Majestic

I use the pro in comparison because the non-pro version is even more dated on lesser hardware and going to be sluggish, lesser in capabilities than other alternatives in the android space.

For one it can't (reliably) run a plex server or other services so there's really no advantage other than brand loyalty to NVIDIA to buy the non-pro shield over say a Walmart Onn 4k for half that price. (And that's the truth, you can't reliably run other services on the non-pro shield without incurring a noticeable performance penalty and degradation if it's even possible in the first place)

I compare apples to apples here or tried to be honest. ATV4K has 4GB RAM, Shield Pro has 3, there are various other reasons to compare them, they're both the top of the line. Though as I mentioned if you want to compare the non-pro shield then there's the smaller ATV4k which still has without buying an SD card 64GB of storage for $129.

As to "offers". I used retail prices you use this which I consider dishonest and desperate. Not a credit to your side. Apple TVs regularly go on sale multiple times a year via official dealers like Amazon, Target, Costco. Shield's rarely go on sale, if you're talking about used or shady third party dealers then you're not doing an honest apples to apples comparison.

Shield promoters are strange people to me in 2024. I don't think you've taken a proper inventory of the landscape. People call apple users shills and so some of them are, but I see shills for various brands and people unfortunately taken in by them.

Yes it was revolutionary when it came out, now it's not. That's life when a company decides to abandon a product line for all intents and purposes and yes no hardware updates, not even a revision in 5 years signals stagnation. They don't need a major processor upgrade but not bumping a few minor aspects of the hardware like the HDMI ports version or the WiFi for instance just shows they don't consider it an important part of their brand and I'm not sure why you'd buy into something that could be sunsetted without any surprise come January.

And not dropping the price which is rather hefty and high considering costs should have gone down over time is also a not so nice sign of greed and inattention. Apple dropped their prices. No reason NVIDIA with its scale and buying power doesn't have the ability to drop the price if they're not going to at least actively develop it to justify it.

VLC is awful for network playback. It's fine for local fines (though mpv is better) but playing network files you're going to have pixelation, stuttering, all kinds of problems I can say from experience trying it on both wired and wireless connections. I strongly recommend Kodi, Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, etc over VLC for non-local playback that's smoother and better.

Ad-free youtube is likely soon to go the way of the dodo given the aggressive moves by youtube to stop it and most people don't need or want that on their TV because they're interested in paid or FAST streaming services. You have eclectic tastes and needs and that's fine but recommending that to your average person isn't doing them a service. And it's nice to think of others, not your own biases and unusual needs.

And most people don't need an FTP server (an FTP server, serving what exactly given you're talking about the non-pro and SD cards, that's not a great experience compared to an ext hard drive, if you're going to do that, go for the pro and connect an external spinning disk HDD or SSD via USB).

Most people don't need a torrent client (and again on the non-pro you're talking about downloading onto an SD card, major yikes don't do that, again if you want to do that please recommend people the pro for USB drives and use that in your honest comparisons here).

Both the above also require investing in an SD card (or an external drive via USB for the pro which is the better way to go). Reliable non-trash (good brand, good speed) SD cards are going to drive up that cost you stated another $15+ dollars which puts even your non-pro "on sale" (good luck finding it) shield within $5 spitting distance of the ATV4K higher end 128GB model (to get that much storage on the non-pro shield via SD card of a decent brand and speed would absolutely put your costs in line with the ATV4k 128GB model).

You mention alternative launchers, most people don't want to do that. Apple TV is ad free out of the box without mucking about with ADB and other things. Again consider the average user and how they're not going to do that.

Apple TV 4K:

• no ads on homescreen
• updated near annually, last hw refresh 2023
• HDMI 2.1
• WiFi 6 / gigabit Ethernet
• 128GB internal storage
• $149 retail price ($129 for 64GB model that loses Ethernet for WiFi only)

Nvidia Shield Pro:

• ads on homescreen via google tv
• last hardware refresh 2019 (5 years)
• HDMI 2.0b
• WiFi 5 / gigabit Ethernet
• 16GB internal storage (USB 3 port for ext hard drive if desired)
• $199 retail price

Both support 4K, Dolby vision, atmos, etc. Apple’s dynamic frame rate switching actually works whereas NViDIA’s has bugs and been in beta hell for years.

