from scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 01 May 14:43
https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/2333640
cross-posted from: poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/2333639
I was just forwarded this someone in my household who watches our server. That’s it folks. I’ve been a hold out for a long time, but this is honestly it.
They want me to pay to stream content that I bought from my hardware transcoded also on my hardware.
I’ll say it. As of today, I say Plex is dead. Luckily I’ve been setting up Jellyfin, I guess it’s time to make it production ready.
Edit: I have a Plex Pass. More comments saying “Just buy a plex pass” are seriously not getting it. I have a Plex Pass and my users are still getting this.
And for the thousandth person who wants to say the same things to me:
- YES I know I’m unaffected as a Plex Pass owner.
- My users were immediately angry at it, which made me angry. Our users don’t understand what plex pass is, and they shouldn’t have to, that’s why I had it. The fact that they were pinged even though it should have kept working is horribly sloppy
- Plex is still removing functionality. I don’t care that “People should pay their fair share”. If Plex wants to put every new feature behind a paywall, that’s completely okay. They are removing functionality.
- “But they have cloud costs”. Remote streaming is negligible to them. It’s a dynamic DNS service. Plex client logs in, asks where server is, plex cloud responds with the IP and port of where server is located. That’s it.
- “Good luck finding another remote streaming” - Again, Plex just opens up an IP and port. Jellyfin also just opens up an IP and port (Hold on jellyfin folks I know, security, that’s a separate conversation). All “remote streaming” is is their dynamic dns. Literal pennies to them. Know what actually is costing them money? Hosting all of that ad-supported “free” content that they’re probably losing money on.
In short, I don’t care how you justify it. Plex is doing something shitty. They’re removing functionality that has been free for years. I’m not responding to any more of your comments repeating the same arguments over and over.
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I never got the idea of selfhosting but paying (except for enterprise-grade support or donations) anyway.
You can selfhost for free however you want but software developers have the right to ask for money to use their software. I selfhost about 60tb of media and have paid for Plex monthly for about 10 years now. They are still so far above the competition for ease-of-use that I wouldn’t even consider switching at this point, even to save $7/month.
They have the right to ask, but I don’t have to pay. I’ve been playing with Jellyfin for about a month now, and I have to say, it’s just as easy as Plex is. The only thing I had to do myself was make my own users. In fact, I tried Jellyfin a few years ago and was unimpressed - now all I see is Plex making stuff to make advertisers happy while Jellyfin is adding stuff to make it’s users happy, to the point where I think Jellyfin has surpassed Plex.
Exactly. This is a bet that Plex is going to lose with the proliferation of Jellyfin.
I dunno about that. Plex has lots of market share and plenty of “well I bought the pass when it was $60/$90” people aren’t gonna be personally affected by them locking more and more functionality behind the pass. So they’ll keep using it and recommending it and talking about it, and the centralized account management stuff (which Jellyfin won’t copy, because not having that is the point of selfhosting) will always be more convenient than setting up VPNs or other tools like external auth for Jellyfin sharing over the internet.
Discourse about this everywhere always boils down to the same comment: “I bought the plex pass and honestly I’d do it again for $300 just to not deal with handling my own authentication system, plex remote play Just Works”. Or something like “I refuse to use a $20 HDMI android TV box instead of my ad-ridden smart TV or PlayStation 5, and those don’t have apps for JF”. These guys are literally in this thread, on Lemmy, the Reddit for people so FOSS-friendly they use Lemmy instead of Reddit.
But would you / do you voluntarily donate to Jellyfin’s development?
I get it, it is (& a lot of things are) free… but at some point the developers need to recoup something…
Otherwise Jellyfin’s development will eventually dry up as raw enthusiasm runs out.
Jellyfin refuses donations so even if I (not the one you’re responding to) wanted to, I would not be able to.
Pretty funny one has to keep reducing features and increase prices, while the other is actively refusing funds because they have enough already.
Not quite. Jellyfin does take in donations, but they intentionally hide this feature on their website – first you need to go to their
Contributepage, then you need to read “Find a way to contribute” blurb and notice and clickOther, then you need to clickHelp Pay for Expenses, then they give you a speech practically asking you to reconsider:And then you have to click that link and intentionally donate money – any amount you want either one time or monthly. The level of integrity compared to Plex – who take in VC money hand over fist and are descending into nickel-and-diming their customers – isn’t night-and-day: it’s the surface of a star and the center of the Boötes Void.
Indeed it is technically possible to donate, but like you said, they are really not making it easy nor do they depend on it for survival.
Money corrupts and makes aligning user needs and profitability quite difficult, as we see with Plex now
Yup, like why I bought Plex pass at the time. I was happy to pay for the good work they were doing. They had nice uis, their code was stable, and new features rolled out regularly. I’ll happily be doing the same for jellyfin.
Plex wants people to pay now for the same functionality. Big difference in my book.
Ahh, I see what you mean. Being asked to pay twice isn’t nice…
Jellyfin have native apps that are any good? I use plex heavily on ps5, appleTV, iOS, and people’s random smart TVs, all of which have really good first class apps. I also support users that are not technically inclined, so they would need to be able to just install and app and log in.
My experience with the apps has been good, I use the android TV one daily and I like it. The most I had to do was log in using the username/password and also the URL, but I plan on just giving that to my users so they know how to log in.
Is it called “jellyfin” like the server or is it another app?
Jellyfin is the server, the official apps are usually found by searching for Jellyfin just like Plex, there’s a few other ones out there with funny names that are also available. jellyfin.org/downloads/clients/
Yeah I’m familiar with server- I was asking if you were using official client apps or third party.
Mostly official, I tried finamp a while back, but not in the last couple of years. Official ones work great
Thanks!!
No Jellyfin app on AppleTV or PS5.
All fair points, just depends on where your motivation to self host comes from. $7 for a monthly sub to Plex is frankly nothing to me, I don’t even have the charge linked to my budget spreadsheet. Between Plex, VPN, my usenet provider, private tracker memberships, electricity, etc., I’m not even sure I’m saving much money versus having one or two streaming subscriptions. In other words, I don’t do it to save money.
PlexAmp alone justifies the cost even before some features got put behind a paywall but the fact that all my tech-illiterate friends can just download an app on their phones/consoles and watch whatever they want in a high bitrate off my computer makes it worth it for me. 9/10, I just watch films off VLC player anyway.
Eh, I find Emby pretty close to on-par at this point.
For a good while, Plex was the only game in town that did the job well, and they put the transcoding feature behind the paywall.
Given it wasn’t that expensive for a lifetime pass a number of years ago (I remember it was cheaper than a game anyway) and they still seemed relatively user-centric at the time, many people like me felt like they were supporting developers building something that was useful to us.
I still run my Plex server since it’s not really costing me not to, but I’ve been running Jellyfin too for a little while and it more or less can do the same job these days
Yup, for the time it was worth it. I got about 7 years out of my “lifetime” plex pass, and I got it on sale. All in all, I won’t say the money was wasted.
It’s 100% a waste if anyone pays for that BS monthly streaming fee though.
Wait so you’ve got a lifetime plex pass already? Then literally nothing changes for you or anyone that is streaming from your server.
Yeah, they’re just bitching. Pretty funny imo
I put my chips (£100) on Emby.
I haven’t regretted my purchase. I can’t sell anyone on much either, because Emby does all the same as other services, except they’ve kept adding features while Plex kept doing the Google thing and taking them away. CPU transcoding is free I believe, as is remote streaming up to 10 devices for each user… Idk I paid pretty early on, but lifetime license is where it’s at. Subscriptions just open your asshole for greedy CEOs to fuck you. Best to keep subscriptions voluntary, like donating on Github or Patreon
I think you have that backwards. Jellyfin is a fork of emby
Yeah; Emby was originally called MediaBrowser and was a free open source project. ‘MediaBrowsers’ developers decided to move to a closed source paid model to establish some more consistent income and support the dedicated developers they have. Thus Emby was born.
Some users were really unhappy with this decision and forked MediaBrowsers last release to create Jellyfin. Their development has been quite a bit slower, but they’ve made some significant strides in recent years. It’s a more and more attractive option.
One of my biggest reasons for sticking with Emby (besides already having a lifetime premier license) is the dedicated clients available on more platforms. Xbone is my primary streaming device, besides android: Emby has a dedicated xbox client you can install that will take full advantage of the the hardware(more content direct plays, HEVC video for example), where as Jellyfin you’ve gotta use the web browser which is cumbersome and forces the server to transcode media a lot more.
Indeed I did, I removed my speculative comments…
I’m pretty happy with Emby, which also lets me easily do remote streaming.
With Plex, you’re getting the easy ability to grant access to users. You get a single pane that can search across multiple Plex instances, and NAT traversal/port forwarding. Jellyfin makes you figure that out yourself.
It’s not exactly difficult if you use Tailscale or really any VPN. So I really don’t see the value for the cost; if you’re even considering self hosting a Plex server/instance, there’s a list of basic knowledge you should have or learn (like what you mentioned).
Its not difficult for technical people like you or me, but my friend who just wants to watch their favorite show on my Plex on their TV won’t know how to traffic engineer the traffic over a Tailscale network to my network. My mom won’t be installing Tailscale on her laptop and phone.
As long as the technical person does all of the setup on their end, the non technical person only has to enter a domain and port in their jellyfin client.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/630f907c-fbc6-412f-a344-ac630fb220b8.png">
If you want to be on the hook for all IT requests from folks you share with, this is a fine approach. There are people out there who honestly don’t have a problem with that and more power to them. I doubt they are the majority, and a lot of selfhosters completely ignore this aspect of software. There is a reason non-free services exist beyond just “capitalism bad.” I mean, capitalism indeed bad, but your time is worth something.
I guess I haven’t noticed that. The non technically literate folk I know use smart TVs, or can download Jellyfin from an app store. Then they just use the URL when the app asks for it.
There’s no other configuring to do on their end.
They also need to run a VPN client.
Because you’re not putting bare jellyfin on the internet, right? You shouldn’t be doing that for most services in the first place, but doubly so for something that has a bunch of APIs that require no authentication: github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
Put it behind a reverse proxy!
I’m not sure if you know this, but…that doesn’t fix most of the security issues in the linked list. All the reverse proxy does is handle hostname resolution and TLS termination (if you are using TLS). If the application being proxies still has an unauthenticated API, anyone can access it. If there’s an RCE vulnerability in any of them, you might get hacked.
I run Jellyfin publicly, but I do it behind a separate, locked-down reverse proxy (e.g., it explicitly hangs up any request for a Host header other than Jellyfin’s), in a kubernetes cluster, and I keep its pod isolated in its own namespace with restricted access to everything local except to my library via read-only NFS volumes hosted on a separate TrueNAS box. If there is any hack, all they get access to is a container that can read my media files. Even that kind of bothers me, honestly.
The overwhelming majority of Jellyfin users do not take precautions like this and are likely pretty vulnerable. Plex has a security team to address vulnerabilities when they happen, so those users would likely be a lot safer. I appreciate the love for FOSS on Lemmy, but it is scary how little most folks here acknowledge the tradeoffs they are making.
I’ve spoken out on this same issue before… and as a previous security instructor/researcher… it’s fucking scary how many people shit on Plex for a platform that has had known vulnerabilities in auth for 4 years now, that’s existed since the previous code-base… so at least 7 years old and those issues existed in the previous emby codebase going back over a decade.
Plex isn’t perfect… there’s risks involved there too… but at least when something is brought up as a significant risk it seems to get fixed outside of the implicit risks of the Plex org itself.
All I read in these threads is effectively “WAAAH I don’t WANNA pay!”… Without realizing that the payment gave them something significantly more secure.
I’ve never used Plex, but the thing that stopped me from looking at it isn’t that it’s a paid service. It’s that it’s partially centralised, and starting to become hostile to its user base. This current change, locking down a previously free feature being an iconic example of that.
My partner and I fund two decently sized fediverse instances and a matrix instance mostly out of our own pockets. We do that precisely because we have both actively chosen to move away from centralised, user hostile social media platforms. And whilst Plex isn’t a social media platform, it is centralised and becoming more user hostile, and I won’t pay for that.
(And to be clear, I’m front of house, I’m not responsible for setting up our instances security :P)
I mean, that’s effectively the same boat I’m in. I run all my own stuff in my own cluster (recently posted some of it if you check my post history).
But putting up Jellyfin for any user that isn’t on your network is literally a security nightmare. I cannot run blatantly insecure software and leave it internet facing. It’s one thing if it was just found and they’re working on closing it… But this has been documented/known for 4 years. They’re not fixing it and have shown no interest in addressing it at all.
VPN is literally the only answer… and that breaks all TV-based access outright since none of them do VPN. Basic auth doesn’t work. Other forms of auths breaks all app access (leaving only browser). And each time any of these possible alternative answers come up, they’ve outright dismissed it.
If/When Plex finally gets hostile, I’ll simply turn it off. But I can’t let Jellyfin be what services my users, it just doesn’t work.
Great, so now the unauthenticated APIs are proxied instead of accessed directly. That changes nothing, it is still vulnerable.
I’m also not particularly happy with giving a bunch of people VPB access to my setup. Or other potential complications that come with that setup.
I know enough to be able to lock it down, but I dont want the hassle. And other people will want it less.
I paid for a lifetime license years ago which is significantly cheaper than that.
Getting everyone that streams from your server to use tailscale or any other VPN every time they want to watch stuff from your server on any device they own is very difficult and basically a no-go. As someone that tried getting people who are using my plex server to use Tailscale so they could access my Overseer to request movies/shows, and basically no one would, it’s a deal breaker.
I will say, I really want someone* to make a Jellyfin aggregator so you can use multiple servers at once.
*Not me.
Immich has a weird “buy a licence” model which literally does nothing.
I never even saw that, while running my own instance lol
Immich, I believe, is linked to Futo. And Futo has a license model that’s basically “if you like this app, and want to support the development, consider buying a license.”
Sounds like it might be similar with Immich.
Better than “donate to this project”, since a license seems more like the user is getting something out of it, even if it’s basically a glorified donation 😂
Instantly bought the server license. Support your favorite FOSS, people.
In the case of plex, it’s not 100% selfhosted. There’s a dependence on plexs public infrastructure for user management/authentication. They also help bypass NAT by proxying connections through their servers so you don’t have to setup port forwarding and can even easily escape double NAT situations.
I can understand paying for that convenience, but cost keeps rising while previously free features continue to get locked behind paywalls.
Tbh, having users required to authenticate with plex.tv was enough for me to look elsewhere. The biggest reason to self host for me is to remove dependency on public services.
The central user management is not a feature, it’s a hook to force people to pay for self-hosted software.
