their paid subscription service.
As for the rest of the argument, most is redundant so I'm not gonna go through the loop again, I am actually busy. But I will add a few things. For one thing, whether I think FOSS is worth "any level of inconvenience" is irrelevant. I do, and I do live with the inconvenience in some cases. But if the goal is for FOSS to be mainstream and a primary choice (and it can absolutely be, there are plenty of examples), then it doesn't matter what I think. The reason the privacy tradeoffs make sense for Plex is that Plex is an app your family is likely to use. Mine does, and they sure won't put up with bad UX for the sake of using an open alternative. OBS didn't crush Xsplit out of the market because of ideology, it did it because it became more powerful, usable and reliable.
And let me clarify I don't "blow smoke for Plex". I opened this whole subthread by saying I wanted to use Jellyfin (hence all the testing we've been nitpicking about) but couldn't justify it. I've said this above. I'd drop Plex in a heartbeat if Jellyfin was just as good to use for me and the rest of my household. But it isn't. There's no reason to blow smoke for Plex, but there is a reason to not delusionally pretend that open source alterantives are better than they are. You're not going to gaslight normies into using them that way and the complacency just makes it less likely for them to succeed at what they're trying to do. It is, after all, the year of Linux desktop.
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Meanwhile, poor Jellyfin just quietly doing the job.
Until it supports proper external access I just can't switch.
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As I said, I've yet to find a selfhosting solution half as good as PlexAmp. It's very, very good and arguably a better service than normal Plex
The closest thing I've found to Plexamp (on Android) is Symphonium. I only pointed it to my Plex server, but it offers support to so many other services. It also works perfect in Android Audio. It does cost $4, but it's honestly worth that and then some.
But I totally get how great Plexamp is. I use it every day.
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I have a Philipps OLED TV from 2019, with Android 9 or smth. But WebOS is a different beast.
Ah okay. Yes, it seems to be indeed.
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Plex is heavier, of course. They don't have the spending luxuries that Netflix or Disney has to optimize for every platform perfectly. That said, TV's notoriously use inferior hardware for the built in streaming portion so they can sell them at the prices they do and make higher profit. Sure, they can play the media they were designed to do, but that is the bare minimum requirement. They also sell your data to recoup more profit.
Unlike good dedicated streaming devices, they lack the processing power needed to make it go quickly. I have both and it is a night and day difference in responsiveness in the UI. It either lacks the memory/CPU power to work as well. Don't just take my word for it though, do your own testing or look at somebody elses. Plex definitely has improvements that can be made, but they are not at complete fault here.
If you pick a good dedicated one, it might not even sell you out to advertisers. Lol. You don't really want to connect your TV to the internet anyway. They phone home constantly.
wrote last edited by [email protected]This all still doesn't address the first thing I wrote:
Jellyfin with the same library takes mere seconds before I see the first movie/episode poster cards.
Why can Jellyfin perform perfectly on the same hardware? Very snappy. It's obviously not the hardware's fault, but more a lack of optimization — and testing. If they tested/dogfed their app on WebOS at all, they'd know it's ass.
Edit: I just did a quick research on this in the Plex forums, and it seems like a lot of posts detail the same experience as mine: Plex used to work great until a year or more ago where it just turned into an unoptimized mess where even stepping left or right to a different poster, or button, has like a 1+ second lag.
It's very clear this is Plex's fault. It wasn't always like this.
Every single post is ignored by Plex and automatically closed due to inactivity (from Plex). They don't care.
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I have a lifetime Plex pass but still I am considering switching.
Currently I have both Jellyfin and Plex on the same libraries but Jellyfin doesn’t have support for chromecast (on iOS and Firefox) nor support for offline . (Not) covering neither my at home nor travelling use cases
For chromecast to work with the app, you need to install the jellyfin app from google play, not fdroid or other store.
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I’m a big fan of Jellyfin. I would say it is easily family approved. That is for my family in my household who is using it on our home Wi-Fi.
But I am not about to expose it publicly. I have WireGuard set up on my immediate family’s devices and that is mostly ok (until you get on a public Wi-Fi that fails because you haven’t gone through their portal and can’t because the vpn is on, or you are on an airplane’s Wi-Fi with no internet trying to watch their movies and it doesn’t work until you turn off the vpn). Explaining this to my wife has been a nonstop battle.
I’d like it open it up to my siblings families, especially because I have the ersatztv plug-in to create approved child stations, but so many smart tvs and devices don’t support a vpn. How have others handled that situation?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Wireguard doesn't necessarily need to have those limitations, but it will depend in part how your VPN profile is set up.
If you configured your wireguard profile to always route all traffic over the VPN then yeah, you won't be able to access local networks. And maybe that's what you want, in which case fine
But you can also set the profile to only route traffic that is destined for an address on the target network (I.e your home network) and the rest will route as normal.
