this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Privacy

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Plex Discover Together shares a bit too much. ... (www.404media.co)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
39 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Although the headline focusses on a obvious category of media, it really can go wrong on a lot of other categories as well.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This isn't an entirely "new" feature, in a way.

You always had access to see what your friends were watching on your own server. This is a consequences of being an admin, you kind of have to have access to that kind of data to manage your system and streams.

This seems to just extend it to showing you what they're watching on other servers, as well.

Anyway, if the concern is that Plex, the company, has access to this data, then yeah, you probably should have read the privacy policy a little closer.

Jellyfin is there and doesn't have a parent company to "phone home" data to.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (4 children)

It's unfortunate that Jellyfin is just slightly worse than Plex at pretty much everything. Playback is smooth, sure, but set up is harder, getting good metadata is harder, logging in is harder, etc.

The metadata one really put me off. I set up a Jellyfin instance with the exact same media set as my Plex instance, and it immediately started "recognizing" standard movies and shows as porn and hentai. I'm still going to push through and get it properly set up eventually, but even so, I'm not looking forward to manually managing accounts when people can just SSO with Plex.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

it immediately started "recognizing" standard movies and shows as porn and hentai.

Jellyfin just knows its users and knows what they want.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I wonder if the Romans or any ancient people used jellyfish(es) for alternative purposes...They used sponges to wipe themselves, communally

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I've had similar issues/experiences with Jellyfin as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Metadata has been far better in JF than Plex.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I mean, I have a ton of media that Plex recognizes automatically and Jellyfin doesn't, so... Agree to disagree, I guess. I'm not trying to defend Plex's recent enshittification, but that doesn't change the fact that it's generally a better experience than Jellyfin right now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Anyway, if the concern is that Plex, the company, has access to this data, then yeah, you probably should have read the privacy policy a little closer.

come on, you know this is a non answer. also plex shouldn't have this data, it should be for the admin only.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

It's a non-answer that their privacy policy explicitly states that they will collect this type of information and that they stipulate what kind parties they can share that info with?

https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/

That's the straightest answer that you're going to get. Privacy policies like this are bullshit, but they're also the norm so acting like it's a non-answer after 20 years of this being the norm seems a little... naive, perhaps?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They say they use it to sync up your watch history to your account so it can sync across devices, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were selling your watch telemetry to advertisers as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

At that point i would be surprised if they didn't

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What? Plex is not one of those open source, self-hosted, privacy-centric services. Plex can do whatever the hell Plex wants with your watch history, because you agreed to their broad terms of service that said exactly that when you signed up. You chose to run your traffic and authentication through Plex servers because it's convenient, not for privacy reasons.

If you don't like it, use Jellyfin. I'm personally looking into moving, as Plex seems to be getting slowly shittier.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

why are you defending them? sure, they're allowed because they're a big company so they make the rules, but that doesn't mean you have to lick their boots and say oh actually that's fine you made the choice. even big companies SHOULD be ethical. we DESERVE ethical treatment, furthermore, even people who didn't wade through the terms.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I don't know how you could read that and think I'm defending them.

I'm just telling you how the world works. If you want real privacy, you need to PAY somebody with a rock-solid privacy agreement or fully host it yourself. Plex is neither of those things. Remember, if something that costs money to run is free, then YOU are the product.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 11 months ago (1 children)

From the link:

Plex is a hybrid streaming service/self-hosted media server.

There's the main problem. You're partially in control. I encourage everyone to switch to Jellyfin, even if you don't have anything to hide.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Jellyfin is such a PITA to set up for those that aren't more technically inclined.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Huh? It's far easier, throw in your server IP+Port or DNS and quick connect your clients with a short code.

The bullshit claim solution by Plex makes me pull my hair out, especially on remote instances.

Even when running, it managed to break the database 3 times, with no repair tool of working, interestingly there are plenty, community built and official ones, so that problem is common.

Rebuilding takes a whole day with the intro-outro detection.

What a nightmare to administrate.

As someone who has bought a lifetime subscription a year ago i was enraged as my girlfriend told me that she got ads in Plex, turns out they just added their free streaming service in there without even asking, fuck them, Jellyfin evolved great!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Most people literally have no idea what you just wrote. I’m not saying jellyfish isn’t the superior option, I’m saying it’s less accessible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Swim or sink.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This is terrible advice when you’re encouraging people to open up their network to the broader public without full understanding of what they’re doing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

That is my advice to the people not having a clue what i've wrote. You don't want to tell me that people not able to setup Jellyfin are full aware of anything they are doing with Plex?

Not everyone should self-host, especially not people unable to watch a 10 minute setup tutorial of Jellyfin, or god forbid, reverse proxies.

Dumbing down self-hosting below the bare minimum is dangerous, but to each their own.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Plex is definitely easier to set up. I've done it multiple times over several servers. I've literally never heard of the database breaking, and I've deleted media that was actively being watched. Meanwhile, Jellyfin fails basic metadata matching on the exact same media set and also lacks built-in SSO. One of the biggest niceties of Plex is inviting people to join and they can just immediately login with Google.

I'm not saying Plex is better, and I'm not defending their recent enshittification. It's gotten worse, for sure. And I'm sure Jellyfin is great, but I haven't had time to put the effort in to fix the metadata issues or create accounts so my users can switch over.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Jellyfin is so much better than Plex

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Imo only in terms of privacy. I tried it a few times over like two to three days but I always went back to Plex. Jellyfin is a nice piece of software though. I can imagine my switch will happen in a few years.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Its better in terms of basicly everything for me. Plex is a pain and simply isn't as polished

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You must be kidding? Jellyfin is years behind in every aspect except being free software. The best part is that you can't disable transcoding, which is either insane, malicious or plain incompetent. As soon as that's an option we can start talking about the rest of it

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We clearly have had very different experiences. Transcoding is optional and you can change it in the media player settings. (It works a lot like YouTube)

Also transcoding requires very little overhead on Intel systems so I would just transcode to the resolution of your device.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well sure, I meant disabling transcoding and having it play anything. And it's not about overhead, it's just that I want to decide what my hardware does - I don't want transcoding at all, ever, never ever. Not even when I'm using mobile data. The problem was always that jellyfin simply can't play files which any player can play. I understand I didn't really say what the issue was, sort of thought playing media files should be the bar

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The problem was always that jellyfin simply can’t play files which any player can play. I understand I didn’t really say what the issue was, sort of thought playing media files should be the bar

Please open an bug ticket!

I've used Jellyfin for years and not had any issues with playback, let alone every single video file.

Additionally, I've been a programmer on the Roku client for over a year and again, never heard of someone having an issue playing every single video.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Not every single one, just the ones I tried. My tv can play anything using videolan or nova player, or anything else for that matter. I have to install jellyfin again, will do. It's been very strange for me, with people praising jelly when it just never worked for me. And I avoided plex like the plague, but for some reason it works. Anyway, will check and file

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This is how you disable transcoding.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

What's "futanari," uncle Joeldebuijn?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

And like clockwork the enshittification proceeds unabated

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Nice shout-out to Prospect.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

More about this here: https://lemmy.ml/post/8606459