Privacy

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Chromecast (the device) is dead, what can I use now? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Armand1@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I've had a Chromecast for almost a decade, and it had mostly been great. They cost £30 at the time, and let you cast from most media apps, even if they didn't really have their own UI. You could take it to a friends house / hotel, power it off of the USB port on the back of most TVs and you'd be off to the races.

Given that they are now discontinued and my old one doesn't support 4K and casting from some newer apps (maybe a lack of AV1 / h265 support?), I'm looking for a replacement.

I'm looking for a privacy-respecting device in a vaguely stick-like format that will support casting from Android. It having support for apps is a nice to have for me.

Before you say "well if you use YouTube / Plex it's not private because they collect data about what you watch", sure, that may be true, but I'd rather not have the stick itself also do ACR on everything I cast as well.

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[–] WoodYouLookAtThat@lemmy.today 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Im not sure that this is what you're looking for but, I use a Ugoos AM9 pro. It's not a stick, but its a pretty capable android TV box. It uses a remote. it comes with magisk installed. I spent some time auditing it via adb and confirming it wasn't sending telemetry, and I couldn't find anything concerning.

I wish there was an alternate image I could put in it like lineage os, just for the extra confirmation, but I'm already very happy with it.

[–] Armand1@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've heard a lot of cheap Chinese devices have telemetry or malware on them. I'm almost surprised this does not.

Chinese stuff also tends to not rely on Google Services, does it have casting support? Maybe that's on an app-to-app basis anyway.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

[–] WoodYouLookAtThat@lemmy.today 2 points 1 week ago

It's definitely a valid concern. I connected a device between it and the rest of my network and spent some time recording anything it sent. I wasn't able to find any telemetry at all. I also keep it segregated from the rest of my network by vlan, and it only has a few specific routes to reach my self hosted services.

I do, however, want to point out that a chromecast is going to have a ton of telemetry. It's hard to be truly certain of any devices these days, but I spent some time digging into the OS and I'm pretty confident that it's truly my device.

I don't use google cast, but I'm fairly sure it could if I used it. It has a remote, so I just use that. If I want to use jellyfin, or whatever app, I just install it on the device and log straight in. I don't use mine as a portable stick like you mentioned. It's intended to turn a dumb tv into a smart tv, and that's all I want it to do.