I tried testing a movie from my home server in plex through firefox and repeatedly got this message, even after reloading.

I knew that they had paywalled the apps on mobile and streaming from outside the network but now they have also blocked watching your own movies through your own hardware.

I do get the point that making software should be able to sustain people but I dont see the move of plex as a fair thing to do. Yes, they have made great software but taking your home server hostage feels like the wrong move.

Even a pop up that says “we need you to donate please” would have been fine. make it pop up before every movie, play donation ads before any movie but straight up disabling the app is kinda cruel.

Anyway, i have switched to jellyfin and it is insanely good. please give it a try. you can run it alongside plex with not issues (at least i had none) and compare the two.

In any case, good luck. Let me know if you need help.

  • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
    491·
    3 hours ago
    1. Open source has high immunity to devs making changes at the expense of user for their benefit because anti-features can be removed. Recommending another proprietary alternative here would be like saying they aught to leave an abusive partner but then recommend someone with the same red flags.
    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      137·
      19 hours ago
      1. It’s also the most complex to set up, and for many people the threshold is “walking your tech-illiterate mother-in-law through side loading it over the phone, because she lives 100 miles away… She’s afraid to touch her computer for anything except email and Facebook. And then resetting her password every 30 days, because she keeps locking herself out of it.” Suddenly the “just fucking sign into Plex and it automatically discovers your server” option becomes a lot more appealing.
      • loutr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        42·
        9 hours ago

        My tech-illiterate mom uses my Jellyfin instance with no issues. I sent her a link to the app store, her credentials, my server’s hostname and that was it. And once it’s set up, Jellyfin is much more straightforward to use than Plex.

        Sure Jellyfin has issues and doesn’t support as many types of devices, but Plex is far from perfect. I use it like twice a year, and the UI gets more and more confusing with each update IMO.

      • AtariDump@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        19 hours ago

        Jellyfin is the most complex to set up, right? (Just making sure I’m reading this correctly)

        • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1011·
          18 hours ago

          To set it up “correctly”, yes. It’ll require owning your own domain, being able to configure it properly (with either a static IP, or DDNS to point to your server at home), knowing how to automate https certificate refreshes, and a few other things. Plex just requires forwarding a port in your router.

            • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              4·
              11 hours ago

              Lots of those issues have been blown out of proportion, and would never be a real concern for the “just a dude running a server in his closet for his friends” setups. Which, to be clear, is the vast majority of setups.

              For instance, virtually all of the worst issues require that the attacker already has a valid login token. So unless they stole your buddy’s credentials, the only one to truly worry about would be your buddy directly. But yes, Jellyfin has some gaping holes, and letting it touch the WAN at all is always a risk. You’re giving attackers a new potential vector of attack that didn’t exist before, so that’s worth noting.

              • mobotsar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                27 minutes ago

                unless they stole your buddy’s credentials

                Thank God trolls never steal people’s credentials so they can hack a small server because they’re bored.

          • RaccoonBall@lemm.eeEnglish
            14·
            17 hours ago

            I thought self hosting was about learning networking basics like DNS and setting up let’s encrypt.

            So much whining in here about the most simple stuff being too complex.

            • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              5·
              13 hours ago

              I disagree; Self-hosting is for a variety of things, and plenty of people (in fact, I’d say probably the majority of Plex users) just want to be able to pirate Netflix without a ton of setup.

              Is learning some networking inevitable? Yeah, probably. But I also think this xkcd is apt. The reality is that what may be simple for you and me actually requires a lot of studying for a complete novice. Plenty of people will need to google what a port is, let alone how to forward one. And that’s assuming they even know the word “port” to google. Plenty of people won’t even know where to start.

              And true novices are hopefully going to be extremely wary of any info they find online. It’s easy to fuck something up without even realizing it, and leave your entire system exposed; especially when the braindead “lol just forward your Jellyfin port and use your public IP” advice is posted somewhere in every single advice thread.

          • AtariDump@lemmy.worldEnglish
            47·
            17 hours ago

            Right.

            Even though I could do those things, I just want something that works.

            Plex (or even Emby) fits that request.

            Plus they both have an AppleTV app for fee that doesn’t suck.

    • AtariDump@lemmy.worldEnglish
      512·
      8 hours ago

      Welcome to “People rushing to suggest a solution that they fawn over because it’s open source.”

      How do you personally 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt know that Jellyfin is the right solution? Why not a VPN, shared folder, and VLC? What about running a DNLA server?

      Edit: All of you downvoting don’t know; and it makes you salty.