Although the headline focusses on a obvious category of media, it really can go wrong on a lot of other categories as well.
This isn’t an entirely “new” feature, in a way.
You always had access to see what your friends were watching on your own server. This is a consequences of being an admin, you kind of have to have access to that kind of data to manage your system and streams.
This seems to just extend it to showing you what they’re watching on other servers, as well.
Anyway, if the concern is that Plex, the company, has access to this data, then yeah, you probably should have read the privacy policy a little closer.
Jellyfin is there and doesn’t have a parent company to “phone home” data to.
It’s unfortunate that Jellyfin is just slightly worse than Plex at pretty much everything. Playback is smooth, sure, but set up is harder, getting good metadata is harder, logging in is harder, etc.
The metadata one really put me off. I set up a Jellyfin instance with the exact same media set as my Plex instance, and it immediately started “recognizing” standard movies and shows as porn and hentai. I’m still going to push through and get it properly set up eventually, but even so, I’m not looking forward to manually managing accounts when people can just SSO with Plex.
it immediately started “recognizing” standard movies and shows as porn and hentai.
Jellyfin just knows its users and knows what they want.
I’ve had similar issues/experiences with Jellyfin as well.
deleted by creator
Anyway, if the concern is that Plex, the company, has access to this data, then yeah, you probably should have read the privacy policy a little closer.
come on, you know this is a non answer. also plex shouldn’t have this data, it should be for the admin only.
It’s a non-answer that their privacy policy explicitly states that they will collect this type of information and that they stipulate what kind parties they can share that info with?
https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/
That’s the straightest answer that you’re going to get. Privacy policies like this are bullshit, but they’re also the norm so acting like it’s a non-answer after 20 years of this being the norm seems a little… naive, perhaps?
They say they use it to sync up your watch history to your account so it can sync across devices, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were selling your watch telemetry to advertisers as well.
At that point i would be surprised if they didn’t
What? Plex is not one of those open source, self-hosted, privacy-centric services. Plex can do whatever the hell Plex wants with your watch history, because you agreed to their broad terms of service that said exactly that when you signed up. You chose to run your traffic and authentication through Plex servers because it’s convenient, not for privacy reasons.
If you don’t like it, use Jellyfin. I’m personally looking into moving, as Plex seems to be getting slowly shittier.
why are you defending them? sure, they’re allowed because they’re a big company so they make the rules, but that doesn’t mean you have to lick their boots and say oh actually that’s fine you made the choice. even big companies SHOULD be ethical. we DESERVE ethical treatment, furthermore, even people who didn’t wade through the terms.
I don’t know how you could read that and think I’m defending them.
I’m just telling you how the world works. If you want real privacy, you need to PAY somebody with a rock-solid privacy agreement or fully host it yourself. Plex is neither of those things. Remember, if something that costs money to run is free, then YOU are the product.
From the link:
Plex is a hybrid streaming service/self-hosted media server.
There’s the main problem. You’re partially in control. I encourage everyone to switch to Jellyfin, even if you don’t have anything to hide.
Jellyfin is such a PITA to set up for those that aren’t more technically inclined.
Huh? It’s far easier, throw in your server IP+Port or DNS and quick connect your clients with a short code.
The bullshit claim solution by Plex makes me pull my hair out, especially on remote instances.
Even when running, it managed to break the database 3 times, with no repair tool of working, interestingly there are plenty, community built and official ones, so that problem is common.
Rebuilding takes a whole day with the intro-outro detection.
What a nightmare to administrate.
As someone who has bought a lifetime subscription a year ago i was enraged as my girlfriend told me that she got ads in Plex, turns out they just added their free streaming service in there without even asking, fuck them, Jellyfin evolved great!
Most people literally have no idea what you just wrote. I’m not saying jellyfish isn’t the superior option, I’m saying it’s less accessible. I really don’t know how you can dispute that.
Plex is definitely easier to set up. I’ve done it multiple times over several servers. I’ve literally never heard of the database breaking, and I’ve deleted media that was actively being watched. Meanwhile, Jellyfin fails basic metadata matching on the exact same media set and also lacks built-in SSO. One of the biggest niceties of Plex is inviting people to join and they can just immediately login with Google.
I’m not saying Plex is better, and I’m not defending their recent enshittification. It’s gotten worse, for sure. And I’m sure Jellyfin is great, but I haven’t had time to put the effort in to fix the metadata issues or create accounts so my users can switch over.
What’s “futanari,” uncle Joeldebuijn?
Jellyfin is so much better than Plex
Imo only in terms of privacy. I tried it a few times over like two to three days but I always went back to Plex. Jellyfin is a nice piece of software though. I can imagine my switch will happen in a few years.
Just use plex locally without an account. Problem solved.
Edit: lol why the down votes? It fixes the issue…a lot of the telemetry that Plex collects is in relation to having a library linked to an account as well as streaming remotely through their servers. If you simply use Plex local only eithout an account then it should help a ton…
