Plex now want to SELL your personal data
Plex now want to SELL your personal data
Text:
I consent to Plex to: (i) sell certain personal information (hashed emails, advertising identifiers) to third-parties for advertising and marketing purposes; and (ii) store and/or access certain personal information (advertising identifiers, IP address, content being watched) on my device(s) and share that information with Plex’s advertising partners. This data is used to deliver personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Your consent applies to all devices on which you have Plex installed. You can withdraw your consent at any time in Account Settings or using this page.
Soure: https://www.plex.tv/vendors/ (Might have to clear cache)
Can also read about the changes here: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/
I don't know why everyone in the selfhosting community still even mentions Plex or uses it.
It's closed source, not free; Jellyfin is a no brainer yet people still go to Plex??
The sunken cost of buying a plexpass on sale for 39 dollars 15 years ago.
I bought a Plex pass for 90 or something. I officially dropped Plex about 4 months ago now. For 90 bucks I got something like 8 years out of it. I'll call that a win, I don't feel like I wasted my money, I don't feel like I overpayed. Just moving on now.
Plex is easier to run on older NAS systems, but yeah - that was me :) but i switched to jellyfin, finally
I stuck with Emby for way too long for this reason. I spent $50 in 2017. Gotta get my money’s worth no matter how broken their app was.
Hence the term "sunk cost fallacy".
Jellyfin is hardly a no-brainer. I set it up out of curiosity a few weeks ago and my first question was how do I give access to my friends and family. So I searched, and all of the results were talking about setting up a VPN or a reverse proxy or whatever. Man, I just want to tell my mom "install this app on your tv and log in", which is exactly what Plex does.
I get that Plex is enshittifying, but pretending Jellyfin is a drop-in replacement is delusional.
Jellyfin is a no-brainer. Publishing services on the Internet is complex.
Seconded it’s not a no-brainer. I spent days trying to get it set up with Docker on two different computers and three different distros. It wouldn’t install, if it did install it had errors, if it would even open at all with anything other than a black screen. Hours trying to search how to fix it. I gave up and installed it as a standalone app on a common distro. Not as convenient, but FML it finally worked. Really felt like I wasted my time. Personally, this is the exact bullshit linux fanatics completely ignore when they insist on how great linux is vs whatever. I’ve got a shitload of patience, willpower and modest skill to try to get something like this working, but 99% of the population doesn’t. That’s why linux will stay on the back burner. And if it ever becomes just as easy as Windows…guess what? You’ll have many of the same problem as Windows.
I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd start to suspect that the large multimedia corporations building walled gardens of apps in closed Smart TV ecosystems don't really want you to be able to easily tell your mom how to watch shit for free. I mean they'll let you, if you really insist on having that app available, but someone will have to pay THEM money instead first (and probably let them spy on you). That's their racket.
The reason Plex can do it is because they do make money, doing shitty stuff like this to their users, so they can use that money to open these doors into SmartTV-land. The root of the problem is that your SmartTV itself (and your mom's) is a locked down proprietary piece of shit, designed exclusively for shoving all proprietary content these media companies develop down your throat, and there are few convenient workarounds that are available to us, because of course they make workarounds as inconvenient as possible.
Unless you're willing to ditch everything proprietary and insist on open technology for everything, which is hard on its own, you're going to end up with a janky mix of proprietary and open systems that always require some compromises, because the proprietary stuff forces us to compromise. It's literally a "this is why we can't have nice things" situation.
I'm not a hardcore tech person and this is exactly the issue for me as well.
I want to be able to stream my music collection when I'm away from home without having to get an associate's degree in networking.
Jellyfin is a fully self hosted drop in. That means it's up to the server operator to handle everything. You would still tell your mom to just install the Jellyfin app on her TV with the one additional step in your server address which you would tell her.
But yes, you as the operator have to do some extra things like implementating a reverse proxy and if hosting out of your home make necessary network configuration changes to accommodate this access.
Since you need to self-host Jellyfin, then you are responsible for making the service public.
Yes, but that person has to create an account. Everyone has to create an account. With Plex. Some people I know immediately say no, others are annoyed that plex would try and shake them down for money.
If you configure Jellyfin, all that goes away. THEN they can simply download the app and login.
There is one thing I want from jellyfin. It is to be able to login from their Android app to watch or set something to record without jumping through a bunch of hoops.