For your average person without very specific needs like running a Plex server off the same hardware the Apple TV4K is as or more private than the shield at a cheaper price and under active development.

My problem with this in spite of the dire situation they face if Google is forced to cut funding by anti-trust court rulings (or not even forced but they make paying off Mozilla a moot point so they stop) is that they become an ad company. Ads become tied to their CEO compensation, to the salaries of the people who develop it.

They claim they're making a better kind of ad network, a privacy respecting kind. The problem is the ad industry doesn't want less data, they want more. There are no looming laws that would force the ad industry to adopt a more privacy respecting alternative or die and without that the ad industry is going to shun this and it'll be a failure and then they'll have a failed ad network that they can either discard entirely or adapt to industry standards of privacy invasion and abuse and continue to exist and then they'll make another "hard choices" post about having to do that.

And I can see it now. This experiment will fail and after some pressure from the ad industry and some devil-on-shoulder whispering Mozilla will begrudgingly start to enshittify. Their ad network will become less privacy respecting by tiny little steps, by salami-slicing or boiling the frog, the whole privacy-preserving measurement thing will be thrown out BUT they'll still claim they respect you more than Google and will at first perhaps but that will erode. Maybe they'll just implode at some point after that which given Google is being found a monopoly works just fine for Google and the rest of big tech who want a more centralized, locked down browser company that wants to help implement DRM that can't be circumvented, that wants to help lock down everything on the web to restrict users freedoms to choose what is displayed or if they can save it or record it or copy it to say nothing of blocking ads.

Which is so weird, because office is crapware. It’s terrible software.

If so then all the other offerings are even worse crapware.

In my experience Microsoft Office opens twice as fast reliably than LibreOffice (when I terminate the process responsible for keeping it ready it takes about the same amount of time but it's no slower importantly).

Microsoft office is simply the best. It's a fact. It can do tons of things that Libreoffice and OpenOffice cannot. It has tons of advanced features, it's just a superior office suite.

Comparing LibreOffice to Microsoft Office is like comparing a Lexus SUV with the full package of options installed compared to a basic fleet Ford sedan. Yes both can do very basic things and if you just need to type some things or do very basic spreadsheets then they're interchangeable.

But ask some slightly advanced things like sortable tables (Excel does easily) and suddenly only MS office can do that and the LibreOffice people tell you to pound sand and use a database which doesn't make sense for a lot of tasks when you may just be preparing some data for example for a presentation or some quick financial work (I'm talking about stuff for myself, not a professional accountant), etc. Take a look at design options in MS Word compared to LibreOffice writer. Both have title and header styling options but the MS office ones simply look more professional, cleaner, and they have more options you can easily tweak. If I'm presenting a report I absolutely want to do it in MS office because I can make it look neater and nicer with less effort.

Businesses use it because 1) they're used to using it, it's a standard among businesses and the public, and it's maximally compatible with files created by it so interoperability isn't an issue as long as you too use it, 2) it's the best. It has more options than others, it can do more things. It has more depth. It has extensive support and documentation and it has good integration between the different pieces of software.

It's like comparing GIMP to Photoshop. Sorry. I think FOSS is a great philosophy and I hate Microsoft and Adobe as much as anyone but in practice Photoshop is miles and miles beyond GIMP in capabilities. And this is coming from someone who has GIMP installed and not Photoshop (because PS is expensive).

The extended suite of MS office has always been meh. But it doesn't matter. Word, Excel, PowerPoint all work great and are exceptional tools at the top of their class. Could they be better? Yes. But they don't have to be the best possible, they just have to be the best compared to other offerings by a country mile and they are if your needs are any more complex than the occasional letter to grandma.

Does that mean I think people should pay for MS Office? Not when there are ways to get it free with no cracking or risk.

If you block ALL traffic from it? Sure. It's possible but more involved and requires the right hardware to block their tracking domains while leaving streaming apps working.

