Rumors of Fire TV Recast being discontinued

According to AFTV News, Amazon is preparing to discontinue the Fire TV Recast line. The Website cites both Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and other online retailer listings as part of the reason for drawing their conclusion.

It has been 4 years since the Fire TV Recast was released and it appears as though the over-the-air (OTA) DVR companion to Fire TV devices is being discontinued. The Fire TV Recast has been a consistent staple of the Fire TV lineup ever since its release in 2018, but now, for the first time, Amazon is no longer selling the cheaper of the two Fire TV Recast models and both versions are no longer available across several other 3rd-party retailers.

Searching Amazon for the Fire TV Recast no longer brings up a listing for the model equipped with two tuners and a 500 GB hard drive. Only the Fire TV Recast with four tuners and 1 TB of storage is currently available for purchase. Clicking to see the buy options on the cheaper 500 GB model’s review page is now redirecting to the more expensive model. Best Buy, on the other hand, does still have the 500 GB model for sale, however, it is now marked as a clearance item and the 1 TB model is no longer available at Best Buy. Both B&H (500 GB & 1 TB) and New Egg (500 GB & 1 TB) list both Fire TV Recast models as unavailable, which is further evidence that the Fire TV Recast is being phased out.

I did some checking, and sure enough, Best Buy used to list the larger Fire TV Recast as an item, but discontinued carrying it somewhere along the way. It's not simply sold out at Best Buy, it's no longer an item, though it one was.

Now, this could mean that a major refresh is in order, but there have been no rumors to that effect. So, it may be that AFTV News is correct that Amazon will be discontinuing the Fire TV Recast.

I have to say that of the three OTA DVRs that I've tried in the past couple of years, it's the one I like the least, though I do see its appeal. It does a good job of integrating live OTA TV listings into the Fire TV interface. However, mine has always been buggy -- it lost connectivity a lot; a lot -- and is the one I use the least. If you've seen my recent posts about DVR, I've mentioned Tablo and Air TV, but rarely ever mention Fire TV Recast. There's a reason. And if AFTV News is correct, my experience may not be the only bad one.

It's a shame that the setup never worked like I would have liked. The integration of Live TV into the overall interface worked well. I just wish the device had been reliable. Now it looks like it won't be in anyone's Streaming Life soon.

Another year, another Hulu price increase

Seems like it was around a year ago that Hulu increased their prices. The reason it seems that way is because it was that way. Last September, in fact, Hulu had a price increase.

I didn't complain too much about it because it wasn't a big increase, and Hulu hadn't increased in years. In fact, Hulu's last price change before that was actually a drop in the price of the basic tier. This time, though, we're not so lucky. Hulu's basic tier is going up from $7/month to $8/month, starting October 10, 2022. But, one Website offers some hope about the deals Hulu often offers:

It’s worth noting that customers usually can find a discount deal on Hulu’s standalone on-demand service at various points in the year. National Streaming Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have happened in the past. It may be worth monitoring those to see if a better price becomes available, at least temporarily.

The price increase is not that bad, considering how much everything else has gone up in the past two years, so I won't raise too much of a stink. I'll pay it, and not be happy about it, but that's about as far as it goes.

That that use the no-ads Hulu plan will pay $2/month more. And other plans owned by Disney are going up, too.

A new Disney+ ad-supported tier will be introduced in December for $8/month. That's the price of the current ad-free tier, which will then go up to $11/month.

I'm actually thinking about a new plan that is being introduced in December. That is Hulu and Disney+, both ad-supported, for $10/month, which seems like a really good price.

Price increases are never good, but I think that overall, it will have minimal effect on my Streaming Life. I may even expand it a little with the Hulu/Disney+ combo plan.

Disney or Netflix

A while back, I dropped Netflix. I found I wasn't watching it, and decided to save my money.