Can’t say I disagree.
100% my experience as well. The external authentication requirement is what made my choose Jellyfin a couple years ago.
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Downvote without explanation. Nice!
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I assume they replied to you after someone downvoted you but before all the upvotes.
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That was indeed the case. I suppose the comment didn’t contribute much.
Just tired of seeing perfectly solid comments being downvoted with no reason provided 🤷
I run into you again! This time I get to wholeheartedly agree with you! You are spot on and nailed it.
I use Plex for exactly the reasons you said because when I set it up I didn’t know anything about self hosting a media server and I wanted to share with family in other locations. I keep it because it’s so easy for my older, less tech savvy family members to access so I don’t have to be their support person for it.
I’d consider Jellyfin if the end user access was more plug and play.
The biggest thing about this is I don’t get why OP is so annoyed. If you have a Plex Pass you’re not impacted, you can still share and your users can still access your library for free, they can’t share with you without a Plex Pass but who cares.
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How exactly are you aquiring a folder full of media without technical know how in the first place? (Genuine question?)
I suppose having Plex handle users is easier than creating an account but barely imo.
Not shitting on Plex either, gotta do what you want I think the problems with this kind of thing is the change, people had a free service for years and now they have to change or pay. People hate change, lol
I’ve been “collecting” content for many years now. I learned most of what I needed to know about ripping and transcoding over the years, such that each time I need to deal with a new video format, or a new application, it’s not too hard, because I’m building on everything I’ve already learned.
And each time I was learning new things, it’s not like there was a risk that all my previous content might suddenly become unusable or inaccessible.
Meanwhile, a couple years ago I was finally able to build myself a proper NAS. While I know my way around Linux somewhat, I never kept a Linux-based daily driver because most of the apps I use regularly are on Windows, and I’m not confident about running them stably in Linux, nor am I confident about equivalent native Linux apps. And I’m not confident about setting up and administering my own server. My past experiences have shown me that whenever you need to do anything complex and specific, it involves a lot of work.
So at a coworker’s suggestion, I got a Synology NAS that turned out to be a breeze to setup. And then I figured out how to get Plex server on there (not available in the Synology package manager, but the “manual” process turned out to be simple enough)
And it just WORKS! it’s not perfect, but it’s mostly painless to use. I was happy paying for the lifetime Plex pass at the beginning, because it handles all the routing and discovery that needs to happen to allow me to stream to my phone, or to my parents’ TV when I’m visiting them.
My next NAS might not be by Synology due to their recent announcement about supported hard drives, but I’ll probably be looking for something that “just works” because I can’t be bothered to learn how to be a sysadmin, and risk losing my stuff because I’m making the kinds of mistakes one makes as they’re learning.
Just like, if I owned a car, I wouldn’t be digging under the hood to “tweak the timing” or replacing brake discs. I’d be happy paying someone I trust to do that work, leaving me with a car that “just works”.
Just on this - this was widely misrepresented just like this plex announcement is. Just so you are aware of the actual truth - the new + Synology NAS’s do not require Synology branded drives. They will still accept and work with all drives including WD, Iron Wolf, Seagate, etc.
All that is changing is that only the Synology branded drives will get some of the “smart health” monitoring features and easy firmware updating (of the hdd). Nothing else is changing. You will still be able to buy all of the new Synology devices and plug in whatever HDDs you want and they’ll work fine.
Are you me? Swap a Windows daily driver for a Mac instead and our experiences are basically identical.
I went with a 920+ but I’m also running a server on an Asus mini PC running Ubuntu to split the load for transcoding because I’ve got a lot of remote users now.
Because there are excellent setup guides out there that walk you through the process and allow you to set all this up without knowing anything about the individual steps you’re taking.
How many people with a folder full of media also know how to safety expose a home server to the internet? It would be less than 1%.
Meanwhile, you don’t need network engineer levels of knowledge to run Plex for remote access. You download the software, choose the folder, and send your friends a share link.
This is a perspective I didn’t realize. I only used Plex for a short while before switching to Jellyfin, but I didn’t know Plex handled server connection like this (I think I setup direct connections from the beginning but it’s been a while).
Thanks for the info!
It can but bitrate is limited without direct connect. It’s an awful way to configure Plex.
It’s about as plug and play as any other website. They just open the app, type in the URL, and log in with their credentials and…that’s it.
What about combining sources? Because in plex I can search all libraries. Mine or external.
After setting up an elaborate VPN scheme
No such scheme required
So you’re telling people to expose Jellyfin to the internet?
Jellyfin or Plex, needs to be done if you want remote connections without a VPN
You don’t technically need it on Plex. They do have a relay feature.
The relay feature is terrible though. It ruins video quality for any stream over 1mbps unless you pay and then it still ruins any stream over 2mbps. Any good plex server will have direct connect enabled just like jellyfin.
What’s the security risk you worry about having a plex media server or jellyfin server listening on the Internet?
I’m not telling anyone what to do, I’m just saying the VPN is not necessary. Mine is exposed.
It’s not advisable to expose Jellyfin to the internet. Telling people they don’t need VPN means you are encouraging them to expose it to the internet.
Wrong.
Wrong again.
So you don’t have an actual argument and can only say it’s wrong?
Honestly if it could support multi-server login cleanly, that would be the trick right there.
That said, haven’t had any issues, but I did have to help family set it up the first time.
I LOVE Jellyfin but can only imagine the amount of work I’d have to do if I tried to get my parents and in-laws successfully using it. We all just split the cost of lifetime Plex pass the last time it was on sale.
Insert url. Insert login credentials.
I see you know as much about Jellyfin as you do about my in-laws.
I’m sure he doesn’t know your family as well as you do, but as for jellyfin, that’s exactly what you do, open it in a browser and stream, I don’t understand what’s your objection to that
The giant unsecured barn door that is the Jellyfin backend
@MaggiWuerze@feddit.org nailed it. Jellyfin has security issues. It’s better than it used to be, but it’s still bad.
Insert virus on your server.
What’s a url?
Do you mean the Facebook thing? I tried to Google the internet from the Facebooks and it didn’t work. I called Comcast and I told them the problem and now I have 400 TV channels. They took your computer box, said it was bad for security. Something about shredding it. Anyway, can you get the internet to Google for me?
Any time you rely on another company to handle your data, you are beholden to their whims, end of story. Don’t like what they’re doing? Too bad. Give up the convenience and host it yourself, or continue to be a slave to their corporate interests.
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Or Lemmy
Been slowly chipping away at those for the last decade (could have gone way faster but I’m lazy), and I’m almost completely google-free. I dont use any microsoft products at home (work forces me to), and Apple can eat my ass. My phone is a completely de-googled GrapheneOS device (I don’t have an issue relying on companies for hardware, just software), and hopefully in the future a Liberux or Pinephone linux phone.
I self-host my own movies, music, and cloud storage. I also host my own chat service for friends and family, built on top of XMPP. The services i do use are generally very privacy respecting like Signal for people outside of my social sphere, or freedom respecting like Lemmy (mostly weaned off of reddit).
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Ahh there it is, I knew you’d do that.
I abide by my own lectures, I am actively putting effort into it and am 99% of the way there, which is 100% more than you.
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Getting a little touchy are we? Try deep breaths, it helps with the anger issues 😉
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I wasn’t trolling, but okay. I probably should stop arguing with a bot designed to astro turf for big corporate data ownership.
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I am just gonna read your comment until here, Plex does shit if you are CGNATED, and as it is 2025 I suppose most users are, I still needed to expose through IPv6 with a reverse proxy, using a VPS or a VPN to access my Plex Server, so yeah, Plex hasn’t helped me at all since many years ago with the noob friendly approach they have.
EDIT: Oh and their relay feature is garbage, even for Plex Pass users, and I happen to be a lifetime one.
Outside of portforwarding plex ports on your router though? But yeah plex does provide a service and it is asinine the pushback this is getting.
Completely agree, and I think it’s fair for them to make it a paid feature. It’s kind of like using wireguard yourself to create a whole network vs Tailscale.
Take HomeAssistant for example: you’re free to use it self-hosted, but as soon as you want to expose it securely through the Internet, there’s need for infrastructure that has costs, both in materials and labor. In HomeAssistant’s case, it’s NabuCasa that does it, and costs money, and helps fund the work of HomeAssistant’s developers.
Having things free (libre) and open source is a blessing, but we have become used, entitled, even spoiled, to enjoy the work of very specialized people for free. That’s not always feasible.
Another example, Zabbix, is totally open source and free, they only charge for support and training if you ask for them. It has worked for them for many years, but if they start to struggle with funding, I’d understand if they charged for it.
Home Assistant doesn’t require to pay for anything at any point in time for any reason. If you want to expose your instance to the web, they have all the documents on how to do it yourself. There’s absolutely nothing “hidden” behind a paywall. The only reason to say is if you want Nabu Casa to handle exposing your instance to the internet and various cloud services like Google Assistant/Alexa. The reason to pay Nabu Casa is if you don’t have the technical know how (or lazy like me) and to help fund Home Assistant (which I want).
That’s all to say that Plex and Home Assistant are not similar in their pay scheme. It’d be more akin if Jellyfin started charging users to allow a one click way to stream outside the home with no obligation to.
When they monitor what you watch and who you share it with, it’s enshittified. Fuck Plex. I used to be a lifetime drum thumper. Stopped a few years ago.
Plex doesn’t care about you, your comfort, ease. It wants your money and it wants to monitor and control what you do with your own data.
Fuck. That.
I’ve been a lifetime Plex pass holder since forever. And that even covers my brother accessing the server? He doesn’t even need one?
Seems fair to me for a platform I use daily for a decade.
I don’t know if you’re trying to exclaim that it doesn’t cover it, or that it’s a fair thing.
I’m a Plex pass holder on my server - and my user does not have a plex pass. From what I’m reading they need to pay a subscription to access my (Plex pass) server.
That isn’t true. A Plex pass from the server owner will cover access for all users
What do you want me to say? I hold a plex pass. I’m the server owner. My users are receiving that email.
Yes, they’re being advertised to. In theory this is because they might be clients for non-Pass servers in addition to yours. In practice, Plex could easily verify Plex client accounts that don’t run a server or have access to non-Pass servers and skip sending this marketing email to those accounts. What they’re doing is trying to convince your users they need to pay a sub fee (even though they don’t), because it’s free money in Plex’s pocket if the users do click the thing and say “welp, still cheaper than netflix”
Any users of your plex-pass verified server do not need to pay anything to keep streaming it. You had to pay a lot more for the lifetime or subscription to enable it, but by doing so any users you share with don’t need to pay a dime. You reading this press release and seeing your users get emails and assuming that your users now need to pay for something isn’t you being stupid, it’s the intended result of their deliberately confusing messaging. One user shrugging and saying “guess it’s $7/mo now” is free money for the company.
If that’s the case, then best case they’re being incredbily scummy and my users are getting lied to. Of which, I won’t just let them pay monthly for something they don’t need.
It’s scummy advertising, yes. Designed to prey on a Plex server operator’s likely-less-tech-literate users.
And that should be enough right there to get all server owners to drop Plex
but it’s not, because “i got it so cheap for $60 ten years ago / $90 five years ago / $120 yesterday” and “securely opening a port and enabling OAuth for jellyfin takes more than one click”.
The “lifetime” Plex Pass was a genius marketing move, because people are permanently inertia-locked into the cost they sunk. For nearly a decade now the refrain is “I just have a Plex pass. I bought it for $30 less than its current cost and it works great for me, sucks that it’s now $90/$120/$240 but IMO it’s worth it :)”. Don’t forget that making you pay $60 or $90 or $120 or $240 to use your own GPU for hardware encoding was always a scumware tactic, even if they put up a $15/mo subscription next to that one-time cost so that the one-time cost looks like “a good deal”.
I know I’m one of them, and at the time and even now I supported it. They were adding features, they did plexamp! It was great, and I was happy to help pay for development. Now though? Nothing worthwhile added in years, and just more ways to nickle and dime. Not to mention the ad-riddled free “content” they’re shoving in front of my users. Nope, I’m done. My lifetime plex pass ended up being about $10 per year that I used it, and I’ll say I’m content with that.
It costs them money to distribute the codec. It’s not scumware. Otherwise they would have to make install/setup of plex a 2 step process… and updates would be annoying as shit.
They need you to pay so they can push codecs with their updates/install.
I’m fine with the one time payment. I donate to shit I use regardless.
They likely streamed from some other Plex server in the past, and that’s why they’re getting the email. The email specifically states that if the server owner has a plex pass, you don’t need one.
I got the email earlier today and it couldn’t be clearer:
I know for a fact that minimum one of them has not, the second email I would be extremely surprised if they had.
Their email and even their “Plex: Free vs Paid” page is confusing. However, the “Requirements for Remote Playback of Personal Media“ is more clear.
Yes, that is correct. It’s because the people that read the email only, or read the email and click one (1) link, are likely to be less familiar with Plex as a platform than the server owner. Plex the company would very much like people to pay them $7 a month forever for literally nothing.
Yeah if you already have a lifetime pass then essentially nothing changes. They also did the right thing about giving people a pretty good heads up to purchase a lifetime pass before they raised the price.
Your users may have gotten the notice (my family didn’t) but they can ignore it if the server owner has a lifetime pass.
Read the email again. The key word in their marketing slop is “alternatively”. You have a Plex Pass and are the server admin. Your users need to do nothing.
Unfortunately, that does mean I have to respond to messages from all my users asking what that email means and convince them they can just ignore it.
A second “nice” part of this change is that iOS users no longer have to buy the Plex app on the App Store to stream longer than a minute. The app is only like 5 bucks one time, but it was a barrier when trying to convince stubborn people to just fucking TRY my Plex server.
Correct, only the server owner needs the pass.
This has caused a lot of controversy because it was a free feature since Plex started and they’re now locking it behind a subscription.
Indeed. The entitlement that some folks online have towards Plex is embarrassing sometimes.
This was announced several months ago
I’m a server owner and had no idea. If I did, I would have left then.
What’s the alternative you’re going with?
I’ve been testing out Jellyfin for a while anyway. I’m honestly surprised how much they’ve caught up
That’s another service that doesn’t provide free remote streaming, not without setting up remote access in a way that would also work for Plex. So why is this the change that’s making you leave Plex?
I don’t understand why people keep saying that. I can stream outside my network. Others can stream it from outside my network. That’s remote streaming in my book.
What steps did you take to get it streaming outside of your house?
Probably the same steps you’d need to if you use Plex and are CGNATED (thanks CGNAT for teaching me basic networking).
