[jlgaddis]

Just for the Roku itself or are ads in "channels" blocked as well?

I only rarely watch anything on TV but the girlfriend complains quite a bit about all of the (often repetitive) ads on Hulu -- and I'm pretty sure we even pay for it.

Deploying Pi-Hole has been on my to-do list for a while but if it can block ads on Hulu I'd move it up to the top of the list!

[tracker1]

Hulu is a mixed bag, that's not going to stop with Pi-Hole.

If you're using the "live tv" on versions of the app that support it, you will see ads, you may see replacement ads on "recorded" tv as well, which are often replaced in blocks by hulu's injected ads. Some can be skipped, others can not.

If you have "live tv" you may lose access to those shows you would have access to for the regular streaming, still available on platforms not supported by the current apps with live tv (android tv in particular).

If you have streaming only, there are two tiers for that as well. The lower tier has ads. The higher "ad free" tier still has some (fewer) ads on some networks.

Hulu also has third party network options and "value add" options, which is annoying as well.

I mention all of this, because my GF is a reality tv junkie and the only reason I even have Hulu + TV at all... I've gone back to my seedbox, nas and kodi.

[drewmol]

>I've gone back to my seedbox, nas and kodi.

I use a good digital tuner (HDHomeRun) hooked up to my rusty old 1950's rooftop antenna usually using KODI as front end, it's awesome and satisfies my live TV need which is very minimal. I couple that with real-debrid which offers plentiful and reliable supply of cached 4K (actually high bit rate) torrents and it's a much better experience than any of the alternative, crappy, ad-laiden streaming services I've paid for. Once KODI has seamlessly integrated voice control it will be in a league of it's own. I'm not sure how services like real-debrid can work out such great licensing terms to allow their offer of such affordable, ad-free and limitless content catalogs but I assume it's a very technical, economy-of- built-for-scale redundant kubermnetes based on-demand cloud container architecture benifit that wouldn't interest me anyways so I'm not even gonna try and understand it ;-)

[tracker1]

I've looked into real debrid but got more complicated than I had time for the couple times I looked. I should probably check again.

[drewmol]

A couple of tips if you try again: I don't understand the real-debrid "points" system and didn't really care to disect it, just payed for premium service directly through their website and that's been sufficient.

Multiple devices are allowed but it's IP siloed and if connecting from multiple IP's simultaneously, cannot confirm but redditors report that will get your account banned rather promptly although obvious workarounds like a VPN etc exist, never tried.

There's been a lot of work done that add new interface, host/account/stream handeling features to various addons recently. Just tried a recent version of 'Gaia' and was pleasently surprised.

Most newer addons use URLResolver for a central config source and include links from their interface to do the device authorization for rd.

I prefer speed and simplicity so I disable every host/provider except rd and set max sources to single digits.

Content discovery is relatively non existent using most addons (a perk IMO, there's no shortage of places to discover content without inserting an ad server into the TV's interface)

Flashing LibreELEC on to cheap ARM (android TV Boxes) devices makes for a cheap, stable, simple client device.

A Fire Stick/TV or similar might allow for easy voice search but I'm too stubborn in my love of FOSS (I secretly enjoy configuration nightmares) to try it ;-)

There's a plethora of similar premium hosts and services (using rd and premiumize is a popular suggestion) but rd is enough for our needs so far.

Look on the 'Addons4Kodi' subreddit to see what the kids are using nowadays

[kbenson]

> the girlfriend complains quite a bit about all of the (often repetitive) ads on Hulu -- and I'm pretty sure we even pay for it.

Hulu Plus has two offerings, an ad supported one for $5.99/mo, and an ad-free one for $11.99/mo. I subscribe to the ad-free one, and if you watch more than a couple hours of Hulu a month I think it's worth it (but I can't stand watching commercials, so maybe other people find then less onerous).

[ridiculous_fish]

I pay for the ad-free, live-streaming Hulu and there's still ads. My movie was interrupted with an ad for an erectile dysfunction pill, drove me crazy.

[kbenson]

Maybe there's a bug in the live streaming setup that Hulu offers then? I just pay for ad-free Hulu, and I haven't seen an ad from them since a week after they announced that plan (I didn't head about it immediately, but I upgraded as soon as I did). I've watched in a browser, the on the Roku, and on an Amazon Fire TV.

[extra88]

The more expensive Hulu subscription is not 100% ad-free, some of their content contracts don't permit them to show the content ad-free.

[vaishaksuresh]

Everything, including apps. Although, recently YouTube has been bad for me. Earlier i would almost never see ads on YouTube. I just pay Hulu more, so I've not tested that.

[tracker1]

I just broke down to pay the $x/month for ad-free youtube. I watch a lot of streams with regular updates (Tim Pool, Keto Connect, etc). I get far more value from YouTube than I do from Hulu... that's just me though.

[skookumchuck]

I gave up on most internet radio stations - not because they run ads, but they often only have one ad, which they run over and over and over and over ... It drives one mad.