SuspiciousCarrot78

You're most welcome. I hope they're of some use to you.

There's part of me that thinks this is pure nostalgia bait - we grew up on the internet, we're middle-aged now, everything was better when we were young, shake fist at cloud.

OTOH, author isn't wrong. The mainstream net genuinely ain't what she used to be. The exact blame for that I don't know and it doesn't matter - we're in the shit now.

That's why niche sites like Lemmy, small web, RSS feeds etc are still so valuable. They're messy and human, like things used to be (tm). The trouble is finding them.

What I notice most is that I don't really search anymore; I use the internet like an appliance. "Want info about A, go to X. Want info about B, go to Y".

It's all horribly efficient. In fact, in a recent !privacy comment (on best search engines) I basically said "I don't really search any more. Search is shit. I use these tools instead"

https://aussie.zone/comment/24223554

So the author's point about use of AI tools is worth chewing on (what with Lemmy being famously anti-AI). I think we're now at the point where AI-assisted tools - self-hosted for me, thanks - are the best way to find those rabbit holes worth exploring. Even a small llm (Gemma-4-e4b) tied into good MCP tools can produce a really good "super Google, without the spam, find me X".

In fact, one of the main reasons I self host (yes, mine's solar powered) is that specifically.

https://aussie.zone/comment/24336560

OTOH, you could always mirror your own internet. With black jack. And hookers.

https://aussie.zone/comment/24257247

Ultimately though, I think smaller, more curated space (yes, like Lemmy and yes, please stop trying to turn it into the next Reddit) are going to be the last bastions of the old internet.

I was getting excited... until I read the price :/

$1200 USD.

Well, very on brand for Amiga to be $$$.

I think I'll wait for the TheA1200 or failing that, buy an old clunker and stick a PiStorm into it.

https://retrogames.biz/products/thea1200/

Can't speak to cutting edge options but will say when we went to Tokyo at start of year, I took the google Chromecast with TV (1080p version) + USB pass-thru + 128GB flashdrive.

The Chromecast had Nova player installed. I pointed it at the flashdrive and boom - instant media front end for the kids. Had to connect briefly to scrape images etc but after that was all off line.

That - plus smart tube - meant they could decompress after a day out and about.

That version of the Chromecast has been superseded (though can still buy on eBay).

Huh? The ABC app works perfectly fine on the google Chromecast with TV (the little white hockey puck one). Hell, it works fine on my $199 TCL (2GB) from OfficeWorks.

Or did you mean the generation before that (the one that looks like a fat USB stick), where you'd be casting from your phone?

Yep, that too. Though on one of my TVs (TCL), simply disabling the inbuilt 'startupwraith' seems to have the same effect

# Disable com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx which is the default launcher on CCwGTV
$ adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.apps.tv.launcherx
# com.google.android.tungsten.setupwraith will then be used as a 'fallback' and will automatically
# re-enable the default launcher, so disable it as well
$ adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.tungsten.setupwraith

Stremio (with uh...some optional extras enabled) should do that for you just fine.

It's available on the play store IIRC...because by itself, its just an aggregator. You just need to enable some community plug ins.

Works even better if you pay for just one thing (all of $9 for 3 months iirc - what's the current Real-Debrid cost, someone?).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stremio/comments/17cd861/stremio_all_you_need_to_know/

One really fun thing about it is a "currently hot on ____" (Netflix, disney+, whatever) plugin. Makes the yar har har even easier.

I haven't tried enabling voice search in Flauncher (Android TV and GCCWTV are pain in the ass - won't accept other keyboards let alone voice search apps) so its click into stremio first then go looking.

Google Chromecast with TV (GCCWTV) - aka the one that looks like a hockey puck - has / had Hoopla.

I used the adb commands they recommend to disable the stock interface. So pressing home on the remote brings me back to Flauncher always.

Haven't seen the stock dash in years. Been great.

The only bastard thing is that when I set it up on a fire stick, the fire stick would disable wifi if the stock dash wasn't used. That thing is trash anyway, so no loss. Don't buy firesticks.

The baller move would be to get reddit.com to resolve to lemmy.

Or meatspin, if you want (...negative?) reinforcement

Don't see why not. It's just a front end launcher. If you can install the app...this will launch it.

PS: I like Jellyfin but I'm a fan of Nova-Player too. Simpler is sometimes better.

https://github.com/nova-video-player/aos-AVP

All of that. Lack of ads, more performant etc. Plus (and depending on the device), you can set it up in such a way that you don't need to sign into your google account, yet still have ability to watch YouTube (Smartube), install apps (side load plus use the Fdroid TV store ... name escapes me at the moment... Flicky I think?).

Even if you need to be signed in for some reason, it's a smoother experience.

Its just...better. You'll lose some of the prettiness (for some reason, mine no longer displays backgrounds from upsplash, only solid colours) but its more than worth it.

EDIT: Yes, it IS Flicky

https://f-droid.org/packages/app.flicky/

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.smarttube.fdroid/

https://www.sendfilestotv.app/