This second type of routing only works properly however when there are no address conflicts between the network you are on (i.e. someone else's WiFi) and your home network.
For this reason if you want to do this it's best to avoid on your own home network the common ranges almost everyone uses as default, i.e. 192.168.0.* and 10.0.0.*
I reconfigured my home network to 192.168.22.* for that reason. Now I never hit conflicts and VPN can stay on all the time but only traversed when needed
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That was what I was leaning towards. Do you (or does anyone) happen to know if it is easy to get going on Bazzite? And if so, does it play nice with a Steam controller?
Entire Kodi interface can be navigated using only arrow keys, enter, esc. If you use Steam Input, you can rebind keys. And good news, Kodi is on Flathub so you can install it with ease:
https://flathub.org/apps/tv.kodi.Kodi -
ohyeah im fully aware.
Will they actually delete it or will they just mark it in database as deleted? Are big companies like google going to send their tech workers to go through all their tapes and databases archived all around the world and prove they actually deleted your data? Are there enough consequences to ensure companies actually scrub your data rather than do the bare minimum? -
So I searched, and all of the results were talking about setting up a VPN or a reverse proxy or whatever.
The best thing is, you can't use a reverse proxy with it, it doesn't even support it.
Odd, since my Jellyfin sits behind a reverse proxy.
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Why does nobody ever mention Emby? To me, it’s everything Plex used to be before it got enshittified!
Emby
Jellyfin exists because Emby was only open source until it wasn't convenient. Some of their own devs pointed out they were violating the license, and their response was... non-ideal.
So Jellyfin was forked with the last fully open-source Emby code.
At least that's my recollection several years down the line.
I decided then that no amount of headache from Jellyfin (and let me say that I was an EARLY jellyfin adopter AND former Plex user) would be enough to get me to use Emby. (Because things like that are important to me, though I realize they aren't important to everyone.)
And reading this thread I'm apparently a super-genius because I have my Jellyfin behind a reverse proxy and serve it to my elderly parents with a simple login and an app they were able to install, and never found it to be a headache. (Which, if I'd read this thread only, I'd conclude was just not possible without voodoo magic)
No headaches along the way, and whereas Plex had already begun the march to enshittification when I left, Jellyfin has done nothing but steadily get better.
Anyhow, longer answer than intended, but I'd go back to Plex before I'd go to Emby, just on principle.
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Can someone explain to me why you need anything more than directories filled with files to view content?
I'm struggling to understand why anybody would need or want something like Plex.
I want to watch a movie. I open explorer, go to the folder movies, select the movie, and double click the icon.
The end.
You are imagining how to use a computer filled with video files.
Now imagine having your own personal netflix available on a variety of devices, using just that one computer full of video files.
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You are imagining how to use a computer filled with video files.
Now imagine having your own personal netflix available on a variety of devices, using just that one computer full of video files.
I don't have the addiction or condition that makes that compelling to me.
I can't figure out why or how that is a need people have.
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I don't have the addiction or condition that makes that compelling to me.
I can't figure out why or how that is a need people have.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Well, I can tell you how Jellyfin differs from a directory full of files, but I can't help you with understanding that other people have different preferences and desires than you which are neither "conditions" nor "addictions."
You'll have to make it to that one on your own.
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Wireguard doesn't necessarily need to have those limitations, but it will depend in part how your VPN profile is set up.
If you configured your wireguard profile to always route all traffic over the VPN then yeah, you won't be able to access local networks. And maybe that's what you want, in which case fine
But you can also set the profile to only route traffic that is destined for an address on the target network (I.e your home network) and the rest will route as normal.
This second type of routing only works properly however when there are no address conflicts between the network you are on (i.e. someone else's WiFi) and your home network.
For this reason if you want to do this it's best to avoid on your own home network the common ranges almost everyone uses as default, i.e. 192.168.0.* and 10.0.0.*
I reconfigured my home network to 192.168.22.* for that reason. Now I never hit conflicts and VPN can stay on all the time but only traversed when needed
I typically use split routing BUT also have dns set to my pihole, both so dns works for my internal services and for tracker blocking. That causes a big issue. Also I wish WireGuard would just handle failures better. Even when it can’t connect, it seems to break networking (at least on iOS)
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If jellyfin adopted HA's model of paid development, I'd be thrilled. But HA's strategy is actually pretty unique, it'll take time for that structure to be stress-tested and propagate.
Well, hey, there we agree, then. I'd say that the setup for HA is actually fairly Mozilla-like, and people don't seem thrilled with THAT, so it wasn't a given you'd agree. Plex certainly isn't that. For one thing it's commercial and closed source. But crucially HA's commercial branch WILL have a bunch of your data, including voice processing and login info, if you do buy into their paid subscription service.