Jellyfin absolutely does provide free remote streaming. Plex use to, but no longer will. That is why it’s a change making people switch.
I’ll ask you the same question… What steps did you take to get it streaming outside of your house?
Give the address of the server and login info
You can forward a port in your router like you would with Plex, or you can use a reverse proxy, or Tailscale Funnel if you want to get jazzy wit it.
Then all you do on the client side is pop in the address.
And that’s the point I’m making. The work required to expose Jellyfin to the world is the same work to expose Plex. This change to Plex just charges for the relay servers, you can still do free remote streaming in the same way Jellyfin does. So if feels a bit ridiculous to claim Plex is dead and everyone should switch to Jellyfin, when Jellyfin isn’t actually providing anything Plex doesn’t still do for free.
You’ve misunderstood Plex’s announcement.
This is not correct. The change to Plex affects all remote streaming, regardless of whether you’re using the relay or direct streaming.
To be clear,
It still works with internal streaming, and if you configure the networking correctly it won’t know the difference. If you setup Tailscale, you can still do Plex remote streaming for free. You just can’t rely on plex.tv to relay your connection automatically.
Ok so before when you said:
What you actually meant was the work required to expose Jellyfin to the world is entirely different from the work you have to do to now expose Plex without paying. And the simplest solution of forwarding a port will no longer work for free, and anyone you share it with now also has to connect their device to Tailscale (if they even can on their device) even if they’re non-technical? And to be frank I’m not even sure doing all that will even work.
Where as with Jellyfin you can remotely stream without having to do ANY of that, for free…
Are you starting to understand why this might make people just switch to Jellyfin?
You can still just forward a port. Just expose the web ui port to the world, the same way Jellyfin does. That’s not recommended though, it has potential security issues. The recommended way would require a reverse proxy or tailscale. Then you’re right back to the same issues no matter the service you’re using.
You can if you pay. If you aren’t paying, you can not remotely stream this way using Plex. I’m not sure what about this is so difficult for you to understand.
You can if you don’t pay. The only thing they’re blocking is traffic through their servers. If you expose the port to your local instance, they have no control over it. I’m not sure what about this is so difficult for you to understand.
No, you can’t.
Once again, this is wrong. They do have control over it, and they are blocking traffic to your server even if you don’t go through theirs, unless you pay.
You cannot do what you’re suggesting if you don’t pay, on Plex. You can only do it for free with Jellyfin.
Yes you can. If you know what you’re doing with networking, the Plex instance will have no idea whether you’re remote or not. You can make every remote user look like they’re internal to your network. Plex would have no way to stop that. They could incorporate more intense DRM, requiring things like same GPS location, but even that could likely be spoofed.
You’re saying two completely different incompatible things. In your last comment you said “You can just forward a port”. You can’t “just forward a port” or do any of the other things you suggested with Plex for free. Period.
The second thing you’re saying is using a VPN to trick Plex into thinking you’re local. You may be able to do that, but that’s entirely different from “just forwarding a port” or using a reverse proxy, or any of the other normal, easy ways to remotely stream over Jellyfin. It’s not only more work than sharing Jellyfin, but it’s also very limiting based on your users devices. For example, many people are streaming Plex, Emby, Jellyfin on RokuTVs. RokuTVs have an app for Jellyfin that can just connect directly, but it does not have a Tailscale client. So if you want to trick Plex into thinking they’re local, you’d now have to pay money to get them a new device, and then you’d have the configure the VPN on it, and troubleshoot that when it breaks. A lot of people are going to just opt for Jellyfin which is much easier and doesn’t require buying new hardware.
The point that you are entirely failing to grasp is that unless you want to pay up for Plex streaming, it is much simpler, with less limitations, to just switch to Jellyfin for remote streaming.
You don’t need a VPN to trick Plex. Exposing the web ui to the world will likely show traffic coming from your router, which is internal. If it doesn’t, you may have to mess with some settings, but a VPN isn’t required to access the web ui.
Jellyfin is also very limiting based on your users devices. There is no Jellyfin app for Samsung TVs (without sideloading) or Playstation. Users there are shit out of luck.
The thing you’re failing to grasp is that Jellyfin is not nearly as simple as you’re making it out to be. They both have trade offs. One or which being every single Jellyfin app is complete trash.
If Jellyfin works better for you fucking go for it, but claiming this is the death of Plex, Jellyfin is way easier, is laughable.
This is not the case at all. That’s not how routing, nor port forwarding works. This will work on Jellyfin, but if you do it on Plex without paying, this will be blocked. You are still fundamentally misunderstanding how literally all of this works. And it’s getting to the point where I’m wondering if you’re actually this confidently ignorant, or if you’re just a troll, given the only comments on your account are pro-Plex and anti-Jellyfin.
Users there would be shit out of luck with Plex too, because neither of those platforms support Tailscale or any other VPN. More clients support Jellyfin than VPN apps, so if you’re not paying for Plex, then Jellyfin is less limiting than Plex.
What you’ve failed to grasp is that Jellyfin is exactly as simple as I’ve made it out to be. You can forward a port, give your client an address to pop in, and remote streaming will work flawlessly, for free. You cannot do that same process with Plex for free. Only if you pay for it.
As a server owner, you should be keeping an eye on tos and updates/changes to the software you use. You probably got an email but ignored it?
I got the same email.
I haven’t had plex installed for over 7 years, and I’ve NEVER used the shared libraries feature.
They’ve apparently noticed activity that’s never occurred.
Others in another thread are trying to convince me that the email is wrong, that my Plex Pass should mean everyone gets to stream for free. The email, however, kinda indicates otherwise. So who knows what’s going on over there, but either way - I’m done
Per the email text and Plex’s policy, they are correct - only Server Owners need the Pass.
That said I moved to Jellyfin months ago when they announced it.
Except I have a pass and my users are still getting the email. So either they’re incompetent sending out the emails, they are trying to trick my users into thinking they need to pay, or they’re lying and they will need to pay eventually… All of those reasons tell me it’s time to stop using Plex.
Yeah, they shot an email to everyone with an account, it’s pretty normal. It explicitly says:
Which is pretty clear language
The email you posted specifically says if you have PLEX Pass users can stream for free.
Only the server owner needs a plex pass, it says that in the email.
I don’t quite understand your confusion, they sent the email to everyone with an account. The email indicates clearly that if a server owner has a Plex pass, the users do not need it. The email is not “wrong”.
My users are upset, and that makes me upset. I’ve been fielding calls and messages from them for the last hour where they’re worried they have to start paying. So yeah, I don’t really care that it doesn’t apply to them, Plex sent an email that to the average user looks like they need to start paying. That was a shitty move on their part.
They could have done a banner on each client if they connected to a non-plex pass server and said “Hey starting in a few days, this won’t be free”, and left plex pass ones alone. They could have narrowed the emails down to “If you’ve connected to a free server in the last year”. It appears that they just blasted it out. I know for a fact that one of the accounts has never connected to a free server.e
And all of that is ignoring that it was free for a decade already, so why is it suddenly a “premium” service. So yeah, they bungled the entire situation, and I’m out.
Your users shouldn’t be upset because nothing has changed for them. It shouldn’t be the end of the world to tell your users that nothing has changed. None of my users have reached out.
I’ll agree that they should have only sent it to affected users.
Your users might be more upset that you’re pulling the plug and will require technically involved setups such as tailscale for Jellyfin. Gotta pick your battles.
Your users are upset? Either they’re damn entitled, or you’re charging them like one of those “streaming” services.
Who gets upset with an email when it clearly states what’s going on regarding the Plex Pass.
Funny to hear all the complaining from people about Plex. I’ve been using it for years and bought a lifetime pass years ago because I wanted to support them. If you’ve been using it for so long and loved it, I question why you never bought a pass?
You shouldn’t blame Plex for your or your users illiteracy
I thought illiterate user friendliness was plex’s number 1 feature? That’s what half the comments in here are saying.
Instead of taking a minute to just read the entire email, they decided to go immediately to the internet to complain. Then when people explained to them multiple times what is going on they decided to argue with them instead of ya know reading the email. The internet is alive and well.
The email says that if the admin/owner of the plex server you stream from has a Plex Pass then nothing changes.
androidauthority.com/plex-remote-watch-pass-bug-3…
Enshittification engaged. /j
This will affect any server that does not already have a Plex Pass/ Lifetime Plex Pass. If your server does not have one, your remote users will have to pay. The service Plex provides is still worth it though, it largely just works on dozens of platforms and that shit isn’t free to make.
Sharing a Jellyfin server with others remotely is still a lot more complicated than it needs to be to compete (no, it’s not as simple as opening a port, and if you think so then you’re either lucky or you aren’t sharing with lots of folks). I run both and I would never try to share Jellyfin with non-technical people. Honestly, I wish Jellyfin would start offering an optional paid relay service to fund their development. They could use the revenue to improve their app ecosystem and still produce mostly open-source software. Homeassistant does this with Nabu Casa and it’s great!
That being said, the new Plex Android app kinda sucks ass. If there was anything that would make me switch it wouldn’t be having to pay for software, or services it’d be a garbage experience on my most common platform.
Jellyfin takes more work, but can be a “simple” end user experience if you set it up for them.
Use a reverse proxy to get a letsenceypt cert for your jellyfin server. SWAG, Caddy, lots of options. Then setup a free tailscale account and add your jellyfin server to your tailnet. Install the jellyfin and tailscale apps on the user android tv/apple tv/computer, then enroll the devices in your tailnet.
They will have always on, ssl secured, vpn protected media sharing for free.
Yeah, I’m not interested in setting all that up and maintaining it for every user I share with. For myself, this is exactly how I access Jellyfin remotely, but I am not explaining to my remote family members how to set up a VPN on their TV.
1000%, and those who’ve drank the Jellyfin Flavor Aid just don’t understand.
I’m not a diehard fan of plex or anything, but I would never be able to get my mother in law to properly set up any type of VPN. None of my users are technically inclined. Until Jellyfin has a different solution, I will unfortunately be sticking with Plex.
The lift here is that you setup the end users client. If they aren’t local, buy one and ship it. Since it will be on your always on tailscale vpn, you can then interact with it remotely if needed.
Android tvs can be had for $35, Raspi 5 are around the same range, with apple tvs about $130. Have people pony up the cash and mail one of what they want out to them.
That may be too much to ask if you share to a lot of casual friends/family, but its been a successful answer for me.
If it was just my parents and I using it, that’d be fine, but it’s not. In my experience, nothing is quite as simple as “always on”, and if something breaks, even unrelated to tailscale or anything I set up, I’ll be to blame even when it wasn’t my fault.
It just wouldn’t work for my users, unfortunately, and I don’t want to be responsible for endpoints on networks that someone else owns. I’m not denying that it’s possible or that it works for some people.
That’s the real benefit of a solution like Plex - it makes it so I only have to manage my own network, and if I want to invite someone new, I just ask them for the email attached to their Plex account, and I’m done.
I also am curious where you’re finding rpi’s for $35.
I can’t remember what I did, but I had it so the user just had to know the ip address and the port. Enter that into the jellyfin app on a tv and they could hook up pretty easily. That was with a reverse proxy I believe but I’m not really great with the setup, just followed a tutorial.
Huh? I share my Jellyfin instance to people that are as tech savvy as a Neanderthal and besides some rare hickups everything works acceptably.
All I can say is that is not at all like my experience with Jellyfin. Every person I’ve ever shared it with wanted to go back to Plex. Most complaints had to do with the jankiness of the various apps. Lots of issues with the UIs acting funny, a few connection drops, and some settings not getting respected. I do also recall an episode of Severance that would not stream in the correct color space in Jellyfin but worked perfectly in Plex.
Well, my users never used Plex before (me neither), maybe that helped to keep the expectations in check.
Trying to monetize the piracy of your users. That’s a bold business strategy.
Look, I know a lot of people could be using the sharing feature to share material that is in the public domain or that they own the copyright to, but let’s be honest: most of that sharing would be considered an “unlicensed public performance” by the MAFIAA.
They sold to private equity a couple years back. The enshittification started that day.
They took VC funding (which is also bad), selling to private equity is very different (they strip mine businesses).
that’s generally what gets sites and services in ‘trouble’
Some time ago, never mind how long precisely, Plex were trying to legitimise themselves, by adding streaming from official sources, etc.
I would be curious if this is meant to be a deterrent, or just to look like one by making piracy expensive, so they can eat their cake and have it too.
It’s not that expensive. You can buy a lifetime pass for like $70 when it goes on sale. That’s like half the price I pay to Comcast each month for my internet.
Not anymore. They changed the prices and discounts by quite a bit.
Dotcom’s been doing it for decades and he’s rich as hell. Even after losing 95% of his money since 2012 he’s still got $10mil.
This email is talking to you as a user of other libraries not yours, not as a server owner.
“Alternatively, server owners can purchase a Plex Pass, which will grant you continued remote streaming of libraries that you have been given access to.”
As communicated previously, Plex pass users also get the benefit of the “Remote watch pass.”
No, I’m a plex pass holder, and the (now two) users who have received it only use my server. They still got the email.
Okay? But they’re not holders… and their access to servers is changing and hinges on YOUR status. It’s not unreasonable to notify them about this change.
It doesn’t matter that they got the email, everyone did. You need to read it further and see that if a server owner has a Plex pass, the users do not need to pay.
And as a Plex pass user nothing will change for you or your users.
the virgin Plex vs the chad Jellyfin
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Seriously for the 1000th time I have a plex pass.
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How mamy months of server costs do you think those lifetime passes cover? If everyone just paid once for a lifetime then plex as a service could no longer function.
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It will be if you depend on plex for streaming
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Point is you are setting yourself up for disappointment in the future.
Like you see this constant cycle of software becoming wosre as the companies want more and more money and your response is just “yeah but it wont affect my use case so i dont care”
Yeah im sure when it comes to plex, the app based off making pirates into paying customers, it wont fall victim to the same thing.
Gee leopards seem to be getting awful fat lately.
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I have both running, but Jellyfin simply cannot fulfill the role Plex currently serves. If there comes a point where it can and Plex actually deteriorates to a point where I don’t want to use it anymore I will switch. I just don’t get why the Jellyfin fanbase has to be so goddamn emotional about this
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It’s your problem now. This is the kind of thing that happens.
yes, but actually no.
Plex pass members can continue sharing.
this isn’t directed just at you, but the whole jellyfin community in general.
not sure why, but the jellyfin community seems to be becoming toxic as fuck. I’m getting hard “best friend” vibes from it. if the Plex community leaves for jellyfin it’ll be on their own terms. just be welcoming to us and your numbers will grow.
if y’all keep acting like a jealous “guy” friend we’re likely to go somewhere else.