So I told people download app enter this url and login. I even send out an email inviting them so they can click the link and create their own username and password. Then if they forget their password they can ask for a reset link.
This is why I use Yunohost. It makes all of that just a "click buttons" affair. Then you can tell your Mom the same thing. Only the domain is yours so Jellyfin can't hold it over your head.
The best thing is, you can't use a reverse proxy with it, it doesn't even support it.
For me it's PlexAmp and the few tech-illiterate friends I have who use my server for video streaming. 99% of the time, I just watch movies on my desktop with VLC player but I've yet to find a self-hosting music player half as good as PlexAmp
Yeah, the sad reality is that Plex’s setup experience is much smoother. And when you’re trying to convert people, the single largest obstacle is often social inertia. So lowering the barriers to entry is extremely important. My mother-in-law would need to sideload the Jellyfin app onto her TV, but Plex is available right on its app store.
Luckily, you can run both side by side. Jellyfin for me and my more tech-literate friends, Plex for those who don’t know/don’t care to learn.
Plexamp is pretty great. It's my streaming music player of choice.
After gpm shit the bed.. I vowed to never have another streaming music service.
Plexamp it is.
Maybe you've tried it already, but navidrome is a great purpose built music streamer. I was using subsonic back in the day, then airsonic, then airsonic advanced. When I first got on navidrome it was a tough pill to swallow since I never maintained my tags, but I gave a little time here and there to comb through it and in the end it feels like a worthwhile investment. It paid off a little bit more when I adopted lyrion music server and squeeze players for local playback around the home since this organizes by the same tags (mostly), so the whole library is kind of plug and play with things that honor the same tags.
For me it’s chromecast support. Maybe Jellyfin has that now but it didn’t last time I checked.
I just use Jellyfin for this too, not sure I follow the issue but I haven't used Plex since migrating
"still even mentions plex"
I've been using plex for a LONG time, and bought a lifetime plexpass 12 years ago. I'm pretty sure I haven't started a thread on Lemmy regarding Plex, but I'm sure I'm not alone as a LONG TIME user. Plex just works for me and cost me $75 in 2013. Right now I've got no pressing reason to switch.
If they remove my plexpass features, or start showing me ads / making my user experience worse, then I'll probably look to change, and won't participate in these awful 'plex' posts.
P.S. we should encourage as much new content on Lemmy as possible if you ask me.
Same with me, 12 years, about $70, and it still works just as well as ever. I turn off any new features I don't want, my friends and family can still stream from me for free since I have plex pass already, and it's easy to share without having to pass around my IP address.
Same. I bought the lifetime pass on sale many years ago, my setup is still working fine without me having to have touched it for at least the past 3 years outside of applying an update from time to time. I don't stream their free shows or movies and have those setup so that they don't even show up as an option on my tv.
Do I wish it was still the same company it was a decade ago? Of course... but so far they haven't impacted my experience to the point that I feel the need to replace it with something else. The second that happens I will be spinning up Jellyfin.
Another longtime user here. If you haven't already, you might want to disable autoupdates on all your devices. The "new experience" is not without its controversies.
Until jellyfin adds better user log in plex will still thrive. I do the self hosting I don't want a call every few days about they can't log in. The one click Gmail login with plex is amazing.
I don't share videos with people using google to log into any site.
i dont get this.. im technically still usin emby, but user management is beyond simple and requirs no upkeep. no one has asked me to reset their passwords and ive got a few dozen people usin my instance.
Sounds more of an user problem than a jellyfin problem? If they can't remember their login I'll just not add them to jellyfin.
You can install a plugin to add SSO.
https://github.com/9p4/jellyfin-plugin-sso
@Jimmycakes @Selfhoster1728 they learn pretty fast and the calls stop. Everyone says it's hard I have very tech illerate people using it and yes I get some calls but not alot. And they managed to login way easier then I thought. I think everyone is overblowing how hard Jellyfin is. I mean most people know how to login to a website.
I would not let anyone access my self hosted stuff who is not using a password manager and secure passwords.
Tailscale
The overhead of the live library upkeep on Jellyfin is also quite insane, at least for me. I'm talking taking the whole thing down for many minutes at a time for every other service trying to run on the same machine bad.
I don't mean to diminish your comment, but I just went through the setup process for both Plex and jellyfin (moving to new hardware) and there was no significant difference between the setups.
