Everyone keeps saying it’s the best media player, so I’m interested in getting one, but I haven’t had a google account for many years now and don’t want to create a new one just for this.

Does anyone know if it’s possible to run one without a google account?

Edit: I would only want to use it for Plex and maybe youtube

  • robolemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    I’m not sure about using it without a Google account, but you can definitely minimize their involvement. I installed flauncher, then disabled the default “leanback” launcher. Plex is installed from the play store but I side loaded an ad-blocking YouTube app. On a normal day I don’t see anything from or about google on my screen. I’m not sophisticated or, to be honest, concerned enough to know if there’s tracking or other telemetry going on. I mostly just want to avoid ads and moronic suggestions from them.

    • anytimesoon@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      Tbh, I’d be happy with side loading both Plex and revanced, but from what I’ve seen, it won’t initialize without a google account

      • robolemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        It looks like there’s a Lineage OS build for the shield, so if you want to eradicate google, there’s an option. It loses a fair bit of what makes the shield great though, since some of the audio and video playback stuff on the shield is proprietary to Nvidia.

        • anytimesoon@lemmy.mlOP
          1·
          2 years ago

          That’s disappointing, but not surprising. Probably no point in shelling out for a shield if it’s not as powerful with Lineage

        • anytimesoon@lemmy.mlOP
          3·
          2 years ago

          I suppose I could use someone else’s account for initial set up. I’ve had a look and it seems nextdns allows different profiles per device, so I’ll just block as many google domains as I can that way

          • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
            1·
            2 years ago

            Good thinking. I retired my Shield Pro 2015 about a year ago, precisely because I was ditching Google entirely. I have yo say, even after 8 years, few to no other streaming devices came even close to the performance of that beast.

        • Atemu@lemmy.ml
          2·
          2 years ago

          SmartTubeNext (STN) is the Android TV equivalent of Revanced.

          Not really. STN is not a hacked-up YT app like Revanced, it’s an entirely independent FOSS re-creation like NewPipe. A major difference to NewPipe is that it is focused on android TV and uses the (private) YT API just like the official YT app.