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Uh, ok
It’s not though, because as someone that has a Plex Pass nothing changes for them or anyone who streams from their server.
Server costs? Plex’s serverside only handles auth and verification. Once the client connects to the server, any media is sent peer to peer. There’s no stage where the video goes “to plex” or “from plex”. Saying plex needs to charge a sub fee to make up for bandwidth is like saying qbittorrent should do the same.
Unless you’re talking about the content Plex serves, the ones you have to walk every user of your Plex server through deleting from their apps’ homepage.
Im talking about all of plexs infrastructure, the hosting for the app, providing tunnels for users without port fwding, maintaining user accounts and usage data, emails… A lot goes into running a service like plex besides just “auth and verification”…and thats not even including the staff required to maintain it and developers to keep all the apps updated.
I didn’t know why anyone who has Plex would pay for a pass. The whole time I used it, I never felt any need for additional features.
if you like software you should support it.
Absolutely true for FOSS. For freeware? My opinion is that it’s money wasted because, unlike FOSS:
Here’s Jellyfin’s ‘How to Contribute’ page, incidentally, for no particular reason. Let Plex eat up their $90+ million in venture capital instead of taking money from the little guy and then fall off a cliff into an abyss of enshittification.
same can be said of FOSS. back channel deals, betrayals, hostile takeovers. all of these things can(and have) happen to FOSS projects. all under a false pretense of “openness”.
previous point. it’s stupid easy to change licenses and lock out contributors. it’s happened several times. although you can technically argue anything before the license change could be forked, the event usually puts a bad taste in the public mouth and contributions dry up anyway. nobody wants to support a project with uncertainty.
I’ve known plenty of FOSS founders that were huge pieces of shit. racist bigoted sexist shitheads. At least with proprietary vendors I can trust they will do anything to continue being fluid/viable.
just want to add, not all FOSS founders are pieces of shit. same can be said for vendors as well.
why isn’t it? if it’s a generally better solution don’t you owe it to yourself and your “customers” to use the best solution? yes, use FOSS. yes, work with FOSS devs. What do you do when the project refuses to incorporate features you would like, even if you’re willing to pay for them? then there’s no difference between proprietary and FOSS, right?
enshitification doesn’t just affect vendors, it happens to FOSS projects all-the-time. I’ve personally experienced it when a bookkeeping app removed support for USD. when asked the founder refused to address it and simply stated that they couldn’t continue supporting a currency that fuels so much corruption in the world. now tell me, how does that garner my respect or support?
see point above. you hold FOSS too highly as if the people who create these projects are impervious to corruption or greed. these are regular people like you or me. they have goals and dreams they want to achieve too, and sometimes the projects they started become vessels for them to achieve those dreams.
You’re just repeating yourself now.
my point is, there cannot be light without darkness. FOSS and proprietary software are two halves of the same coin. to be so blinded by principles or to fool yourself with some moral superiority complex is only going to make things worse.
use what you need to solve the problems you have. sometimes that includes using vendor locked solutions. it’s not wrong, it’s just life.
“you could technically argue”??? That’s literally, unambiguously the law. That’s how the licensing works. This isn’t a technicality; it’s a fundamental, widely understood feature of the license. That’s how the license was designed to work. On top of that, licenses like the GPL have extremely stringent requirements for changing the license. (Here, Jellyfin uses GPLv2, so we’ll go with that.)
Everyone with work in the current codebase has copyright over that work under the GPLv2. Nobody relinquishes that to some centralized entity. Thus, you have two options for every single individual person whose contributions are still extant in your project (no matter how large): 1) get their consent not just to relicense but to the specific license you want, or 2) remove their work from the project either because you can no longer contact them or because they’ve said no.
The fact that you called this process “stupid easy” for anything but the smallest, most insular project is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard today, and I’m not even wasting my time reading the rest of your comment given how shockingly willing you are to not just speak about things you have zero understanding of but to somehow arrive at the most false statement possible about them.
cool. go be angry somewhere else.
Besides supporting them, the offline download feature on mobile is amazing for travel.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to watch some downloaded Netflix content, only to realize it had “expired” and no longer worked.
The skip intro/credits feature is nifty, and sonic analysis if you run a music library is worth the purchase price alone.
I don’t get why you’re being downvoted for spitting facts.
<img alt="1000001490" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/262db3b0-1000-4859-86b5-d68156a3b845.jpeg">
They doubled the price lol. And why pay $80 for something that they have the right to gut at any time?
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Because it’s called “lifetime”? As in the entire point of the product is that it will not ever be taken away with the exception that you close your account? “Why pay for anything if there’s nothing enforcing the core premise of the product?” The gardener advertised a “whole-yard mow” for $100, but I’ve already gotten the area around the driveway, and honestly would it really be that bad if they just stopped right now?
You can talk about odds all you want (although I think around $100 million in VC funding puts those odds squarely in favor of “lifetime” users getting the floor sawed out from under them Looney Tunes-style), but the fact it’s even possible is what’s deeply disturbing, because it’s deliberate. Lifetime’s meaning should be unambiguously stipulated in a contract, not inferred. Know why? Because companies out there advertising “lifetime” subscriptions right now have little disclaimers like “approximately five years or so but honestly we don’t really know or care lol this license disappears whenever we want it to”).
People are assuming it’s for the lifetime of your Plex account, but my response is: based on fucking what? Plex on their website doesn’t seem to specify this anywhere, even in their terms of service. People asking on their official forums receive responses saying things like “probably for the lifetime of your Plex account” with no sources to anything. I’m not trying to sealion here; I literally can’t find a single instance of Plex stating officially in writing or verbally what “lifetime” actually means to the end user. If Plex isn’t going to rugpull, why can’t they add a couple sentences to their TOS saying something like: “The purchase of a lifetime pass grants the user a non-transferable license for [blah blah] starting from the date of purchase. This license will not be revoked unless 1) the associated account is terminated by the account holder or 2) the aasociated account is terminated by Plex for one or more of the reasons outlined in section [blah]”?
They could, they should, they don’t, and you have no good explanation, otherwise you would’ve offered one by now. They have enough money to afford a legal team that wouldn’t overlook that. The answer is that they want to reserve the right to destroy the “lifetime” pass whenever they want. If you can find official documentation from Plex Inc. saying that if I buy a lifetime pass today for $250, the license will only end with the termination of the account, then I’ll have no idea why they make this too hard to find, but I’ll take back everything else I said in this comment and stop using “lifetime” in scare quotes. I genuinely want to know if they say anything about this anywhere.
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Until they revoke it
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It is a matter of when
Nothing lasts forever
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It was only a matter of time. Plex is a Series C startup, employs 100+ people, and has taken substantial VC investment. Those investors are expecting exponential returns, and a “one-time lifetime payment” will never sustain that sort of growth
Exhibit #46,853 for why freeware will inevitably fall out from under your feet and why you should exclusively use FOSS wherever possible.
EDIT: Here’s Jellyfin’s ‘How to Contribute’ page.
Preach, brother! Preach!
Lol “Your Friends at Plex”
get fucked, assholes, Jellyfin is better anyway
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Good thing jellyfin is open source then.
That’s what Emby thought.
I fucking hate corporate speak.
Doesn’t jellyfin just not do this at all? Like if you want to stream remotely you need to figure out a vpn solution to do it?
That’s correct
That is not correct. A VPN would be one method but you can also just expose the service to the internet in a number of ways and accomplish the same thing Plex provides.
That’s correct
You probably shouldn’t just expose jellyfin to the internet quite yet though. There are some ongoing efforts to fix unauthenticated endpoint problems.
‘Ongoing efforts’ is a funny way to phrase ‘refuse to fix’
To be fair, there has been very slow progress toward securing some endpoints. But yeah, I was probably being too charitable; the project places way too much emphasis on “backward compatibility” and not enough on security.
Not to be “achtuallying” bit VPN is not a way to remote stream, it’s a way to bring remote clients in the local network.
Likewise exposing services on the internet…not really going to happen esepcially for people - like me - that run plex/jellyfin on their NAS.
I don’t have a horse in this race, i don’t use remote streaming, I only ever streamed from my nas to my 2 TVs, and I am experimenting with jellyfin. But for those who do need remote streaming, jellyfin is going to be problematic.
No. You have to expose your server to the internet in some way bit you don’t have to set up some sort of VPN. There are plenty of people who will tell you how awful of an idea it is but if you make smart choices it’s not a big deal.
Well, as an application it has a huge attack surface, it’s also able to download stuff from internet (e.g., subs) and many people run it on NAS. I run jellyfin in docker, I didn’t do a security assessment yet, but for sure it needs volume mounts, not sure about what capabilities it runs with (surely NET_BIND, and I think DAC_READ_SEARCH to avoid file ownership issues with downloaders?). Either way, I would never expose a service like that on the internet.
This is also true about Plex which must also be exposed to the internet
No that’s the thing. Plex can also use their infra as a tunneling system. You can have remote streaming without exposing Plex publicly and without VPN. It is slow though.
Plex doesn’t even work properly unless you set it up with network mode host, otherwise it always considers your service to be remote because they’re not on the same network as anything you try to watch it from. Jellyfin requires lots less access, and you’re so worried about it you can add a Tailscale mod to the container and isolate it completely so it’s only accessible via Tailscale similarly to what you think Plex is doing (which doesn’t harden security as much as you think)
I presume you mean running Plex in host namespace. I don’t do that as I run the synology package, but I can totally see the issue you mean.
Running in host namespace is bad, not terrible, especially because my NAS in on a separate VLAN, so besides being able to reach other NAS local services, cannot do do much. Much much much less risk than exposing the service on the internet (which I also don’t).
Also, this all is not a problem for me, I don’t use remote streaming at all, hence why I am also experimenting with jellyfin. If I were though, I would have only 2 options: expose jellyfin on the internet, maybe with some hacky IP whitelist, or expect my mom to understand VPNs for her TV.
Would be nice to elaborate this. I think it reduces a lot of risk, compared to exposing the service publicly. Any vulnerability of the software can’t be directly exploited because the Plex server is not reachable, you need an intermediate point of compromise. Maybe Plex infra can be exploited, but that’s a massively different type of attack compared to the opportunities and no-cost “run shodab to check exposed Plex instances” attack.
Very easy:
Or
Also Wireguard, which is what Tailscale uses.
Yeah, they both do. That’s a lot more manual though.
“Very easy” assuming you aren’t trying to share with non-technical people or your elderly parents.
I’ve walked them through using tailscale. You install it once and forget it.
How do I install it on my mom’s Chromecast or my sister’s LG TV?
Dude how the hell am I supposed to walk my mom through setting up tailscale on her Roku?
And what if you have multiple friends all sharing each others libraries?
This is not a feasible solution let alone a “very easy” one.
I was thinking a computer! Multiple people can connect to your tailscale and jellyfin at once. That’s not so much an issue. Other than that, there’s not so much more than installing the app and signing in with email or Google then sending them a link. I use a shared email and pass to speed up the process.
You completely ignored his question, Tailscale is not a valid solution for your mom’s Roku
Completely unreasonable to need to walk people through this. It’s OK to say jellyfin can’t do remote access.
Well, I never said it did out of the box. I was giving people the example of how I did it, in case they wanted an easy option for PCs. No offence meant, my friend.
You’re replying to a message that literally says that, so it makes you sound like you think Tailscale is somewhat integrated into Jellyfin, because the message originally said exactly that you needed a third party app to solve this issue in Jellyfin
Mate chill, I already implied I misunderstood and apologised. I’m human and allowed to make mistakes.
You can stream remotely via jellyfin if you expose your server to the internet. VPN is safer but not the only option.
Yeah, no way. Jellyfins Backend is like an open barn door. And with the kind of content most of us here offer through either Jellyfin or Plex, I wouldn’t want to open up like that.
Anecdotal but I’ve run Jellyfin publicly without any issues for around 5 years. It even has its own domain name.
Isn’t there an assumption it would be behind a reverse proxy… At least I hope that’s the assumption.
Doesn’t do shit when large parts of the Backend are not authenticated
What kids of things?
I’ve never worried that much because it’s not critical data and it’s containerised in Docker, but I am curious about specifics because large numbers of people expose it to the internet (through reverse proxies).
github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
Cheers for that. Many of these issues allow an authenticated user to do admin actions if they do the right things, so it seems you should never allow a user that you don’t fully trust to have an account.
But outside of this, there isn’t anything in there that on its own worries me given the nature of the platform (that is, that if it all burnt down I could retrieve all data from other sources). I’m no expert but a cursory look shows a bunch of potential issues that may be layered with other issues but no clear attack path except with prior knowledge.
These should obviously be fixed but there’s nothing that makes me want to rip my server off the open internet in a hurry.
Seems trivial to me for someone to guess file paths and use those to confirm if specific content is on a jellyfin server. With how prevalent things like docker and sonarr are, filepaths are pretty standardized these days. I wouldn’t trust JF without a VPN
I guess my position is that I am not worried about someone confirming content exists on my server. But I don’t live in the US, if I did I might be more worried. I also geofence to my country to limit exposure.
I used a reverse proxy just fine.
You’re 100% correct. I always find it funny how hardcore some people are with jellyfin vs Plex. I’ll probably end up getting downvotes on this but imo Plex is way simpler to setup and keep running, and as a lifetime pass owner, I’ve very rarely felt like my experience has been deteriorated by any of the changes that the jellyfin crowd freaks out about. Plus plexamp is honestly such a great music player. I’ll happily keep running Plex for the foreseeable future.
Ditto to all of this, except I don’t know anything about plexamp
If you have music on your server, I’d strongly recommend checking it out. I believe it was started as a side project by the Plex devs and it’s a way better music player than the one built into the Plex apps.
I appreciate this recommendation. I’ve been trying it out for like 5 minutes and I’m very impressed! This could be life-changing and lead to me axing Spotify. Thank you kind stranger!
Plex is more polished, but I love Jellyfin’s subtitle search; it blows Plex’s socks away.
Also, Jellyfin doesn’t nag me every effing time to enable DRM in Firefox for some unfathomable reason.
But Plex definitely wins on performance, IMO.
Set up Bazarr.
Not necessarily a VPN but you’re 100% on your own for security. When i used to run Emby, I had a white-list IPs but this doesn’t work great since most ISPs rotate IPs over time and if you’re on wireless it could change all the time.
Yeah a VPN isn’t “necessary”, but it’s the most straightforward way. Unfortunately it’s not really at all feasible for many people who currently play from other peoples plex libraries.
Incorrect.
I use a non-rooted docker, reverse proxy, and cloudfare domain. I know Jellyfin has some API security issues but I’m still unconvinced that any of them can be used to escalate to any level that would threaten my server (or even my instance of Jellyfin).