It's best not to use smart TVs as well smart TVs. The apps they have are almost always slower or inferior in some way to the versions you get on streaming devices, updated less often, etc. I recommend pairing a TV with a quality streaming device like an Nvidia shield (or shield pro) or an AppleTV*. Alternatively if you want something a little cheaper in Androidtv space there is the Walmart brand Onn 4k pro.

*warning with Apple is while they're pretty good on privacy (meh, there are no excellent choices that support streaming apps in 1080p quality) and don't have ads their app-store is a bit more locked down. They have all the major streaming services but if you do high seas type stuff it will be more involved and difficult. Though if you have a local media collection (source your own discs or high seas) and run Plex or Jellyfin they have apps for both of those that work great as well as Infuse which usually requires a subscription unless you don't need 4k or any proprietary audio codecs like dolby for any of your media. I personally can say I enjoy my AppleTV 4K and I think it's a great device but I run my own media-server and have some common streaming services I pay for.

Just beware last I checked they're not very active compared to the reddit. Getting into a lot of trackers on open signups tends to rely on someone posting about it within hours of it happening. Unfortunately less people use lemmy so they're less likely to post about it here, it's not like they have some person in all the trackers who keeps an eye out, it's entirely up to someone noticing and making a post. Some may open for only 24 hours (hawke tends to I think).

So regardless of where you see something open, if you have a place you want, I recommend signing up immediately within minutes rather than waiting even an hour as you never know how long it's been open before it was posted about or how soon it will close. Just make sure you read the rules and any newsposts for new users within the first 24 hours if you can as some places may require activity in the first 24-48 hours for new accounts.

I'm pretty sure the megathread lists a website that tracks signups though in my experience it's not as good as the subreddit. You really just have to watch that space. (Focus especially on checking daily through the winter months, in my experience lots of places open up around Christmas though around Christmas is pretty vague, some will open up around last week of or mid November, others early December, others in early January so it's a patience game). You can create an rss feed for the sub so get just the posts fetched for you when they occur.

TL is one of the best. If you need help filling some holes I'd strongly recommend the semi-private rutracker. You can sign-up using browser translation tools and then add it your search stack (it has jacket support) and search using English titles. It's surprising how many seeded BD remuxes you can find there, they even have stuff I haven't found on any other PT's below PTP level. As it's semi-private there are no real requirements for seeding or ratio though they do track that stuff on your account and give little badges for helping seed. Rutracker also as the other commenter mentioned is pretty strong on CD-rips and music. They're very weak on western TV though.

LST is really good. Strong requests and great bonuses system just for keeping seeds going. They have freeleech on open signup and there's a pool people can fill up to enable it routinely as well. Points can be traded for upload credit so even if you don't succeed in actually seeding you can maintain ratio. Be sure to check out their Christmas advent calendar (TL does this too) for free points, some people get lucky and get millions of points and you're sure to get thousands, probably tens of thousands just for checking in daily in December and that can easily boost you to enough credits to buy enough upload to get over a TB. Once established it's not at all a tough tracker though I'd still prefer TL over it if they have the same stuff because TL has a lower size threshold for automatic freeleech and a lower ratio req.

The AvistaZ network of sites can be pretty good for obscure content but they're stricter than I'd like as they require login every 60 days and download of a torrent every 3 months or you get banned which seems easy but if you're not using them for much it becomes a chore you have to maintain and if you're on multiple of these sites it applies independently. Cinemaz in particularly is good if you have tastes for arthouse, obscure, and foreign films that you're struggling to find elsewhere. It doesn't have mainstream releases though. AnimeZ is pretty good for anime though generally most stuff can be found on nyaa or other open sites. PrivateHD is fine, I find myself mostly finding stuff on TL and choosing it over their listings but occasionally they have a better version of something. Their old rules were better, you could go longer with some inactivity that was more realistic.

If you like old western cartoons then something like Oldtoons would be a great idea to try and get into. That or a general old content specializing tracker though I can't mention the one I'm familiar with by name as they prefer not to be talked about.