Now, I did subscribe to the service since that decision. When Mystery Science Theater 3000 was picked up for two seasons by Netflix, I subscribed when the seasons dropped. I binged the shows, then canceled again, once each season.

Right now, I have no plans to subscribe to Netflix in the future. I may, but right now, I don't plan on spending any more money with them. I don't watch it, and I haven't seen anything I want to watch on it. Maybe I'm missing out on something, but I really don't think so. I have no trouble finding something I want to watch today.

Disney+ is pretty much the same way. I'll subscribe from time to time, but not often. I've mentioned before that I'll subscribe to a service for one month, binge their stuff, then cancel, subscribing to a different service the next month. I'll do that throughout the year and watch a lot of content for not a lot of money.

However, if I chose between the two, I'd probably choose Disney+. In fact, I plan to subscribe to Disney+ for at least a month before end of the year. No such plans for Netflix.

And, as it turns out, I may not be alone in that respect. A report last week indicated that Disney's streaming services of Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ actually had more subscribers than Netflix.

Combined with Hulu and ESPN+, Disney said it had 221.1 million streaming subscribers at the end of the June quarter. Netflix said it had 220.7 million streaming subscribers.

"Disney is gaining market share when Netflix is struggling to add more subscribers," Investing.com analyst Haris Anwar said. "Disney has still more room to grow in international markets where it’s rolling out its service fast and adding new customers."

After years, Netflix has finally been dethroned by another streaming company.

Yes, Netflix still leads any one of those services, but Disney overall is the new streaming king. And, I'm

FOSS to the rescue

What began as a side project back in April -- I got the Linux bug again after setting up a Raspberry Pi device as a Plex server -- turned into a monster. And while I'm not sure how it will end up -- will Linux be my daily OS after this project concludes? -- there are some side effects of this that will likely stay with me.

One of the bad things about running Linux is that not all applications support Linux. However, that's also one of the good things, too. You see, Linux, being an open source operating system, depends on a lot of applications that are also open source. And that usually means the software is free.

Software can be open source but not free. That's usually not the case, but it can work that way. So, as a way of specifying things, the term "free open source software" is often used. And there's an abbreviation for that: FOSS. Free Open Source Software. Simple enough, right?

That brings up an aspect of FOSS that I hadn't previously considered. Remember I mentioned that many applications run on macOS or Windows, or both, but not as many run on Linux? Well, there's the other side of that coin. Not all free open source software runs on macOS or Windows. But some does.

On Windows, I used to use Macromedia Fireworks instead of Photoshop, because it worked well, and was a lot cheaper. However, Adobe bought Macromedia and Fireworks was eventually discontinued. Of course, I had switched to Mac and tried a few different things, eventually settling on Acorn. It's worked well for me.

Well, after running GNU/Linux for a bit, I've begun using GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) on Linux. And, I like it. Took a little getting used to, but I'm not used to it, and was happy to learn there are versions for macOS and Windows. So, I'm now using it on all three operating systems.

Microsoft Office has been a mainstay for years on my computers, both Windows and Mac. My personal computer days actually predate Microsoft Office, as I used WordPerfect and Lotus 123 rather than Word and Excel, mostly because WordPerfect and Lotus 123 worked great, but also because Word and Excel didn't exist.

Microsoft Office is not available for Linux. However, there are a few FOSS office suites available. Open Office has been around a while, as has LibreOffice, which I like better than Open Office. OnlyOffice is a newer entry, but it's a very good suite as well. Right now, I prefer OnlyOffice and LibreOffice, but am leaning toward OnlyOffice since there are official versions for Android and iOS, something LibreOffice doesn't have. These three office suites have versions for macOS and Windows, and they are my current office applications as well.

Web browsers are probably what I use most, though. And while I was using Google Chrome on both macOS and Windows, it's not available on Linux. There is the open source Chromium browser, on which Chrome is based, but I'm not a big fan of Chromium. I actually prefer Firefox. Yes, I know that Firefox had performance issues a while back, which prompted my switch to Chrome. However, after using GNU/Linux for a bit, I've come to realize how improved Firefox is. And it's available on macOS and Windows.