They are not about escalating permissions but about unauthorized access to your library. As some living in a country with professional piracy lawyers, that go out and try to catch people in the act, I won’t open my server to that kind of risk.
I like Jellyfin being open source and all, but the maintainers made it clear that they prefer backwards compatibility with clients over fixing these issues.
Oh yeah I don’t buy the backwards compat stuff because you can version an API to preserve backwards compatibility to sensible ends.
I’d be very interested to see cases of streaming or copyright lawyers essentially hacking users to litigate them. The only stuff Ive ever seen on snooping by corps on pirates it’s usually collecting PII from public sources like torrent clients without VPN coverage.
The alternative is that dey just don’t care or are not capable of fixing it, despite numerous suggestions in the github thread. Both don’t bode well for the project, especially seeing as that ticket has veen open and discussed for almost 5 years
I wish this were true, but as a multi-year Plex-to-Jellyfin migrant, I have to point out that Plex was the better software.
I still choose to run Jellyfin for other reasons (don’t like the commercial path Plex is taking, among others), but I still do miss the better reliability and larger feature set in the Plex software stack.
YES JELLYFIN! Thank you Plex for enshitifying!
And how are you doing remote streaming from friends with Jellyfin?
I’m not personally. I’d run a VPN for others to connect in. Apparently a lot of folks just expose it to the internet and then enforce logins.
Using a VPN would be local streaming with Plex, too. The new rules wouldn’t apply then.
I’m no expert but I was never able to connect to Plex if the host was running a VPN which caused me a ton of issues until I figured out split tunneling.
.
Gross
I’m doing it with a jellyfin client to my friend’s jellyfin server.
The same way you’d set up remote plex.
Plex will have some cost associated with remote streaming, so I don’t see any issue with them charging for that.
If people don’t want to pay then they should just set it up themselves, like they would have to do with jellyfin anyways.
@ifItWasUpToMe @ripcord I'm not sure if I'm understanding. What costs are there to plex remote streaming? The streaming aspect is coming directly from my plex server public IP. I know there is some option that proxies the traffic through their servers but this isn't enabled by default.
Mainly STUN and TURN servers to allow NAT traversal without having to configure port forwarding and leave your server exposed to the internet.
It’ll use those servers to setup a peer-to-peer connection which at that point you are streaming directly to clients.
If you want to setup a VPN for your users, or open/forward public ports to your server then you do not need to pay.
.
Do you have a source for this claim that the new pricing scheme only applies to the Plex Relays? As far as I can tell it applies to anything they consider “remote access”, regardless of whether it goes through their servers or not.
I don’t have a source but if you setup a VPN to your home there’s no way plex could know that you aren’t actually home. So as long as local streaming works, then streaming over VPN would work as well.
Similar thing with port forwarding on your router, except it’s much worse for security.
Be that as it may, the Plex official guide for setting up “remote streaming” walks you through port forwarding. That implies that when they say remote streaming, they mean port forwarding by default. I then had to go digging to find mention of the Relay service which seems to be a fallback. (Apparently it isn’t even supported by all clients)
Surely if they meant they’d start charging for Relays they’d mention that explicitly, and not use the term “remote streaming”?
The Plex Relay is enabled by default and is used anytime people can’t directly connect to your server like if your port forwarding is screwed up.
No it’s not the same as with Plex because they have their own security solution and authentication servers. With Jellyfin that’s completely on you to figure out and doing it wrong (exposing open ports to the open internet) can have terrible consequences.
I do agree that it’s not a huge deal to buy a lifetime Plex Pass as a server owner though. I’ve had my issues with Plex over the last decade but it’s a hell of a lot more polished than the competition and it’s extremely easy to share with all my friends and family who don’t know shit about computers or other tech related subjects.
My whole family streams from my brother’s server hundreds of km away…
My mom streams mine across an ocean.
I was forcing VPN for a couple years but I’ve just recently started allowlisting client IPs instead. Not as good but definitely easier.
Tailscale.
you can add 3 friends on the free tier of tailscale. might work for some people but others might have to pay for tailscale.
does anyone know is it possible to get around issue by running headscale yourself? can you add as many friends as you like then? maybe something like netbird might be a better option since its fully self hosted?
Its a lot simpler then that. Dont add them to your tailscale account. Each user should have there own tailscale account. Then you just send them a link to share your machine (your server) with their tailnet. Then all of there devices they have added on their account can access your server.
Bonus: send them referrals and you get your device limit increased when they make a account. Which all they have to do is sign in with their google or apple account.
Give them the address of the server?
Reverse proxy + fail2ban
Here’s Jellyfin’s ‘How to Contribute’ page.
Quickly now, make jellyfin better!
But it’s included in a plex pass. I know a lot of people were saying, a while back, they were happy to purchase a lifetime pass, so as to support the software. I didn’t actually realise you could share without the plex pass. I thought that was always a thing.
It was always a thing except with Android and iOS which had a separate one-time fee attached to enable remote playback.
As long as the library owner has a Plex Pass nothing changes for ANYONE who is streaming from that Plex Server.
Jellyfin ia great! But syncplay breaks if you snease.
Remember to take your Claritin before starting a sync play session
Weird. Never had an issue with syncplay… What’s your setup look like?
Jellyfin on arch behind nginx. I connect with VPN, through NAT or on the local network. What else to say? I have noticed that syncplay is significantly more reliable through nginx. Not sure why that is. But it is still fragile. I’ve had this issue unresolved so long that I am just living with it. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, then i don’t use it.
Clients: firefox, jellyfin client, chrome, android client. The issue is pretty consistent across them all.
I mostly keep 8bit AVC/ACC, 2-channel mp4s. Some h265 as well. I have not noticed a pattern. Syncplay seem agnostic to encodings and filetypes.
I get the feeling that i am far from alone on this issue. There are threads out there.
Syncplay requires adequate hardware and network. Especially if you’re transcoding at the same time. You’re transcoding for 2 people at once, and depending on your setup sending to each person at different rates. It’s hard to coordinate that.
That is why i keep most media as AVC/ACC mp4s. So to avoid transcoding. All video is 1080p or less. On a 1 Gb line.
So as long as the server owner has Plex pass everyone’s still able to stream from the server?
Exactly. I have a lifetime pass and everything works for me and the people I share my library with.
Well it doesn’t take effect till later in the month so it working now isn’t really pertinent.
If you as the server owner have a Plex Pass, everyone can stream from your server without paying. This removes the payment required for Android and iOS too.
For now. Their most recent round of venture capital was 40 million and that was like the 7th one. Those investors are gonna be demanding returns if they haven’t already and they will eventually push to monetize as much as possible
If plex works for you now then sure, don’t fix what isn’t broken. Jellyfin isn’t going anywhere and is just getting better, if anything holding off on migrating just increases the chances that migrating will be smoother. But guarantee you that in a certain amount of time plex will fuck over their customers
I’ve been running Jellyfin just for the metadata on the same library as Plex.
If Plex goes full evil at some point, I can just shut it down and switch to Jellyfin.
But for the time being the UX on Plex is so much better I can’t be arsed to switch. Especially since I got my Lifetime Pass like a decade ago for 79€ or something. I’ve got more than my moneys worth for it.
I run them side by side too. I also have plexpass from ahes ago.
But I actually like the jellyfin ui better. It’s simple, to the point and most importantly fast. Sit. Down click jellyfin click show, go.
Plex just feels laggy and sloppy in comparison.
I have Plex running alongside Jellyfin as well but opening up Jellyfin to external users is just not an option, since most of them won’t or can’t install a VPN on the devices they use to watch Plex on. And I sure as hell won’t open Jellyfin to the internet
Yeah, don’t care, scummy thing.
.
That was announced 2 months ago?
And? Does that make it alright? 😆
No but the fact that software is reasonable to charge for does.
Don’t you understand it’s a feature that doesn’t require any of there servers. It uses your internet. They could charge for other things but this one, no.
But they develop the software and need to fund that regardless of technical reasons.
Ok, they can still do that for better features and not just for something that can be done for free. They also went public and made a lot ofoney which now the investors also want. Not my problem.
There are other options if you want something entirely free. I’m actually surprised that feature was ever free.
Because you port forward and share your device to the internet and not use their server. It’s obvious why it was free lol. Why are you suprised? And there were thousands of alternatives to plex that needed pay so it was obvious why they would make a free feature a free feature.
Thousands…? Lol probably 3
But the remote streaming uses their servers. If you wanted to direct stream without involving your servers you already needed a vpn
Doesn’t it use their servers to set up the connection between the client and the host? And I seem to recall that if you have a double NAT situation (or something like that) then it will actually stream the content over their servers as well.
I never stated if it does or does not. But seems like a lot of people are surprised about this news.
Why are you even using emojis?
I don’t have an email, and I didn’t get any notifications in my plex dashboard…
jellyfin should make a plugin that changes their name to remote watch pass
It changes absolutely nothing, but it charges you $5 a month
I’ll be honest, I thought Plex Pass was always a requirement for this 😅
Only if you were remote streaming on Android or iOS or you’d need to pay a one-time fee to bypass the restriction.
Same. People want literally unlimited shit for free
If they can’t do anything better than jellyfin which is fully free open source I don’t see why they should expect money. If Photoshop were paid for gimp they certainly wouldn’t deserve anything.
I think the bad feelings are by virtue of taking away something that WAS free. This is just basic human psych people are loss averse.
I tried jellyfin and thought Plex was better in all aspects personally. Yeah, it sucks to lose free features, then again no one is owed fully free software from a commercial company
Likewise nobody is owed good feelings by users
Plex is much better than jellyfin, especially for the exact thing this whole outrage is about - remote streaming.
I understand charging for the software but a subscription service for a self hosted program is fucking wild.
Why does everything has to be a subscription these days?
Because money
It’s not really. Unless you can only expect to pay once for software and never expect any updates. Software development is expensive. And even self hosted stuff requires constant attention.
In some instances, well most, its egregious. But the concept itself isn’t flawed.
Back in the day that would be called a ‘new version’ and I could buy it or not depending if the new features are worth it to me or not.
Yeah, I’m not so young. Like, I agree with you on one level,.it gives the company less control to rug pull on you and slide in a whole heap of enshittification. It’s the shitty behaviour of some companies that makes subscriptions painful.
You can also choose a one time fee with plex
You can just buy a lifetime Plex pass. Its a one off payment
Friendship ended with plex, jellyfin is new best friend.
Welcome to jellyfin!
Here’s Jellyfin’s ‘How to Contribute’ page.
I have a lifetime Plex Pass, but I stopped using Plex a couple months ago after finally diving into Jellyfin. Even ignoring everything else, just the performance difference made the change worth it. Everything from UI responsiveness on smart TV apps to library scans on the server.
Honestly same, except I’ve been using jelly fin for about a year. Even with me having a Plex pass, I’m not using it.
I’m in the same situation. I wouldn’t call Jellyfin better, but I far prefer using something that’s not becoming progressively hostile to my use-case of self-hosted media.
Yep, that’s why I threw in “even if you ignore everything else.” The ads and the direction of the app/service/company made me glad to learn that Jellyfin Software felt so much more snappy.
The initial setup isn’t as snappy, assuming you want to use secured connections for remote users, but once it’s set up it is just as simple for friends and family to get connected. And being open source, there are some nice apps tailored to certain kinds of media like music and audio books.
It seems like multiple things are being conflated here and I’m not sure what the reality is because I’ve never used Plex.
Some people claim this has something to do with Plex needing to pay for NAT traversal infrastructure. Okay, that seems sort of silly but at least there’s the excuse that their servers are involved in the streaming somehow.
But their wording is very broad, just calling it “remote streaming.” That led me to this article on the Plex support website, which walks people through setting up port forwarding in order to enable “remote streaming”! So that excuse doesn’t really seem to hold water. What exactly is being paid for here then? How do they define what “local streaming” is?
Exactly my point. There’s some due hard people here saying that remote streaming is only possible because of plex’s servers, but that’s just not true. They act as fancy DNS or proxying, they lust point to your local server. That’s all. Regular DNS or even an IP and port are all it takes to get remote streaming up
There are two types connection in this scenario
I switched away from Plex last year because they wouldn’t let me connect with my box in Hetzner. I’m now using Emby, ironically I’m also paying for Emby’s monthly subscription. Not because I believe I need to, but because I want the developer to continue to work on it.
Strange how so many people don’t have this same attitude towards the developers of Plex.
It’s just that they see Plex more like a faceless corporation now
You do know what caused the Hetzner thing?
People were literally farming Plex in there. They bought a 2-4TB server in the auction and installed Plex and a content farm setup to feed it fresh content.
Then they sold access to the server until it was at capacity. GOTO 10
At one point Hetzner went “fuck this” and just banned Plex altogether. We can’t have nice things because some people are dipshits professionally.
It was Plex that did the IP range ban because people were selling access to their boxes.
it might not cost plex much but from the average joe’s point of view they might not want to mess around with this stuff, or might have never even heard of DNS or proxies in the first place so those types of people might be more inclined to pay for a feature that does all that for them. thats what plex could be hedging their bets on
Software support and the company existing, mainly, which I dunno about you but I’m ok with.
It seems deeply opposed to the spirit of selfhosting to have to pay for the privilege of accessing one’s own server. If the software itself cost money, that would be one thing, but this whole monetization scheme is skeevy.
It’d fit the privilege of using someone else’s software.
It’s the confusing mess of subscriptions and seemingly locking basic functionality behind a paywall that’s skeevy, not paying for software itself. I have happily paid for software before and would again. Plex has never appealed to me though, and they’re certainly doing nothing to make themselves more appealing.
Remote streaming means to people outside your home. You can just use a VPN and won’t have to pay a dime, just like you wouldn’t when you streamed to you TV at home. They offer servers that help lunch through more aggressive NATs and allow its users to just install the app and access the content from anywhere without having to worry about a VPN or something.
I honestly find it baffling that so many people are opposed to lay for a service they are using. Probably shows that most people that pirate are cheapskates rather than anti drm
The only thing I can think of why they’re doing this is, to drown illegal servers and remove them easily (ones that you see on eBay).
Even if those people people for a Plex Pass, and they get caught… Plex wins; because they still have their money.
Every time one of these gets posted I say “wait what? That was free before??”
This is the kind of feature I think is reasonable to charge for. As were the others people were complaining about. Plex lifetime pass is a one time fee.
Jellyfin. Tailscale. Bob’s your uncle.
Bob your uncle will absolutely not use Tailscale to stream from Jellyfin, so Bob your uncle will no longer have access to OPs library.
