If it helps, I am quite happy that an even less suitable replacement isn’t listed for harm reduction. DivestOS was a pretty unique case, but I think in that case it at least made some sense because of the monetary cost of buying a new device. If someone had an old device and couldn’t afford a new one, then running DivestOS on it was an improvement in security. In this situation, however, we are evaluating different FOSS. There is no financial barrier preventing someone from using a more secure option if it is recommended instead of Kodi.
Then that shifts the conversation more towards what the criteria of this section should be. The disagreement really is you think the software should be sandboxed as a minimum criteria, whereas @jonah does not, if I understand this correctly.
I wouldn’t be against having that conversation, although it probably should be a different thread. It always seemed a bit odd to create a catagory without having a discussion of what the criteria should be first.
This isn’t a Kodi development forum, so pushing for anything related to Kodi development here will make no impact.
It is far more effective for Privacy Guides to use its voice by listing software that is largely acceptable alongside prominent explanations of any shortcomings they may have. This gets people talking about these problems and gets it on the developer’s radar.
Having strict criteria for a category only works as a motivator if there are competing tools that already meet the criteria. There is no better alternative than Kodi in this category that I know of, so we have to work with what we have.
The criteria is primarily meant to exclude new recommendations, and it gets ratcheted up over time as existing recommendations improve or as new software gets launched.
The criteria is not simply a list of wishes that we have. If we only recommended perfect software we would recommend nothing at all, and Privacy Guides would just be a list of things we think developers should add to their apps. There is no category on the site where the criteria is that the app’s security is perfectly implemented, and I don’t see why this category will be any different.
The only reason to not add a category at all is if the shortcomings of all available tools are massively substantial and would place people in a worse position than not doing anything, which again really doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Obviously this is true, and if there is a more secure option then we should recommend it instead. This statement hinges on the assumption that a more secure option exists, which is not the case to my knowledge.
4 Likes
Right now I’m trying to stop what I view as an insecure app being recommended to a lot of people. I’ll gladly request that they make these improvements, but I don’t want it listed unless they make said improvements.
Like you said this isn’t the Kodi development forums, lets get people talking on their own forum/github so the developers can actually fix it.
Every operating system already has a default media player built in. We also don’t need to rush these recommendations either, it should be carefully considered.
I don’t see why we can’t have high standards out of the gate. Some fancy smart TV software isn’t a necessity, we can wait until they’re better.
The problem with this is there’s infinite possible categories of software. We should be strict about all new software in general, otherwise the site will turn into a bloated mess of a million random bits of software, some of which will be actively dangerous. The idea that we should start at basically no criteria if there’s not some other competing software is ridiculous to me. I thought the point of the general criteria was for exactly this reason.
3 Likes
Security should only be weakened if it would provide a substantial privacy benefit, e.g., using Firefox-based browsers instead of Chromium. Kodi not using the app sandbox is just security negligence, in my opinion.
2 Likes
Then again what about Firefox
it is deemed insecure to around half of the users yet we recommend it
with that logic why doesn’t kodi and VLC get the same treatment
That is not what I said. I will just repeat what I said here:
This statement is tailored to this specific case of media software. I have made no statement whatsoever about allowing any recommendations without any criteria at all. People are better off using Kodi than the non-private alternatives out there.
2 Likes
But kodi does provide substantial privacy over say the smart TVs that’s where I’m confused here.
2 Likes
Honest question: do people really use Kodi as expected? Most of the online tutorials I see are designed to access content that might be considered either prohibited or illegal in some jurisdictions.
Personally, I just connect a laptop to a TV, which I believe is what most people do when they want more functionality from their TVs (based on my experience, of course).
I might be a little bit off-topic now that I think about it…
1 Like
that is a good question
I do find it’s UI and Hardware Support fitting for big screen/TV replacement
at this point it’s about replacing the privacy invading smart tvs
that is if the user wants to connect it to the internet
but of course when it comes to that it can be important to assess the risks but again it’s a weird double standard discussion imo.
Tbh I was also geniunely considering of this setup where my ripped media would go to hogh capacity sd card loaded onto kodi onto a raspberry pi but yeah
I think there certainly is a use-case for people who want a family-friendly, private media solution.
A large part of more technical privacy-friendly tools like Kodi or Jellyfin is making it easier to share private solutions with less technical people. Therefore the goal of this section isn’t solely to cover personal usage, but to cover private media solutions that are applicable to indirect users as well.
You can’t take merely the amount of guides on piracy very seriously, because they are inherently more advanced topics. There is no need for a large amount of guides on how to use Kodi normally, because the normal way to use it is quite simple.
I think that assuming that most people are pirating/torrenting content or most people are doing weird things with Kodi doesn’t actually work, because those situations are merely the most vocal/obvious use-cases on the internet, not necessarily the most common use-cases.
1 Like
A compromise could be to recommend it for its privacy benefits but list the security considerations.
I would love to do that if it means most of us agree. With some suggestion but other than that yeah.
1 Like
If I am understanding it correctly, the recommendation would be to use media deemed ‘secure’ and not to recommend using it for piracy?
I think a reasonable recommendation would be to say that Kodi is a good way to privately browse and play your local media collection, with a note/warning that your local media collection could place you at risk if you obtained that media via third-party sources.
Why exactly are there so many comments in this thread?
Kodi is like 20+ years old, there is no better FOSS option in its class for the 10ft experience.
The only real concern that needs to be clearly stated is to avoid plugins, just as you would for a browser or an IDE.
6 Likes
That opens the door to recommending an endless list of software as long as appropriate security warnings are provided, which in many cases could be quite extensive. I believe that security warnings should be reserved for software that offers a near net gain in privacy. Is this the case for Kodi?
thank you very much for your expressing your opinion on this
as for the real concern I have added the following:
(…) and you can use add-ons1. to extend the experience. Kodi is compatible with most operating systems and hardware, including Raspberry Pi, Linux, and Android, see the requirements here for running Kodi.
Kodi has an add-ons store to extend the out-of-the-box experience, but keep in mind that add-ons are made by the community and the company itself, so be careful what you install, luckily most software add-ons are also FOSS, meaning the code on them can be inspected, but in general be careful what you install, see the addons site for more.
Would that be satisfactory?
Not to mention we had to add the following which is unfortunate but who to blame is a whole different story:
Also, we advise against using it for Apple devices (outside of MacOS) as it requires jailbreaking them and jailbreaking reduces the security of the device, we recommend you have a Linux or an Android device for it instead if possible.
I don’t agree with this.
I like my FOSS, but people will just see a plugin on GitHub and think it is safe.
There are many malicious Kodi plugins.
I reaffirm that all non-default plugins should be avoided.
3 Likes
Unless you make one yourself and know what it’s doing and why and how.