Maybe this wasn't the case a few years ago, but jellyfin is just a setup, point to libraries, and enable hardware accel.
what? It's not like everyone needs to run jellyfin at home. the only thing you need to use is the jellyfin webapp, which I don't understand how is it more complicated than netflix or any other similar service. you log in, pick a movie and hit play. that's it.
Jellyfin is basically as easy to use as plex within the same network. I’ve set up both dueing the past 6 months. The only big difference is that Jellyfin is much more of a pain to work through port forwarding.
Plex never worked outside my network so I'm not worried about that on Jellyfin
I'll switch to jellyfin as soon as it works nearly as well.
But for the moment it's missing a lot of features compared to Plex.
I would switch in a heartbeat if Jellyfin didn't... kinda suck, honestly.
But the difference in usability is enough that it's just not an option.
For the record, I updated Plex today and I haven't seen a notification like this anywhere, although that text snippet does match their privacy policy ad data opt-in settings blurb that has been in place for a while. I may need a bit more context here.
Only issues I've had with Jellyfin are reduced flexibility in naming/organizing files and inability (for me at least) to detect personal media.
What's actually bad about it?
Like, this is something you opt into and is only relevant if you're watching their ad supported stuff, which I don't know anyone who watches that over their own media on Plex.
And honestly, every "bad" thing I've ever heard about Plex has been the same thing, something that sounds horrible until you understand it
Because Jellyfin users like to feel superior. Accepting that other people have other requirements from software is hard, especially when you feel like you choice is the only valid one.
As a long time Plex user, who has a Jellyfin running in parallel, just not shared, I will keep using Plex until they either force me off of it or Jellyfin manages to make accessing servers remotely easier and more secure.
Because this is the selfhosted community, not the FOSS community. There is some overlap, but they are different. There are many reasons to not use Plex, it not being free and open source are not among them.
I have Plex running alongside Jellyfin.
When transcoding video, Plex uses an extra 5 watts of power. Jellyfin uses an extra 55 watts.
Jellyfin also has security holes for accessing videos via URL without being authenticated.
I don't feel like Jellyfin is ready for being exposed to the internet.
Probably because it works well, and has working clients on everything at this point. For some, a one-time fee was worth it when it was cheaper.
Sharing is also easier, as your friends just sign up to a plex account and you share your library with them. No need to send them an ip address and port, or fqdn that you have to maintain if your isp changes your ip address. It has its benefits, tbh, and the core sharing features still work for streaming. All the extra crap you can just turn off.
That why I think its still popular.
It’s already setup, and a lack of motivation/time/energy/urgency to make the change…
There's no jellyfin app on my TV.
I completely agree. I thought Plex would be fast in the collective rearview mirror as soon as they started forcing connections to their servers, pay-walling, etc. I also had issues with the database corrupting and causing huge slowdowns. I spent days trying and failing to preserve my ratings, watch data, etc.
In the end, I switched to a much simpler setup of an NFS/CIFS share accessed by Kodi on my Nvidia Shield TV. If Kodi chokes (happened once since 2017), I can just wipe the app and/or reinstall and then import the local metadata (XML or NFO IIRC). That takes about five minutes. It just works. Kodi also gives me access to the IAGL, so that's a huge plus.
Jellyfins UI being only mouse based is garbage. Using it on Xbox for instance is terrible. Using it outside of the house is also a pain in the ass.
The point for me is, that I have an acient synology NAS (ds214play) which acts as my media server. There is a community made plex package which I can install easily. As far as I have seen, there is no way to install jellyfin on this NAS, as it doesn't support docker
I host a Plex server for close to 70 friends and family members, from multiple parts of the world. I have over 60TBs of movies, tv shows, anime, anime movies, and flac music, and everyone can connect directly to my server via my reverse proxy and my public IPs. This works on their phones, their tvs, their tablets and PCs. I have people of all ages using my server, from very young kids to very old grandparents of friends. I have friends who share their accounts with their families, meaning I probably have already hit 100+ people using my server. Everyone is able to request whatever they want through overseerr with their Plex account, and everything shows up pretty instantly as soon as it is found and downloaded. It works almost flawlessly, whether locally or remotely, from anywhere in the world. I myself don't even reside in the same home that my Plex server resides. I paid for my lifetime pass over 10 years ago.