If theres a demand, there is a way.
Nah. How would you get Uncle Bob to use tailscale on his PS5 to watch Jellyfin, for example?
Either they do it or they will be downgraded to either
Sneaker-Net™ (most likely)
the library (unlikely)
nothing (mostly unlikely)
or just resubscribing to everything again (very likely).
then uncle bob does not need a vpn to see you
Yeah and expose the unsecured Jellyfin Backend to the whole world. Nice
You may need to reevaluate your threat model.
My uncle isn’t named Bob
Seems like it was only a matter of time.
20% more will jump to Jellyfin. The other 80% will entrench and talk even more about how great Plex is. I mean Jesus, $250 to watch pirated movies. lol wtf It’s also fucking wild to me that people are defending a monetization model that is on self hosted hardware. Like, I gotta pay for my server and then a license to avoid buying DVDs. Fuck it, at this point just buy the fucking movie.
Ya’ll are brain dead. Plex loves you tho.
Yup, read through this thread and it becomes clearer and clearer. and trust me, I’ve been a long time hold out, I’ve been through this many times - but this is the first time I’ve seen functionality removed from Plex to be put behind a paywall. And doing a price hike at the same time. Absolutely shitty. I’ve already migrated off.
You have a plex pass though, so nothing changed for you - you just got all angry because you didn’t read the email properly.
Your users are going to be much worse off now than they were, and you will absolutely lose a bunch of them who don’t want to (or can’t) have to connect to a VPN every time they want to stream from your library.
Why would they need to connect to a VPN every time they connect to Jellyfin?
Jellyfin has some security issues that, depending on who you ask, are either critical vulnerabilities that make it completely unsafe to expose to the Internet or largely unconcerning for regular users.
I’m not overly concerned about my instance running behind a reverse proxy. Perhaps I am just naive…
Honestly yeah. The Jellyfin Backend is basically unauthenticated for a large part, allowing anyone to map and stream your content as soon as they guessed the ids, which isn’t that hard, since they are based on the paths on your device. So if your movie sits in /mnt/media/movies/the_bee_movie that is pretty esay to guess and calculate the id from, allowing anyone to stream that content from your server
And apart from an undesirable bandwidth usage resulting from someone guessing their way to my file structure, how can this be used to compromise my server?
They can stream content from your server or map out what you have on there by using a rainbow table. Depending on the country you live in they can and will use that combined with your IP to start litigating you
My question is, where are you posting the address to your jellyfin server that someone who finds it will go through the trouble of even doing this?
Also how could they start litigating you based on the content you have? If I had illegal content on my server, I would be really dumb to expose it on the internet on a public jellyfin server. Otherwise my movies, tv, etc are my paid for content…
You don’t need to post it. Bots are scanning every ip, 24/7, looking for servers to infect, endpoints to abuse and data to extract.
Go set up a ssh tarpit on your server and watch the flies drown in it. I will not expose anything on my server that has so many known vulnerabilities
Your content might be legitimate, but the vast majority use Plex and Jellyfin as a media Server for pirated content and still want to share it with their friends or family. And just FYI, most blurays and DVDs also forbid this kind of sharing in their license
I find it hard to believe that there are bots scanning for jellyfin exploits, since as far as I’m aware, the exploit is for viewing content without auth. 99% of bots are scanning for old instances of wordpress or other outdated software to exploit.
If my content on Jellyfin was illegitimate, the person scanning for my files would have to prove that before they can sue, no? I don’t think this makes sense for anyone to do.
p.s. I won’t argue that YOU should setup software that you dont want to, just that this particular reason not to may be a bit farfetched.
You are very, very naive and uneducated on what bad actors do on the internet then. Basically any popular service that exposes a port to the internet WILL have bots scanning for that port specifically.
Yes, you are right, but I think my point was missed.
Theres not much reward for hackers to hack private jellyfin hosts (unless there is some big exploit that gives remote code execution that im unaware of), sure the bots will scan and try exploits on open ports, but are they specifically targetting jellyfin?
There is always a risk, but in my opinion, the chances of being hacked through jellyfin are way too low to bother with over-bearing measures, like a required vpn connection.
Running jellyfin in a secure manner (without root, only access to your content, etc) reduces the risk of much harm too.
And this has actually happened before?
if you reverse proxy (w/ proper headers etc.) into a VPN this isn’t an issue
The magic bullet in that sentence is VPN not reverse proxy
im aware, but the inconvenience of all users connecting to the VPN was mentioned. that’s unnecessary this way
I always see this and I have to ask: why do you care?
They likely aren’t paid customers of yours, if they don’t follow your rules and the software you like to use, then they are free to use any other method of consuming media.
Have to agree with the other comment that asks why do you need to use a vpn. Fax
Because OP is scared of losing their users because of their incorrect thinking that Plex was requiring them all to buy a remote streaming pass, so clearly OPs goal is to not lose their users, right?
OP asked, we’re answering. That’s kinda the whole point of this thing called Lemmy. We don’t care per se, we’re just telling OP our opinions and thoughts on their questions and proposed solutions.
If you don’t use a VPN you’re putting yourself at risk. There’s no real way around it with Jellyfin, as others have said.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. When I said “why do you care?”, I didn’t mean YOU specifically with OPs potential problem of losing users.
I meant why do people in general, who self-host software for friends/family, care if their friends/family stop using the software.
E.g. I have friends on Plex, but for whatever reason, I decide I want to move to Jellyfin. My friends stop streaming my media because they dont like jellyfin for whatever their own reasons may be. I personally wouldn’t care about losing them as “users”, because it’s not like they are paying customers. I let them access my instance for free, if they aren’t bothered enough to use it, then thats on them, not me to cater to their needs by keeping Plex around.
Hope that cleared up my meaning. I wasn’t attacking you for caring with your original response.
p.s. you are at risk by hosting Plex too, just in different ways. Plex still requires your server is open to the internet, right? Even if only Plex’s servers can access it, who’s to say Plex themselves don’t get hacked. Always a risk/reward type deal with hosting software, in my opinion, either are fine to expose.
It sounds like OP is charging users to stream from his server, that’s why he freaked out.
It’s wild to me that people who claim to be tech savvy don’t understand that Plex Server, the software, is what makes Plex what it is and as popular as it is. No other solution exists that is as easy as Plex and as secure as Plex. Jellyfin, Emby, Kodi, etc are nowhere near as simple to use and don’t have the breadth of app support that Plex does. Plex is basically on every device anyone owns. They sign in and they can stream from everyones libraries. No VPNs needed, no other hoops.
I paid like $100 for a lifetime Plex Pass like 10 years ago. The 2 dozen friends and family that share my server don’t pay a cent and this changes nothing.
This place sucks at times as it becomes clear it’s just an echo chamber that we used to call the Donald for.
My users don’t like the UI of Jellyfin as it isn’t as polished as Plex. I do this for my users and although it costs me money, it does save them a whole lot more money and means they’re taken out of some capitalist systems which should be the goal no?
I also have the cost of a VPN too.
Edit: The comment I replied to was on -6 upvotes at the time of posting.
I use jellyfin, and jellyfin is not safe to expose to the internet.
They have a handful of vulnerability and security holes that have been open for like 5+ years now. And the old emby architecture is quite difficult to work with.
A load of those so called vulnerabilities are way overblown and in most cases require you to be logged in anyway.
So you’re saying there are some vulnerabilities which are not overblown and therefore should be a concern?
That is with any piece of software. their will always be some vulnerabilities that are very bad. so by your definition using any piece of software is a concern.
I agree with you, it’s likely this vulnerability is only known because Jellyfin is open source… how many are hiding in Plex’s proprietary source code…
Anyways when has anyone ever been pwnd by this “exploit”, I have seriously never heard of anyone being “hacked” by one of them.
Definitely overblown as far as I am aware… don’t post your instance url all over the internet and you will likely be fine.
Using Plex (is fine, do whatever u want) and giving them your data instead doesn’t really help you (or at least sending your data through them).
You don’t need to post your IP. Any server admin would tell you that if you have a server exposed to the internet then you’re going to get people / bots knocking and your doors (ports) to see what is open. They could then use something like meta spoilt to find vulnerabilities and gain access to your server.
Hm I don’t remember posting the comment you are replying to, to the one I replied to.
You are right, but I still argue that keeping Jellyfin up to date is fine, there’s no serious bugs (afaik) that will compromise your whole server for instance, so these bots have nothing valuable to exploit here.
When I say don’t post your instance url I was talking about normal people finding it to try streaming from it without auth, I think I was replying to someone else and though this was the same thread.
Not to mention bots/people/companies watching torrent peers, looking up SSL certs for the IPs, then attacking anything with jelly in it… Security through obscurity is not security
Which shouldn’t really be an issue since you should only host on 443, which tells bots basically nothing.
Configure your firewall/proxy to only forward for the correct subdomain, and now the bots are back to 0, since knowing the port is useless, and any even mildly competent DNS provider will protect you from bots walking your zone.
And they actively refuse to do anything about them because it would force clients to update. You could just just as well open an unsecured ftp server to your content
The UIs are nearly identical, though.
Not in the slightest.
On iOS for instance there is a weird thing where it has a set of Ui controls and then if you double tap the screen it turns to the iPhone default Ui controls.
This.
I just set up Plex for my mom on her bargain bin cheapo android TV. It had the plex app right there and it’ll play without transcoding.
Can’t do that with Jellyfin.
Entrenchment. This is a profoundly absurd statement.
You paid $100 to access software hosted on your own devices. That’s wonderful you think that’s a great idea. I’m sure the Plex devs love you and would kiss you right on the mouth.
Because you’re vendor locked in… lol.
I paid $100 to play Forza Horizon on my own device too - should that have been free?
That no other solution exists that is as easy and secure as Plex? That’s not just absurd, but profoundly absurd? What other solution is there that is?
Your entire argument seems to be that software should be free if it’s on your own device, which is a profoundly absurd statement. The only paid software should be on hardware you don’t own?
This is a complete false equivalence and I feel that you know that. The idea of a console is to expand it by buying new games. That’s not unexpected.
I am a software developer. The argument isn’t that software should be free. The argument is that this is an exceptionally poor business model and as a developer I’m disgusted that people are defending it. The VC which owns Plex and other VCs will use this “logic” that you have to move the goal posts further, and further, and further, and further until there’s no such thing as free software anymore. And I think that’s fucked up.
At the end of the day you’re paying twice to avoid buying IP. Just fucking buy the IP if you’re going to be stupid. Movies are like $12. At $250 you’re paying $2.10/mo in addition to your hosting costs.
Just go buy 20 movies for the same price. It’s so dumb.
It’s not though. The idea of self hosting isn’t to not have any software costs associated with it. Domain names aren’t free. VPNs (that you use to aquire content) aren’t free. Cloud backups aren’t free. Would you prefer everything was free? Absolutely. Do you sometimes have to pay to get the best software for the job? Absolutely, and Plex is that software.
Same here! That makes your argument even crazier to me! Someone demanding that your software should be free and should never be changed to be paid even if it means the company goes under is bananas.
The business model of having the people that use their main product that requires the most development and time and resources, Plex Server, pay either a cheap one off fee (that regularly goes on sale for half price) or a monthly subscription fee in order to use it, is “exceptionally poor”? How so? Is it just that it was free? This business model has been around for eternity. Get people in the door and hooked by offering it for free, then start charging for it. It’s one of the actual best business models around, not “exceptionally poor” lol. You’re looking at it from the “I want it to be free forever” point of view, not the “We need it to be a viable business with revenue to be able to sustain it” point of view.
That will never happen, because people will always be making free software to put out there for people to try and to use - and many of them will then transition to PAID because it’s not sustainable otherwise. For software to thrive you often have to have full time developers working on it, and full time developers need to be paid.
I paid ~$100 ~10 years ago for Plex Pass. It paid for itself instantly as I was simply supporting the developers of the software. As a software developer I have no problem doing that. I wasn’t forced to buy it, but I did.
I’m not quite sure where you got this $250 figure from though? What is that, the monthly remote pass x 12? Also most people running a plex server get far more than 20 movies a year lol. Pretty sure I got 20 movies last night.
I dunno man, I don’t care much, when Plex gets shitty enough I’ll jump. But paying for the ongoing maintenance of software isn’t some evil thing, even if I self host it.
You’re not paying for software maintenance, you’re paying a subscription service to a private company that has already decided to cut back on features that others also thought they were paying to maintain.
If you want to actually pay for software maintenance, migrate to Jellyfin and pay them instead, rather than filtering your payments through middle managers and shareholders first.
Problem is jellyfin (apps and server) is shit
You didn’t ask, but if you’ve had a bad experience with the apps, you could try one of the native apps.
My friends on Apple devices think Swiftfin (github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin) is much better than the normal jellyfin app.
I haven’t used this one/know anyone that has: Findroid (third party) (github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid). Mostly because I haven’t had any issues with the official jellyfin app for android, but it would probably give a cleaner experience, being native and all.
For the server, I think it’s fantastic. Never had any problems that weren’t a few clicks to resolve. Pretty much use it and forget I’m the one maintaining it for the most part. I wonder what issues you encountered?
Many of us bought lifetime passes ages ago though so we’re not paying a subscription.
But that’s not what you’re paying for. You’re paying for access to that software…
I know. And some of that money, funds development, and some of that development includes security.
“your friends”
dude my friends don’t charge me for shit
For real
How about I don’t pay the invoice, because we’re such good “friends”?
You posted almost verbatim what I was about to write. It’s a proper “don’t shit on my pie and tell me it’s a blueberry” moment. That’s not what friends are.
Playon, Evernote, Lastpass, there have been plenty of examples.
Whenever a company starts charging for previously free features, it’s time to GTFO, even if you’re on their pay side.
I’ve got lifetime Plexpass, but I can read the writing on the wall. It’s only a matter of time before they enshittify my product or stop providing updates. They’ll sunset Plex and start Plex+ or some shit, give em a year or so.
Get your Jellyfin installed and working, they can work beside each other. Tailscale if it’s just you, reverse proxy if you have the fam on in.
This mindset is bizarre.
“Everyone should get out now because at some stage in the future Plex might get greedy and ruin it all and charge us through the nose. Move to Jellyfin! They’ll definitely never ever do anything like Plex.”
I think you know where this is heading…
I don’t know why you’d equate might-enshittify to already-enshittifying. Especially when Jellyfin isn’t VC-funded, the leading indicator for enshittification.
Jellyfin isn’t yet. It will if they ever want to actually compete and make a living from it.
They are not a company. Why would they want to “make a living” from it?