As for the rest of the argument, most is redundant so I'm not gonna go through the loop again, I am actually busy. But I will add a few things. For one thing, whether I think FOSS is worth "any level of inconvenience" is irrelevant. I do, and I do live with the inconvenience in some cases. But if the goal is for FOSS to be mainstream and a primary choice (and it can absolutely be, there are plenty of examples), then it doesn't matter what I think. The reason the privacy tradeoffs make sense for Plex is that Plex is an app your family is likely to use. Mine does, and they sure won't put up with bad UX for the sake of using an open alternative. OBS didn't crush Xsplit out of the market because of ideology, it did it because it became more powerful, usable and reliable.
And let me clarify I don't "blow smoke for Plex". I opened this whole subthread by saying I wanted to use Jellyfin (hence all the testing we've been nitpicking about) but couldn't justify it. I've said this above. I'd drop Plex in a heartbeat if Jellyfin was just as good to use for me and the rest of my household. But it isn't. There's no reason to blow smoke for Plex, but there is a reason to not delusionally pretend that open source alterantives are better than they are. You're not going to gaslight normies into using them that way and the complacency just makes it less likely for them to succeed at what they're trying to do. It is, after all, the year of Linux desktop.
But crucially HA's commercial branch WILL have a bunch of your data, including voice processing and login info, if you do buy into their paid subscription service.
- their background as a nonprofit was oriented toward data privacy and portability to begin with. Their privacy policy is about as protective as they come. Compared with plex...
- they have a paid service but they offer their base product as FOSS
It would be great if JF did something similar, but I think they don't specifically because they'd be liable for their users illicit use of it. That's basically the whole reason OSS streamers exist. Plex started out that way, but when they decided they wanted to compete with the big boys they were forced to lock it down more to protect themselves against legal challenges. That's why I think you're kidding yourself if you think it's a long-term solution for streaming ripped media. That'll only last until copyright owners decide to push plex to take action against it.
But if the goal is for FOSS to be mainstream and a primary choice (and it can absolutely be, there are plenty of examples), then it doesn't matter what I think.
I don't think that should be the goal - FOSS as a model will never outcompete for-profit corporate models. IMO the goal should be to encourage people to learn the minimal amount of tech self sufficiency so that they can choose FOSS when they need it, rather than pushing FOSS to become OSS, and then eventually just SAAS. Firefox is a good example of what can go wrong with chasing mainstream adoption. There's a place for projects like Plex, but im pretty adamant that those should be halfway solutions more than end-goals. I'm fine with leaving that as a disagreement.
I'd drop Plex in a heartbeat if Jellyfin was just as good to use for me and the rest of my household. But it isn't. There's no reason to blow smoke for Plex, but there is a reason to not delusionally pretend that open source alterantives are better than they are.
Nobody is saying JF is easier to use than plex, we just prefer the flexibility and privacy and aren't bothered or slowed down by the complexity. That's fine. You just have different priorities than the rest of us. I'm glad there's an option for you.
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Not listening habits. But symphonium can do genre and general mix.
And honestly it keeps you from hearing all the same stuff in every mix like Spotify (and seemingly Plexamp) doeswrote last edited by [email protected]Very true. I’m okay with hearing the same songs. It’s when I get the intro/intermission/joke tracks I get annoyed. Plexamp has a deep cuts mix that plays the lesser known music which I’ll throw up to change it up. It’s just easy to pick a premade mix and move on to what I’m doing.
Finamp has artist/album mixer but it’s truly random. You could get the same artist 6 times in a row if that artist selection is bigger than the other artist.
That’s my must-have feature. I need to look to see if there is something already comparable out there.
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ohyeah im fully aware.
Will they actually delete it or will they just mark it in database as deleted? Are big companies like google going to send their tech workers to go through all their tapes and databases archived all around the world and prove they actually deleted your data? Are there enough consequences to ensure companies actually scrub your data rather than do the bare minimum?First of all, the European Data Protection Board have shown they are more than willing to throw their weight around issue large fines and request audits. Second of all, have you actually looked at the types of data data brokers buy and sell? Massive records of IPs, and metrics.
Like above what "amazing treasure trove of personal data" are you giving up by clicking "I Accept". Search queries of the Plex Free Movie\TV library, watch times of the same free library and whether you click on pre, mid or post roll ads. And who is going to buy and sell this? Ad providers who swear they are providing targeted advertising, but really have quotas and metrics to fill. They will end up showing irrelevant ads anyway, not because of some algorithm, but literally because the advertising industry does not give two shits about click through rates just that ads get shown.
There's so much bitching in this thread like someone from AdSense or Outbrain has personally murdered a family member, but the truth is, these places are a grift. Annoying, yes, but mostly harmless. Oh and don't try to pull "oh but governments can use this for surveillance" yes they could but as someone who has held a job a federal level tax office, they do not have the budget for profiling people like this and a corrupt government has cheaper and better options.
I will try my best to respect your opinion and what you think a "right to privacy" means but I have great trouble understanding the paranoia
