Yesterday’s controversy surrounding Plex and their latest e-mail marketing campaign has been a great reminder to review the privacy settings they provide for opting out of data collection.
We’ve compiled a handy list for those not ready to make the jump to alternatives like Jellyfin, Dim, or Emby:
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Privacy conscious users haven’t been using Plex for ~7 years since they started requiring auth go through their servers.
This, and put plex behind a reverse proxy for WAN access and only allow metadata download. Enjoy your “offline” Plex that works without internet.
What is it just a jelly fin instance?
The problem for me with jelly fin is how difficult it is for my users to use it outside of my house. I have it setup for my parents and inlaws who barely know how to use email, plex for them is like netflix but allows them to also view family videos. I cant easily set that up for them unless I am physically in their house and set it up on all of their devices. Plex I can just give them a username and password and it is all set. Once I have an option to do that I might switch to another service.
Can you elaborate on the difficulty for users? the laptop users go to a url and log in which has to be the most simple of anything. The Apple TV users will need to use infuse because imhe Swiftfin is just not even close to ready even though I really appreciate a native Apple client being worked on. iOS users I would guess infuse is the best option there. Android I’m not familiar with these days (anyone know the best client?) The only thing I’m not sure at all about is Xbox, Roku, fire stick etc. anyone got input on those?
I myself am planning on making the switch in early 2024. I’ve been running them side by side with Jellyfin as a backup but just for me no users, early 24 I’m switching to Jellyfin and eventually shutting down Plex I’m 99% sure at this point it’s just the right move to make.
IMO the only thing Plex has over Jellyfin is a native client on every platform. Infuse works great and is well worth $10 a year but I’m not sure what to do for the platforms I mentioned above. Otherwise for actual video playback Jellyfin has always worked much easier and more flawless than Plex.
Im not a developer and I truly appreciate Jellyfin and will make a relatively decent donation to the project when I switch fully, but to me it feels like they already did the part I would have assumed was the hard part and got the whole thing working excellent and I’d have thought the clients were the easier part. Clearly that’s not the case and it for sure takes a lot of man hours to make clients for so many platforms. If they improve the client options I think it will make sense for everyone to switch sooner than later. In the meantime I already have to use infuse on my Apple TV because the Apple TV Plex client chokes on certain h265 videos etc. so my actual experience should be the same using infuse for Jellyfin. Only thing missing would be skip into I guess.
The only thing on that list should be
- Uninstall Plex
- Install Jellyfin
Thanks, this is actually pretty useful!
When a service that I self-host violates my trust in a way that I have no control over, I uninstall it. I’d rather be mad at my own failure to secure/properly configure my shit than be betrayed by a third party.
The people still on Plex are looking around at the metaphorical piles of rubble that used to be their neighbors and thinking to themselves, “Well my house is still standing so why would I move?”.
Eventually Plex the company will find your own personal line and cross it.
That was handy. Good post. And shame on plex for making that so hard.
Thanks. Good for a quick checkup of my settings!
even though I paid for a lifetime pass, the only thing holding me back to switch to jellyfin is that it took me several hoursin total to find custom covers and make sure that the agent got the episode names etc right
I simply don’t want to do it all. over again with jellyfin