Jellyfin has a BDFL and is an organisation with assets, so it’s not impossible. However, considering it was forked from Emby by GPL nerds in response to licensing issues, I think it’s very unlikely.
They definitely are.
Link to the company page? I can’t find anything on jellyfin page that mentions that they are a company.
If they ever want to we fork it and make a new thing. It’s the great thing about open source it’s ours.
Precisely, the worst thing that happens is jellyfin pulls open source or stops getting updates, At which point someone forks it and the next generation picks up the ball and we keep going.
If it’s open source, and it’s interesting and useful it will be maintained.
I also want to emphasize that relicensing from the GPLv2 to something proprietary is damn-near impossible for a project this large with a team who are so ideologically motivated to make FOSS. If I today submit a PR to the Jellyfin codebase, they can’t legally relicense to a proprietary license without 1) getting my consent to give them ownership of my work (I’m not likely to be paid off or convinced it’s a good thing that work I submitted for free is being enshittified), or 2) removing my work from the project if they can’t get in touch with me or if I say no. To emphasize: this consent is affirmative.
Thus, the process is to survey who’s contributed to the project, reach out to anyone whose work is still in the project (preferably in writing in a permanent, court-admissable format like email), ask them to transfer ownership of their copyright to you, keep track of who’s said no, said yes, or not answered, fulfill conditions for anyone who wants something in return, and meticulously rip out all of the code from people who say “no” or don’t answer. One of the project’s major contributors died 10 years ago? Legally, too fucking bad: they didn’t relinquish shit to you. Rip out that legacy code and start over.
Just like for instance if you want to take a Wikipedia article and own it for yourself, you can’t just go ask the Wikimedia Foundation nicely. You have to contact every single contributor whose work is extant in that article, and rip out work that isn’t explicitly given to you by its owner.
Nothing changes for anyone that isn’t HOSTING a plex server, and most of those people would already have a Plex Pass due to the benefits it gives.
Plex is in control of their user’s computing in a way Jellyfin isn’t. You can remove anti-features from Jellyfin software and even redistribute it. So it’s much less likely they would do something like Plex and it even doesn’t matter if they did as you can find others to work on it in a way you want. Plex is proprietary software, Jellyfin is software freedom.
Everyone should get out now because Plex has started to ruin things and you should seek alternatives now, while you have time, and not wait until they finish shitting the bed.
And no, jellyfin won’t do anything like this because they don’t have control over how you use it and don’t force their cloud on you.
Literally nothing changes for me, the plex server host, or any of the people streaming from my server though. Nothing at all. Nothing is ruined, nothing has started to be ruined. I don’t have to pay any more money, none of my friends and family have to pay any money.
Until Jellyfin no longer maintain it and change to a closed source product that they want to make money from.
Plex’s own “cloud” that they “force” on you is part of what makes Plex the success that it is, and it costs them money to maintain.
You have valuable insight. I guess we all just look for better products and services. Ultimately it seems like the market will always extract and give nothing back.
I would rather stop sharing completely before I make a Jellyfin accessible to the internet with the state their Backend is in. If you want people to be able to use it on TVs, Jellyfin is also not an option because most of them don’t support vpns
You could throw Authelia or HAProxy in front of it.
You could do a port knocking daemon.
Tailcale is available and free on half a dozen different video viewing devices.
There’s about a million ways to skin that.
Also, keep in mind, it was a Plex security vulnerability In a lastpass admins home box that caused their asses to get leaked.
None of this shit deserves to be openly hosted online
Everything besides VPN breaks their clients because they can’t handle authentication.
My main gripe isnt even that they have these issues, but the way the jellyfin devs are handling, or more correctly, not handling them.
They actively refuse to fix them because it might break client support. Instead of forcing an update or starting a secured v2 of their API, that actually active clients could then update to, they just do nothing
Using something to whitelist the firewall doesn’t require any client changes. For the less technically competent it could be as simple as setting their TV’s web browser to default to the white list page.
Haproxy could be convinced to whitelist people based on DNS entries. Each one of your remote consumers could set DNS to their house and once a day HA proxy would rewrite itself to match those addresses. If they’re coming in from a fixed client, The DNS would white list and let them in, If they failed the IP check they would pop a login so you could still use the service via the web.
It’s a hassle,It’s nowhere near as elegant is what plex is doing but without a data center…
They really could stand to add TOTP to the clients and server. I wonder if they’re open to pull requests. It can’t be that hard to add the option to the server than the clients can pick it up whenever they get around to it.
Oh god playon. They burned me hard, and were shocked when I turned them down for 3 free months of generous free subscription fees. Never even checked, did they crash and burn?
They are still going. I would have thought that there will download it for you and let you watch it as long as you can prove you have the login would have gotten them enough legal attention to shut them down. Apparently it’s either a gray area or they’re below the radar.
I think one or two of the smallest properties are still usable in the old desktop app, but nothing that isn’t already serviced by YTDLP.
OP couldn’t comprehend an email, and when everyone tried to reassure them that nothing for them has changed they doubled down. The closest thing to justification I can figure is “all my clients are borderline illiterate as well and it upset them”.
How in the world could you be upset that a product you already paid for is not providing that specific feature for free anymore. They’ve even made the phone software free!
And now OP is saying that he’s switching to Jellfin and thinks that all of his borderline illiterate “clients” will be ok with using a VPN to access Jellyfin, if their device even has Jellyfin lol.
Also the way that OP says “users” and “clients” makes it pretty clear that he is charging people for access to his library. He is ok with making money off Plex’s work, but hates the idea of Plex making money.
I’m just curious, why are you so vehemently defending a shitty move by a corporation? No matter how you tackle the issue, taking away a function that used to be free and evidently has no costs associated to the corp is a textbook example of enshittification.
It is pretty damn obvious how this will continue.
“Shitty move by a corporation”? You mean requiring the person that’s using their flagship all encompassing flagship software product to pay a one off fee? A one off fee that seemingly most people who host a Plex server already bought?
Software costs money to make and maintain. You’re not entitled to it for free. Plex’s software is legitimately great and is the only software on the market that does what it does and makes it as easy as it is.
As has been pointed out many times in here, this is wrong. Plex have hardware that is used when many, probably most, people stream remotely. Also developers cost money to employ. Developers make the software that is regularly updated. They deserve to be paid, don’t they?
So you agree the same thing will happen to JellyFin then, right? So why even bother getting Jellyfin set up now when it will inevitably happen there too?
First of all, I don’t have a horse in this race. My media is stored locally and used only by my household. I really don’t give a shit if a corporation needs more revenue to satisfy their infinite growthTM.
My issue is with how they are doing it. Provide an extra service or function, introduce a higher tier with priority treatment or so. Thats fine with me.
What’s not fine is taking something away people used to get for free, because the shitty venture capital business model isn’t feasible and only provided these things to capture the market, and now comes the nickel and diming part of providing ever fewer services and functions for ever increasing amounts of money.
As for jellyfin, thats open source AFAIK. So why even mention that here as some sort of gotcha? If it enshittifies people will fork it and move on.
Oh so they don’t deserve to be paid for their work, the only reason they’d be after money is for “infinite growthTM”?
I agree that’s never good, but what’s the alternative? Go out of business? Insert ads into your streaming of local content? Another way rip look at it is that they’ve been giving away their product for free due the last 10+ years that they should have been charging for.
I mention JellyFin because at some stage it will become a business and they’ll start charging too, or it will get left behind because it’s free. People can fork all they want, but businesses that provide services can’t do so for free for eternity.
Is there even anyone that runs a plex server who doesn’t have a lifetime plex pass these days? I’ve had one for 10+ years at this stage. I bought it to support the devs as they made this amazing software that I’ve used for probably hundreds of thousands of hours of streaming from my server. I paid like $100. I pay less than that much in 1 month to my ISP.
IMO it’s a fair change, because the product has always been worthy of being a paid product.
People are free to go elsewhere, but they’ll quickly realize that the one off plex pass price is cheap for what you get.
Why are you skipping over the alternative venues of revenue I suggested that wouldn’t be as problematic? Because without you couldn’t paint me as irrational, asking the poor corpo to not make more money than last quarter at their customers expense 😔
They can pay their employees just fine. They do this because the investors want their returns.
Adding extra tiers that only the people who already bought a Plex pass would buy? If you run a Plex server and haven’t got a Plex pass by now, you were never going to unless they did what they’re doing now, as it’s basically feature complete.
You don’t really seem to understand that businesses need revenue and profit to survive, publicly traded or private. You’d rather see Plex die than have their most hardcore users have to pay a tiny fee?
Opinion of 1 Jellyfin programmer
Citation needed.
What do you mean left behind? By who? Anyway, what’s wrong with being left behind?
We’re not beholden to anyone. We’re not in competition with anyone. We’re not in a race, so I don’t understand how we could get left behind.
We’ll keep doing what we do with the amazing team of people who volunteer their time, and other solutions can do whatever they want to do, I don’t care because, again, it’s not a competition!
No citation needed. They’ll either do it one day or the software will languish behind in obscurity.
Nothing I guess, other than the competition getting further and further ahead and your users leaving for them.
You definitely are. JellyFin doesn’t exist in a vaccuum. You might not feel like its competition, but the jellyfin software competes with all the other media streaming software out there.
😆 Ok buddy.
I just saw you guys did your first iOS app update in 3 years, and first Xbox app update in 5 years, congrats!
Now what was that I was saying about being left behind again?
Thanks!
They are providing extra service. Using Plex on mobile is now free for everyone, which is a huge step forward. It’s not a bad trade off for server owners to require Plex pass for remote viewing (which is only necessary if you’re not using a VPN like tailscale for free remote viewing).
I don’t get why people are freaking out over a one off fee to unlock something that has running costs for Plex, which itself isn’t necessary if you just opt for a free VPN client like tailscale.
I’m almost certain it’a troll, maybe even a previously banned one. Given their username it would be very ironic otherwise, considering that so far, in the week since they’ve created the account, they’ve only commented in order to rail against things that respect user freedom.
Dollars to donuts it’s the corpo-fascist “tread on me harder, daddy” version of “freedom” they’re advocating for.
I switched to Jellyfin recently and I mostly prefer it over Plex, except for lack of organization tools and the goddamn roulette wheel that is seeking. Why is it that seeking defaults to 30 second intervals, requires a click to confirm, and occasionally just jumps to some random point near the beginning of the file? Great software overall, but it’s wild to me that this basic playback functionality is so hit or miss.
.
I had the point near the beginning of the file thing once and it was a really shitty file that only VLC could seek in.
ffmpeg fixed it, but I’ve no idea how because ffmpeg command lines are some arcane black magic shit.
Guess it’s time to start using jellyfin and contributing
JellyFin is fantastic software and I have no complaints.
yup same. First thing I install on a new device is jellyfin. For software that’s relatively young, it’s pretty awesome.
I don’t use Plex. I have never used Plex. But based on the one time I tried, this doesn’t surprise me even a little bit.
Years ago I installed it on my NAS, it was a one click download package. I installed it and hit the button to set it up. And then it prompted me to make a cloud account.
Why do I need a cloud account? I am logging into my local server and I am not sharing anything with anybody nor am I subscribing to any cloud services. I have no need of a cloud account. But, the way they built the thing, you need a cloud account to log into your local system.
I did not create a cloud account. I uninstalled it. I concluded that a company that claims to care about user privacy, but requires cloud integration in an area that absolutely does not require cloud anything, does not actually give a shit about privacy. I Googled and found that the requirement for a cloud account was, at the time, a fairly new thing. Lots of people didn’t like it. I concluded that this company was beginning to enshittify, although this was years ago and none of us had heard that word yet. But either way, it was obvious that the company was moving in a not customer-friendly direction and I did not want to be along for the ride.
My choice has been proven right several times over the years since. And yes, every time they remove a feature, or make some other customer unfriendly decision, I retell this story.
The moral here is that a company either cares about its customers or it doesn’t, and it’s usually pretty easy to tell which one fairly quickly. When one bad decision is made, and not corrected, others will follow.
Synology is the latest example of that. For anyone not paying attention, they have recently announced that their 2025 series units will only work with Synology branded hard drives, which are of course more expensive than standard Seagate or Western Digital drives (which work just fine). But if you look, the bread crumbs are there and form a trail. Over the last few years they have removed features, for example the device is no longer can decode h.265 surveillance video, and the units will no longer display SMART data for ‘unsupported’ drives. I say no longer because they used to, but an update changed that so they no longer do.
Bottom line though is don’t do business with companies that don’t respect you.
I had exactly the same experience, at about the same time. Had been hearing good things about Plex so decided to try it out. Immediately noped out when it required me to create an account with them. Similar to you I looked around and found it to be a relatively new change.
Frankly baffling to me that anyone with the wherewithal to self-host was okay with it.
I think a lot of it was frog and hot plate situation. If they had done all this stuff all at once people would have dumped them immediately, but they did it slowly always seeming reasonable and considered at each step.
And a lot of people still adopt their product because for better or worse, it is the best known and relatively easy to use.
I was an early Plex user and I ditched it completely when they first started the cloud account bullshit. There weren’t as many good options at the time, but I just switched to a very simple dlna media server that my TVs supported. Now of course we have a wealth of options and Plex makes even less sense to me, but I can see lots of people will keep using it due to inertia.
what’s with h265 that’s everyone’s acting like it’s some massive hurdle that you should have to pay to be able to use files with that encoding? that’s one of the things Plex has paywalled already and it’s becoming harder and harder to find good quality content that isn’t in that format.
cnx-software.com/…/h-265-hevc-license-pricing-upd…
Lot of companies don’t want to pay it themselves… and lots of people don’t see the point when there’s a list of perfectly capable codecs that are free… including AV1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_codecs
Ultimately as a software developer making money… if you don’t license the codecs that you’re using properly (when using a non-FOSS codec) you are liable for damages at that point for violating the terms of the license for the codec. It IS a cost. And across millions of users that costs adds up.
Can I still watch for free from my pc to my tv locally through the Plex app?
Yes, its for external address using remote play.
For now
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a7c6fd8a-9f22-4ae2-a588-c8e927439892.jpeg">
It’s jellyfish time anyway! :)
not a plex user but someone buried the lede here… to me, this is the neon sign that screams GTFO:
what business of yours is it to notice my private comings and goings?! what other actionable intel do y’all keep in your logs?! bye!
External servers are shared with you, they can just check which owners have libraries shared with them. That’s not some nefarious logging, its information they need to offer that function
Counterpoint: I can access my friend’s Jellyfin servers, and they can access mine, without anyone else in the world knowing what the fuck we’re doing. Saying “It’s necessary” always begs the question “Why did you make it necessary?”
