A huge plus is that even though I’ve blocked all the junk with the firewall, every app still works. On Android, they all just stop working immediately.
I also think a small form factor (mini PC) with Linux OS is the best option. Freedom of apps, browsers; larger storage options, easy firewall and ad blocking options etc.
This is what I use and find it convenient. I also bought a bluetooth TV-Remote-like controller to use with it.
Took a long time to research and review differences between amazon stick, android boxes and decided on an old mini PC and have no desire to change.
You won’t find anything better than the Apple TV remote and tvOS user experience.
Likely true for most, at least for a use case that only involves streaming. But even then you do give up some things. I don’t believe there’s a good way to watch YouTube without ads on the Apple TV unless you subscribe to YouTube Premium, which is definitively less private than an option like FreeTube. And while Apple is pretty good with long term software support, in my experience things tend to get buggier and slower over time as their engineers focus their time on newer devices, whereas linux devices will generally only get better. “User experience” is not black and white.
And from a privacy perspective, no Apple OS can compete with linux.
I currently use a mini pc with bazzite installed and I’m quite happy with it.
I’m not arguing against it. However, I don’t personally use YouTube, and I subscribe to practically all the streaming services, even though I’m well aware that it doesn’t make much sense.
Nevertheless, below is an image from the last 6 hours showing NextDNS and HaGeZi Multi Pro. Pretty good results.
I use the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro. As far as UX & UI is concerned it is, IMO, the best TV Box by far. As far as privacy is concerned it’s Android TV so make of that what you will. That being said, the Shield TV Pro is supposed to be a premium TV Box, and should have far less if any bloatware from Google.
However, a couple of years ago, a lot of users were angry because Google/NVIDIA introduced ads in the menu, and many people though the reason you pay a primum for NVIDIA is to not get that.
I use a VPN 24/7 on my box, but obviously that is not enough for privacy. I really wish we had a private TV Box and one with great UI & UX, but I feel like we’re gonna have to wait a long time for that.
There are still a lot of products and services that don’t have a good private version.