There are many more instances of free open source software that runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and when I run across one I like, I'll switch to it and stop using the proprietary (and often, paid) software. I like the price of free software, and when it's good software, I'll use it. And if it's on the three platforms (Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux) then I'll use it on all three.

This little side project has ended up saving me some money. I like saving money. I like that a lot.

Pi Hole testing

Let me first say that I don't have a problem with ads. There are ads on this Website, for instance. And, I subscribe to ad-supported Hulu. I also watch content from many free ad-supported television (FAST) services. I'm fine with ads.

If I don't want ads, I'll pay to remove them. For instance, I've subscribed to YouTube Premium to eliminate ads on that service. I will visit Websites that have ads -- my own had ads, so I'm okay with ad-supported Websites -- and if I think the ads are too obtrusive, I will simply stop visiting the Website.

You won't find me leading the charge for ad blockers or network filters. However, I am currently testing Pi Hole. And that may need some explanation.

First, if you aren't familiar with Pi Hole, it's an application that can run on Linux devices that blocks ads and trackers. So why am I, who claims to be fine with ads, running an ad blocker? Well, it's not the ad blocker I'm interested in. It's the tracker blocker feature.

I'm actually planning to test a few different processes to block trackers. I'm not really interested in blocking ads. Well, with one exception, which I'll come back to in a bit.

Blocking trackers is actually functionality that is built in to many Web browsers. However, I'm looking for a network wide solution to blocking trackers. That's where Pi Hole comes in.

It's a multiple stage process I'm going through. First, I want to see how easy it is to set up and run in general.

Next, I am researching how to block trackers on the network without impacting ad services (well, most; I said there's an exception, and the details are still to come).

Then, I want to confirm how well the process works on the network.

I've just set up Pi Hole this weekend, so I'm still doing the first step. It is blocking trackers, but it's also blocking ads. As I'm still in the setup phase, the blocked ads are collateral damage, and I'll work to reduce that. I don't mind ads, after all, and I think those that put forth a product for free deserve the compensation of the display of ads, if that's the cost of using the service.

I've begun the research into how to use tracker blocking without blocking ads, as much as that is possible. Heck, I may find it's not possible, and if that's the case, I'll then make the best decision on how to proceed if it comes to that. But, my goal is to block trackers, not ads.

I'm running Pi Hole on a Raspberry Pi, though it will run on many Debian and Fedora based systems (Raspberry Pi OS is Debian based). I actually had a problem setting up the system, as I found one of my Raspberry Pi devices was damaged by a recent storm (lots of stuff was damaged by that storm). But, I set up another one and it actually went well.

I've configured it to run over the entire network for this initial testing. I don't know if I'll keep it that way or not; I'll see how it goes. And, so far, it's going well. I just need to figure out how to limit the blocking to trackers and let legit ads through.

And that's the other point I teased. I found a type of ad that I do want to block. There was a Website that I heard had been hacked, but when I went to it on my laptop, didn't have a problem. Then I went to it on a mobile device, and sure enough, the redirect to a malware site happened. Turns out there is code on the Website that redirects mobile devices to a software installation page. That's not good.

So, after doing some testing, I found that two domains that are included in ad-based code on the Website can cause the redirection. I blocked those two, and the redirection stopped.

That tells me that Pi Hole's default scripts aren't perfect, as they weren't blocking two domains that contained ad content, and that those ad servers had been compromised. So, if I keep using Pi Hole after this testing is done, I'll use it to block domains that are compromised. They may be considered legitimate ad servers, but if they can't keep them safe, then I don't consider them legit and will block them.

I'm okay with ads in my online and Streaming Life. I'm not okay with my usage being tracked, and I'm not okay with malware. I'll find a way to stop it, if I can.