As you may have seen Plex decided it was OK today to send an email showing me what my friends have been watching. To be clear, this is Plex telling other people what I’ve been watching from my server, with my files, and this is not OK.
We all knew it was a matter of time before Plex started collecting data on our libraries and sharing it with advertisers. What happened to their “we don’t know, and don’t want to know, what is on your server”?. This, for me, is proof that those fears were absolutely founded in reality. On what planet would I ever want this information to be shared with friends on family on an OPT OUT basis?
It’s totally unacceptable to collect this data in the first place. It’s totally unacceptable to share this information with uniquely identifiable information. And it’s totally unacceptable to do this without explicitly asking me if it’s OK.
Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about this as a server admin, because technically these are Plex users and their marketing email preferences are controlled on the user side in the Plex website preferences. Not on your server.
This is an absolutely egregious overreach.
Thank goodness there are alternatives available in the form of Jellyfin and Emby. I left my Plex server up after the Jellyfin January challenge we did on the Self-Hosted podcast but because of this I feel that I have no choice but to take it down for good.
Thanks for the heads up, not a fan. I’ve been running it concurrently with Jellyfish but looks like it may be time to ditch it.
That’s why I just can’t trust proprietary software anymore. Some of it is unavoidable though without making things unnecessarily hard/worse for yourself.
Shit like this gets pulled all the time, most of it is probably never discovered because it’s all hidden somewhere deep in their executables/firmware/binary blobs or whatever shit they push onto you…
Jellyfin FTW!
Problem is my user base are TV and mostly non technical people. No way they setup and maintain a JellyFin install. That’s why Plex just wins.
Unfortunately Jellyfin is just missing features. Opening and Credits skip? Nope. There is a plugin, but it doesn’t work with the Android client. On that front the Android client is so temperamental. Half the time it just doesn’t work on my Nvidia Shield. The UI is really clunky as well. I was using it for several months and the app just frustrated me so much I just went back to Plex.
Is there some way to send a invite to someone from your jellyfin where they just need to install the app and follow your link? Or some other way to seriously streamline install and setup?
The whole use this hostname and managing reverse proxy etc is the reason I have not switched. It’s just not user friendly for a grandma or typical consumer. That’s the majority of my users.
Does Jellyfin have an adequate apple TV iphone and android client with library sharing thats comparable to plex? Im not trying to start a war here, i just want to know. Only reason I don’t use jellyfin is because back in the day it didnt have library sharing or a decent apple tv app.
I left Plex as soon as they made it a pain to not use cloud logins.
Wtf? Why are you asking me to look g into MY system through your server? Get outta here.
This is why I don’t use Plex.
I went to install it once because I heard it was good. It said the next step of the installer is make a plex online account so I can log in. I looked for the ‘I don’t want online I want local’ option but I didn’t see one. So I uninstalled.
Nowhere did it explain what if any access Plex servers have to my media library (metadata or files), so I said no thanks I’ll just go back to using folders.
Glad to see I made the right choice.