Can you guarantee that I can move over to jellyfin and that every single person currently using my Plex server will continue having the same level of experience and quality of life that they're having with my Plex server currently? Because if you can't, you just answered your own question. Sometimes we self host things for ourselves and we can deal with some pains, but sometimes we require something that works for more people than just us, and that's when we have to make compromises. Plex is not perfect, and is actively becoming enshittified, but I can't simply dump it and replace it with something very much meant for local or single person use rather than actively serving tens to hundreds of people off a server built with OTC components.
It's not fair to characterize jellyfin as being unable to scale, and it's just downright wrong to cast it as being built "for one single local user".
Jellyfin has great support for setups that include numerous users. The entire dashboard is basically designed around this concept of an admin keeping track of dozens upon dozens of users.
You seem like you have many reservations about specific functions in Jellyfin, but you were vague in explaining thrm - what specific things are you worried about?
That's just the nature of service migration; of course for people like you who are very dependent on it, it's not a no-brainer, but for anyone who wants to start hosting one of the two, yes it will be.
In your case yes Plex is more appropriate but at the same time the clock is ticking for Plex if they continue on this route...
Can I guarantee? There are no guarantees in self hosting. By this logic you can never move away from Plex. There's always unknowns. There's always new issues to trip over. Plex is hardly without it's own warts, but because they're 'known' to you and your users nothing else will ever be able to measure up.
It's a logical fallacy and a trap.
I set up Jellyfin basically overnight when the Plex pass changes occurred. Reverse proxies are trivial, as are docker containers, don't let the anecdotes about things being hard or VPN being needed intimidate you.
There were absolutely bumps in the road. I had to make users for each person and email them customized sign-up links. Yes, that kinda sucked, but that's the price for running and controlling the authentication yourself instead of though a 3rd party service that can and absolutely will eventually use that data to snoop.
Most of the time, once sent the link the users were fine, 9/10 of my users had no further issues and quickly adapted. For the last 1/10, I had to trouble shoot a few things and eventually ended up recommending a different device to connect with (it was an old TV with a really old version of Plex for TVs, they ended up buying a $40 Google TV device from Walmart and got set up that way).
The whole time I was running both Plex and Jellyfin so the migration process could happen at my speed.
My point is this: no, it wasn't painless to switch. Yes, some tech support was required. Yes, the user who was getting hundreds of dollars (annually) of streaming services effectively for free had to shell out a paltry sum to upgrade and actually enjoys their experience much more now. No, that didn't make it impossible or not worth doing.
I'm not saying what's best for you and your users, and I'm absolutely not guaranteeing you'll have no issues beyond these, but I hope you understand your hands aren't actually tied, you're just boxing yourself in.
I don’t use either service. Do they serve the same purpose?
Because it works. Call me in a few years when movies, TV shows, dvr recordings, live TV (with free, built-in guide support), and working picture support shows up. Oh, commercial removal too (again, built-in, just check a box). A not-shit setup process would be nice, too.
I've tried jf three times now across as many years, and it's still got that 'Linux developer feel' of a tool where the devs got what they need the most mostly-working, and just don't give a fuck about anything else - or a decent UI. No, blue boxes on a black background is not a decent UI. It wasn't when W8 launched, and it's not now. And when W8 is winning the competition, you've already lost.
Feature parity or the argument is moot.
Here's why I still use Plex: for me Jellyfin hasn't been easy to work the way I want it to. I mostly access my media on an Nvidia Shield, and the Jellyfin Android TV app just refuses to play certain videos; I can play them if I use VLC as an external player, but not within the app itself. The more pressing issue is that Jellyfin just refuses to play 5.1 audio, and downmixes everything to stereo. I have other issues, but these are the ones that prevent me from using it.
For me Plex just works.
My TV doesn't have a Jellyfin app, only a Plex app. I'm not buying a new TV just to use my preferred media server, sadly :-(
You can cast jellyfin to any receiver. I use a Chromecast.
Hearing people think they need an app just to use their TV as a TV is painful.
This is why you shouldn’t use the built-in TV OS. Use an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, fire stick if you’re fine with ads, a tiny NUC would work, maybe a raspberry Pi although idk about that one.
It might be because of security.
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
I don't know why people use dishwashers. It's in the kitchen. A lawn mower is a no brainer, yet people still use dishwashers??
Can't access remote unless u setup port forwarding, NAT rule etc etc. Too much work with jelly bin, plus it looks like 1990s UI created by illegal IPTV distributors