If you see hawke uno opening up I'd suggest joining them as well. More encode focused, heavy focus on HEVC but they have an awful lot of stuff from their internals including TAoE and HONE and lots of cross-seeding ability as most QxR stuff gets uploaded, no ratio, just points system and you get a bunch at the start, earn more by seeding, keeping a lot of stuff seeding and you'll never want for the ability to download or worry about running out.

It depends. If you're using a laptop and say you take it to university or work then you're not on your LAN. You're on someone else's LAN and they may have no interest in trying to stop these types of attacks via any kind of client isolation or it may be incomplete.

I can imagine it's a very normal scenario for university students to have CUPS running and available on all networks as they may need to print at their university.

Probably for targeted (or not so) hacking attacks. Heck might be a zero-day attack-kit on the web-page (probably geo-locked to the region).

You can but they’ll find out. It’s reported or flagged or something, they can tell what provider holds a number and they block VOIP ones. Also if a number was ever previously a VOIP number do not try and transfer it back to proper cellular as it will still remain blocked for many but not all of these for years potentially.

pushes up glasses and clears throat (rant, sorry but not sorry)

Actually proper ERP requires some amount of set-up (whether character sheets that both look at or a short discussion or both), the conceit that people are playing characters (sometimes even in third person) whereas cybering is kind of spontaneous and first person, based purely around the direct imagination of things being done to you the person and you doing things to the person you're typing at and rarely gets above a couple sentences per reply and doesn't tend to take place outside of the immediate realm of the possible such as one party's home or some other mundane and immediately accessible location.

Sexting IMO is just cybering with the added strong likelihood that media (visual and/or audio) of one or both parties is exchanged during the act to further it and the strong likelihood that both parties know each other in real life.

The difference between erotic roleplay and cybering is like the difference between your partner just coming up to you and starting to stroke your thigh while touching themselves and both of you agreeing an hour ahead of time to a pirate-themed dress-up occasion where you put effort into speaking like one between dirty talk and maybe use a prop or two before getting to the sex while remaining in-character.

In some cases I'd argue it's even more abstracted as not all people ERP purely for the purpose of immediate/imminent sexual gratification or amusement (some use it for practice writing for instance or to explore some kink or concept like a collaborative 2-person romance novel whereas cybering is pretty shallow and let's be honest focused on the immediate sexual act and fulfillment without much consideration to anything else)

A lot of people who talk of ERP are doing laughably disguised cybering.

-signed, a frustrated roleplayer tired of people who think "I put on my robe and wizard hat, I stroke your thigh, you moan" is the same as actual roleplay (even of the erotic variety). There are people who ERP to get off no doubt, it's quite common I'm sure but it is just the same a writing and creative roleplay endeavor whereas there's little creative thinking or ROLE-playing behind writing how you're pumping and going for broke with someone without context, story, setting outside of the reality you inhabit and as in your head yourself not a character. You're role-playing in that situation in the same way you're acting when you behave as yourself with others, you're acting as yourself so no one could really call it that or call you an actor of any skill or suppose you doing it lends itself to furthering your acting ability.

Cons:

You absolutely cannot get 2FA authenticator codes from 90% of services. Many services that require a phone number even without 2FA just for "verify you're a human" or because they want your data or to verify region use shortcode services that also will not work with ANY VOIP provider.

You will not receive their codes. These companies vary from banking institutions to gaming companies to online shopping marketplaces and stores to a Google account (used to be you could get an automated phone call to verify an account, not anymore, must be able to receive SMS from shortcodes that are disabled for VOIP numbers to register and to recover an account) just about anyone you could end up doing business with.

A shockingly large amount of companies demand phone numbers and send verification texts before allowing you to do business with them, to create an account, to recover an account, to delete an account, to place an order, etc.

They really shouldn't, it's a bad security practice but companies love it because with a phone number they can lower support costs by just allowing people to do a self-service where they get an automated text and can unlock their locked account. They also love harvesting that data and preventing anonymization with VOIP numbers and the reduction of fraud and increase of reliable KYC that comes with requiring them.

And they all take it as a given that EVERYONE or at least 99% have a cell plan with a non-VOIP number that works with these and the 1% who don't they don't care about in the developed world and are an acceptable loss.