this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 minutes ago* (last edited 3 minutes ago)

Please don't give Amazon money for a shitty android stick. It's rather locked down too and the GUI is ad riddled. A lot of playback bugs that I don't have on a competitor product. There's many better alternatives with less god awful remote controls as well.

Just make sure you're not buying some generic Chinese thing with a compromised linux kernel.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Fuck yeah they do, I have 3 of them. I use Stremio for watching all kinds of movies (although I also use Amazon Prime) and even my older family members know how to use Stremio that's how easy it is to use.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Fuck yeah, Stremio is the best. Everything is there. No smart TV owner should go without.

Protip: Install the Trakt.tv plugin to get viewing recommendations based on your viewing habits, and then you can cancel Prime Video. (And all other streaming platforms too.)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago

I use Amazon Prime for shipping unfortunately, it's just far too convenient to not use it (doubly so now that I have a knee injury and find it hard to walk), so I just end up getting Prime Video for free

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I still don’t understand what’s going on with the fire stick though. What are people actually doing to it?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Nothing. What people think and say is jail breaking is actually side loading custom android apps, which is actually already part of android. Amazon IMO made it more difficult than it's supposed to be. I installed vlc and stremio and use it alongside all the other apps. Nothing groundbreaking nor illegal. That's not jailbreaking, it's using Android the way it's designed to be used.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wouldn't it be easier to just buy a TV or stick running stock Android? (Or GoogleTV, which is literally just stock Android with a launcher designed for TVs.)

That's what I did, and I have no issues side-loading any app I want. If it's got an APK, it can be installed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

So from my understanding the pirate sticks come preloaded with channels. Is that just streamio? I use torrents for downloading, so I am kind of naive.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Stremio is basically Netflix for torrents. Its interface is similar to the popular steaming apps.

Upon initial install it just looks like another paid steaming app with prices on all the content; the secret is to install plug-ins that allow you to steam torrents (Torrentio). Pair it with a Debrid service (like Real-Debrid) and you don't even have to wait for seeds. The show/movie starts playing instantly, just like the paid streaming apps. Like a Library of Babel for media, except it's real.

And the nice part about having a Debrid service is that it works any torrent, not just TV/movies. I have gigabit internet, so I can download literally any game I want in under an hour, even 100+ GB AAA titles.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Is it like Jellyfin? Or Plex?

I admit I don't really understand what a debrid service does or how it works, or how it's helpful for privacy... But it sounds interesting

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yes except simpler because you don't have to build a library of content. The plug-ins do it for you.

A Debrid service downloads torrents and uploads them to various file hosting websites, allowing you to directly download any active torrent at speeds up to 1Gbps. If the torrent you want isn't in their database (because it's less popular), then it behaves like a torrent client, except since it's running on a server you can shut down your PC and go about your day as it downloads in the background. Most torrents with at least a half dozen seeds are usually immediately available for direct download.

It doesn't really protect your privacy, per se, but it gets your ISP off your back because in most jurisdictions they don't care how much you download illegally, so long as you're not distributing the files, like you would with a torrent client. (Sharing pirated files is how they get you.)

The bad news is that these services also hit and run, so by using one you're not helping the health of the torrent. I wish they didn't do that, but I'm so used to having any file I want delivered quickly that I'm willing to sell part of my soul to have the convenience.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Shut up ars you grass

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

There is a difference.

Say you buy a used PC or android stick and want to use it for piracy, ok, doable, but you'll be doing most of the work. Kodi builds can get you there easily.

but compared to firesticks?

Firesticks have a piracy singularity going on. The entire secondary phase of cracking the OS and installing is intended for piracy. It's an open and shut, easy, one-two punch to get into the ecosystem. All of the hardware is easy to track and maintain. My cousin has a hacked firestick and he can't even open Microsoft Word. You can buy them pre-hacked with no real input or work needed on your part.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

So what kind of software are they running on there ? Is it more than a link to a pirate streaming site ?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Same way as an HDMI cable enables piracy?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

HDMI has DRM 🫣

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

its very cool when you are in a european country but dont speak the nations language like example, hungars in romania, and netflix has either It or english...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Well my Fire TV has a Jellyfin app that's letting me watch shows not in streaming services or is impossible to get in my home country due to copyright.

Anyone else know the other apps that help make Amazon the ire of copyright?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wolf Launcher, if you don't want to deal with the shitty stock launcher.

CloudStream is good if you watch anime.

The folks on r/piracy seem to like an app called Stremio, but I haven't got that one set up yet.

I have a Jellyfin client.

SmartTube Next is an ad free Youtube client for the firestick.

And then I also have Kanopy and Hoopla which let me access media via my public library card.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Stremio is almost like “piracy, the streaming service.”

It sequentially downloads torrents, on demand, in such a way that you can stream the content without ever having downloaded it.

It’s available on most app stores (though the iOS offering doesn’t have streaming, because Apple.)

Edit: I mean the file doesn’t get saved, it just pulls down the data it needs, uses it, then deletes it. When you’re done, the torrent data isn’t actually on disk.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Is there a guide how to? I have old apple tv with no piracy and would like something i could enjoy a movie or a tv show on a new device. It doesnt have to be firestick. What you guys got?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago

Depends on how you want to go about it. If you want to host your own media on an old laptop, Jellyfin is free and Apple TV is one of the better client devices. If you want to stream it from a pirate site, you’ll likely need to jailbreak the device first.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Piracy is morally correct, copying from greedy companies that spy on their customers for shady purposes and take advantage of their position to impose unfair terms. If buying no longer means owning something then pirating cannot be considered theft

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Piracy has never been theft because nothing is missing. It's not stealing or theft if someone takes a picture of my shoes and makes their own because I still have shoes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Yeah, not only that, people who pirate wouldn't have consumed the product, if pirating weren't available as an option. They've priced cost of living so high, and reduced access to content availability. When Netflix first came out, especially the streaming version, I bet there was a noticible drop in piracy, now they've made content access to hard, more piracy. They control the levels of piracy. It's not a choice to pay for everything we want to watch, or pirate. It's pirate or don't watch. And they created that situation, and then try and brainwash / gaslight us into feeling guilty and feeling like it's our fault. And then add in the moral clause, these companies are committing or contributing to atrocities. Some piracy is an attempt to avoid supporting companies that cause harm to people. If "wrong" is condemned, what about the wrongs that have caused them to be listed on boycott lists. Underpaying employees and writers, who should own the content. I think writers should be as famous, and focused on as the actors. The content being created currently has a heaping of "conform, don't think" built in, too, I could rant about that, annoyingly, for a bit, too! So many things.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Just finished watching Legend of Korra :)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

Old tech is holding the world together

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago

You gotta pump those numbers up those are rookie numbers

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

yeah it's the one good thing amazon does.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago
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