Zedstrian

I can’t imagine an AI trained primarily on the communications of failed startups will be particularly effective.

Anything other than a commitment to allow hassle-free third-party app installations without the presence of Google Play Services is a distraction from the most meaningful change in Android 17.

there are laws on the books that are supposed to prevent children from accessing things they we as a society have agreed they have no business accessing

The problem is that different societies have different lists of things that they deem children shouldn’t access (or in some cases, citizens in general). For instance, conservative-leaning U.S. states are increasingly labeling any and all LGBTQ content as being unsuitable for children, furthering their indoctrination against a persecuted minority group.

Parents are in the wrong for preventing their children from accessing content depicting LGBTQ perspectives, and age verification tools in such markets are likely to be designed with the express intent of blocking access to LGBTQ content for minors by default.

Surely a non-AI slop pile of money illustration could have been used instead?

Sounds like a non-tariff barrier to trade that other countries should bring up in trade negotiations.

The ‘unthinkable’ of installing an adblocker or using a frontend?

Note that Debridio doesn’t work without a Debrid service; it exists merely as a paid alternative to Torrentio for when it’s congested with too many users at once. Doesn’t happen too often thankfully.

I personally prefer how Torrentio formats results, but unreliability with the service has frustrated family members in the past (the point of using Stremio in the first place being to make torrenting as much like using Netflix as possible for non-techies) and made having an alternative useful, just in case.

In reconfiguring Torrentio, make sure you uninstall it before reinstalling it, as it doesn’t overwrite it.

I will mention I did renew the real debrid subscription which seems fishy - I used to use TorrentioRD+ but it doesn’t recognise my subscription so I can only use Torrentio.

Torrentio is much more reliable with Real-Debrid than without; did you get your API key from Real-Debrid and add it while configuring Torrentio?

Even still, Torrentio can at times be unreliable, as other free debrid indexers can also be. An alternate option to use alongside or instead of Torrentio is the paid Debridio service ($10 a year).

simplify Reddit and improve Home feed personalization

AKA collect more data for advertisers.

It seems like 2026 is the year that Google’s other platforms will embrace the 64-bit era. Android TV and Google TV will require 64-bit app versions from August, and the company has now announced similar plans for Wear OS.

Not unexpected given how inactive it’s been, but still unfortunate.

What’s the 0.1% that wasn’t backed up?

Any form of age verification is a violation of user privacy.

Stremio settings can be configured and add-ons installed from any web, mobile, or desktop version of Stremio, including the Android app and the Linux flatpak. Stremio settings sync to the Stremio server to let you sync add-ons between devices, just like Omni and Vidi (another Stremio clone) do on iOS via iCloud.

In that case, I recommend getting the Onn 4K Pro for 75 CAD and following the guide I wrote here. Same process with Stremio, except that it works better on Android, and you can also easily use YouTube ad-free with SmartTube.

There’s cheaper Android devices out there, including cheaper versions of the Onn (Onn FHD for 39 CAD and Onn 4K for 53 CAD), though if possible, I recommend getting the 4K Pro for its higher specs if you decide to go this route.

StreamEast still seems to be up.

Assuming you have an iPhone, unless your main reason for using IPTV is live sports, I’d suggest Stremio with a Debrid service instead, as Debrid services typically have more VOD content available. Several Debrid services are available, but Real-Debrid (~25.54 CAD per 180 days) seems to have the largest library of cached content.

Since Stremio itself isn’t available on the Apple App Store anymore, Omni is a suitable alternative (one-time ~13.82 CAD cost). You would then install it on both your iPhone and Apple TV (configuring it on your phone, with the settings syncing to the Apple TV) and install the Streaming Catalogs add-on (for recommendations based on other streaming services) and Torrentio to fetch content from the Debrid service.

As Torrentio and free add-ons similar to it at times becomes unresponsive under high load, Debridio is a paid (~13.82 CAD per year) alternative if reliability is essential. Personally I prefer Torrentio’s results, but keep Debridio as a backup.

Every APK installation from outside of the Play Store gives an installation warning. It’s unnecessary and deliberately trying to make such installations seem less secure in comparison.

A beneficial warning would highlight the many privacy risks in installing apps from the Play Store instead of privacy-respecting alternatives from F-Droid.

The APK installation process is already more inconvenient than it should be, and now it will be getting even worse. There should be no difference in installing an APK via Google Play versus any other method.

The fact that the process will still have a ‘security’ warning each and every time after the 24 hour wait period shows that even for “advanced users” they want to make it as inconvenient as possible while claiming to still be keeping Android open.

People should be switching to Mastodon with how clear the coming enshittification is. User data is valuable, and the way ATProto siloes data from multiple platforms using the protocol encourages them to entrench the dominance of the official Bluesky PDS to maximize data collection. With $100 million in venture capital, Bluesky is in no way incentivized to meaningfully decentralize its platform.

Before subscriptions or advertising turn it into just another Twitter clone, users should be migrating to Mastodon.