Because Plex handles the initial connection for you allowing the clients to lunch through CGNAT and other shit. Also they handle the authentication, which I would fully agree would be nice to have independent, but that’s the reason
Not the brightest of those, imo: a while back they’ve opted their users in “discover together”, which is basically sharing your watch history with your plex friends. That went over as well as you’d expect: www.404media.co/plex-users-fear-discover-together…
hydrahd.sh
the link sends me to an cue of ads and dead pages.
You should have an adblocker like ublock origin or Adnauseam installed.
i do…thats why the dead pages
You may have to go through the uBlock Origin settings and add/update all the blocklists.
seriously my browser & pihole is up to date. i clicked on 3 movies and ended up on blank pages.
Weird, you’re overcomplicating things and receiving a worse experience as a result.
Just use ublock origin or adnauseam. Make sure you update/enable all of the blocklists in the settings.
No matter how bad someone might think Jellyfin is, it is a million times better than subjecting yourself to endless ad slop on one of these ““free movies”” websites.
Dunning-kruger effect on full display right here.
This guy thinks he knows so much, yet doesn’t even know about adblockers. Sad.
I know about adblockers but these websites are still usually ass even with them.
I don’t mind battling them for something like an F1 livestream but when you want your own collection of stuff that won’t get randomly shit on by domain seizures or ISP blocking, there’s a reason I’m self hosting my media.
That’s fair. I think a hybrid solution of owning/streaming is best.
Free streaming sites are the easiest way to watch something and we should be recommending them more often.
Fuck them, glad I switched to Jellyfin years ago.
Once you invite an MBA in you can never uninvite them…
I’ve only ever used jellyfin and have no complaints.
I avoided plex and went with jellyfill because it’s free/libre software.
It wanted me to organize my files and then it started to transcode them when I streamed. Not optimal for my use case
Yeah, I had/have problems with Jellyfin transcoding too.
Basically transcoding things that didn’t need it and wouldn’t transcode things that did need it.
There are containers that will transcode immediately upon import if that’s what you prefer.
I don’t NEED to transcode, it plays in VLC just fine
See my comment above, it could be a browser issue?
Your smart tv might not have VLC in it. That’s like saying “I don’t NEED financing, I can pay for my house all at once”, like, good for you, but you’re in a very privileged spot, and VLC is a beast so it’s really not fair to compare it with an embebed video player on a smart tv or something. You can disable transcoding btw, it’s enabled by default so that it’s more compatible, which makes absolute sense.
I don’t watch on a smart tv, I watch on VLC.
Then why are you using Jellyfin for?
To stream the file from the computer that has it to the tablet that has VLC and low storage
I found that this was a problem for me too. It ended up being a codec or container format (maybe MKV container?) that was not supported in my browser (Firefox). I dug into it and realised that the latest version of FF which I could get if I used the Mozilla repository, completely solved the problem.
Indeed, no need to have Plex anymore. Will probably set up a family VPN and we can all stream directly from my harddrives, bandwidth is not an issue anyway.
No need to abandon all the user-friendly aspects of a self-hosted streaming platform. Just use Jellyfin. I switched to it from Plex years ago and have never looked back.
With a shared drive over a vpn connection everyone can choose their own player. No need for a streaming server anymore. Given the mbit bandwidth, a streaming server isn’t needed anymore. Reduces load on server.
Fair enough. If your family are all tech savvy enough that that’s a good solution for them, then congratulations, and I’m jealous.
Wonder how long those 2.99 a month figures will last. I give it a year before there’s no seperate remote streaming package and the only remaining one is >10$. The main appeal of Plex was not paying. It’s used by pirates. The goal is content for free. It’s no longer free. I don’t care at all if random people can use my Plex server. If they are unwilling to adapt to a new platform, then I guess they’ll resubscribe to Netflix. Most of them never unsubscribed from Netflix to begin with.
This was the end for me. Used Plex for almost a decade. I’m off to Jellyfin. It’s actually almost no change whatsoever to integrate it into my home setup.
If you bought a Plex pass in the past your users won’t notice a difference. And I assume most server owners did it for the hardware encoding alone
Seeing how they now want 250 for lifetime Plex pass?! Over double what it was just a few years ago? Ridiculous, and us server owners haven’t seen really any new features come out recently. Jellyfin was a bit fiddly at first, but I’m getting used to it, and enjoying it more now I think
I’ve used it briefly in the past but with all the streaming services popping up and prices going up I thought it will be a matter of time for Plex to follow suit. So I moved to Jellyfin and never looked back. I kept account (ok I forgot about it) but when I saw that email today in my mailbox I just logged in and deleted it.
I’m coming up on 5 years as a Plex pass owner, so my users and I will not be impacted by this change. In five more years if they asked me nicely to pay another $89 to support the service I would. Send me some stickers and put a badge on my server. I get a lot of use out of the software/service, as do my family members.
I will say, I am quite annoyed at the wording and audience of this email. Jellyfin is just not an option for me until there is excellent feature parity with Plex. I know they are a lot of Jellyfin fans here, in my opinion, Plex is a significantly better experience for me.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I used plex for free for the better part of a decade. Bought lifetime when a raise was coming and it was still $140 (kicking myself because at one point with a sale I was looking at something like $45).
I’ve used plex pass enough, and it’s my main driver for all our entertainment outside of music and audiobooks that if they asked for some more money, I wouldn’t care so much.
The ease of use, the UI, and remote access without having to jump through a bunch of hoops is worth it.
No shade to Jellyfin, but it’s not nearly as dumb dumb friendly.
I’ve even been using it for music, and audiobooks works pretty well for iOS. The only real available android client for audiobooks (Chronicle) sucks pretty bad, and is no longer under support. Lots of bugs and it only remembers where I left off about half the time. I just ftp the books to my local device and use smart audiobook player for books.
For audiobooks check out Audiobookshelf. On my NAS I run it in Container Manager (Docker) and get the image directly from the built-in repo. I check for image updates every few weeks, though only to keep compatibility with the apps, as I don’t notice new features. Very easy to set up, just make sure your folders are named correctly.
Exactly, most people that share co tent with others already have the Plex pass so this doesn’t do anything to them or their users.
This change, is absolutely benign for the vast majority. Which means it’s a desperate grab to make more money which will ultimately fail.
Check out the trend over time.
They removed plugins when it was a threat to them controlling their ecosystem, people were using them to pull from YouTube and anime sources directly. They were basically turning them into Kodi, but with benefits
They did the same thing with offline resharing. You used to be able to sync a bunch of crap to your phone, go on vacation and share it with your family from your phone.
Then they started obnoxiously tracking you under the guise that you could see what your friends were watching, but they changed their terms so they could sell your watch data to third parties.
Then they started putting ads into free remote watch
Now there’s no more free remote watch.
As you said, this change is unlikely to make a big difference for anybody, so it’s unlikely for them to make any serious money from it.
My personal guess is, they’re sitting on a fuck ton of venture capital promises and those bills are coming due with the market becoming questionable.
They’ve done everything to the free crowd to increase revenue. If they are truly cash strapped, the next logical thing is to get all these people with lifetime passes to buy in again but on a subscription basis. That means they’re either going to abandon the lifetime product like playon did, or find some other way to force everyone to pay monthly to watch their own content.
Nobody seen anybody needs to switch to jellyfin but you’re going to need a backup plan because inside of the next year or two chances are Plex is not going to be recognizable to you.
I guess you haven’t read the rest of the comments here :D
At this point I just wait and see. I have Jellyfin running in parallel, but the way remote sharing works there, basically requiring a VPN on every client device makes it a non starter for a large portion of my users and with the security situation of the Jellyfin Backend I don’t feel comfortable making it available through my domain.
So for now I will just wait and see and hope that the Jellyfin fanbase could just chill a bit and stop gloating and high giving any time there’s a Plex related news on here
The beginning of enshittification.
Prices will keep climbing, functionality reduced in favor of service tiers, and of course ads, ads, and ads.
I’m done with Plex - They won’t get my recommendations. My holdoff buying PlexPass were the little bugs that always mattered - Pausing for more than a few minutes HARD locked up the stream, the stream had to re-init to load subtitles, and then the MAJOR issue with “What files is Plex NOT seeing” and other indexing issues. I paid for my Android app, happily. But now, telling me I can’t stream my own media, after paying for the app? Y’all can F right off with that. I’ll be finally setting up Jellyfin ASAP.
What was the appeal of Plex anyway?
It has been a few years since I last used Plex but I always liked their interface, their tech stack is fairly modern, they have apps for pretty much every device, their title matching for content works really well and there was not much wrong with it back in the day other than it lacking local authentication.
I switched over long ago when they started pushing streaming services to my users that I couldn’t deactivate server side.
What did you switch to?
I ran Emby for a while before switching to Jellyfin. Still running it today.
I have both Plex and Jellyfin.
Plex takes like 1+ minute to start on my TV from 2019. Another maybe 15–20 seconds to load the first screen of content. It’s insane. Jellyfin with the exact same library takes a few seconds to load its start page.
I don’t know what Plex is smoking. 🤷♂️
One day I’ll be Jelly only. ✨
Local media streaming Is the appeal?
Now if you’re asking why use Plex vs Jellyfin, for me jellyfin has more issues with high bitrate 4K HDR content and subtitles for my situation.
The wife / parent appeal of simplicity.
Otherwise just use JellyFin.
It was announced some time ago. I started using Tailscale because of that
LOL, aren’t there at least a half dozen open source alternatives for Plex?
I see some posts taking about jellyfin and tailscale and I find it interesting that it’s not mentioned tailscale is a private company. Why are they not being held to the same standard as Plex? How long before it becomes enshittified? I saw they have a free plan but give it time until they realize the number of users in the free tier are large enough to monetize.
edit: I’m prepared to be down voted but mark this and see where it ends up at.
Edit2: and I’m not defending Plex. I agree it’s a shitty move.
I have never used Tailscale. I have also Jever seen anyone in the wild recommend it and explain what exactly the use-case is beyond plain, old, reliable, open source WireGuard.
So yeah, agreed.
Also I have been hosting Jellyfin publicly accessible for years with zero issues, so idk… I also dint k ow what the “you have to use Tailscale for jellyfin” people are doing with TVs/Firesticks/… in hotels, airbnbs,…
Can you point me in the direction of doing this in jellyfin? I keep finding guides and things for tailscale and whatnot but I too would like to just be able to install jellyfin on something and connect to my server.
Sorry, saw this only just now. I don’t really have any guides to point to, so just the basic steps:
90% of this is applicable to any “how to host x publicly” question, and is mostly a one-time setup. Ideally, have the proxy running on a different VM/hardware, e.g. a firewall, and do think about how well you want/need to secure the network.
In any case, you then just put in jellyfin.yourdomain.com in the hotel TV.
Tailscale hasn’t removed features yet. When they do, I’m sure there will be a similar outrage.
Deuces at the ready
The client is open source and can be administered using the open source Headscale server. I use it with Keycloak as an auth gateway.
Tail scale already has a bunch of limitations for unpaid users but it’s only an extra step to set up wireguard in a container.
I’m not a plex/jellyfin user, but I have a server and did try setting up Wireguard (as well as headscale). Could not get either of them to work. I use containers pretty often, so no issues there, but debugging networking issues is just above my pay grade. Tailscale just worked in like 5 clicks. It was stupid easy. If the alternatives get any easier to use, I would love to switch over to FOSS.
Their free tier has always been about the same IRRC. ACL’s are basic only. Limited, but still generous users and devices.
If the drop device counts on free or eliminate ACL’s we’d also advocate leaving them.
Some points as someone who does not use Tailscale:
TL;DR: This isn’t a binary “corporate versus non-corporate”.
Thank you for the detailed reply, appreciate it. Helps me think through my setup. FWIW I run both Plex and jellyfin but not tailscale since I’m not open to the Internet (double natted at the moment)
Erm… AFAIK Plex doesn’t work offline, so you are open to the internet. And BTW what Plex does is very similar to what Jellyfin+Tailscale would do
That was my point, saying that Plex was bad and then using jellyfin with tailscale to be functional equivalent on a feature didn’t make sense to me because tailscale has a company backing it instead of a community. That company at some point will most likely do similar things that Plex is doing. Someone that owns that company is going to want more money out of it.
Everything you said is true.
Also of note, tailscale is making a shit load off money off corporate America. Every one of us who are deciding engineers that dips our toes in goes holy fuck that’s cool and immediately pushes to implement it in a professional capacity.
And, when Tailscale reduces its free offering, it’ll be time to move to Headscale (or elsewhere).
We (most) are not advocating leaving Plex because it is not FOSS. We’re advocating leaving them because they are changing the terms in ways that have repeatedly suggested that it is circling the drain and feasting on its current userbase in a very Google/Apple/Microsoft way.
We’re not getting anything out of people leaving Plex. There’s no stock here, the community is not so small that it needs all the people from Plex. It’s a humanitarian effort, probably a neurodivergent one, but still humanitarian.
I have definitely seen worries about tailscale in other threads related to a recent VC funding round, I suppose they haven’t aggressively started the enshittification journey (yet), and it is also a bonus that most of tailscale is open source, e.g. headscale exists.
If tailscale started reducing the free service # of devices/users to push people towards their paid ‘personal plus’ plan then maybe we’d see a similar backlash. I say this as a tailscale user myself.
Every for profit company will eventually go to shit, that’s a given, it’s only a matter of time. You use their services till they benefit you and when they go to shit you switch to the next best option.
I’m very much with you.
Never understood why Plex, a once open source fork of XBMC, was seen as a positive thing when they switched to the closed source, SaaS model.
I also don’t understand the love for Tailscale when Wireguard exists.
But, anyway, the same people who are reacting shocked to Plex can be shocked when Tailscale does the same.
They’ll probably hop on Discord to vent their frustrations before there, too, they find themselves spurred by a company with no clear plan on monetization finding out that offering hosted services at a yearly loss can only exist for so long.
Open source isn’t just about idealogy, it’s about longevity for software that can’t be clearly monetized - harken back to “amazing” services like Keybase that worked great for a few years until their VCs started asking for return of investment.
Use the shit that was made for you, not to exploit you. And if that shit isn’t up to your standard, learn to contribute, or just enjoy the corporate graveyard in which you choose to live.
(so sorry for the pseudo-unhinged rant, but between the recent Win11, Discord controversies - and now, this - I’m just fed up with all the shocked_pikachu.jpg posts I’m seeing on Lemmy)
What are you talking about? This is a post about Plex. Nobody is gonna think about bringing up Tailscale for criticism. Tailscale gets plenty of skepticism in the self hosted community, whenever I see someone recomend Tailscale I usually see someone bring up that it can be a victim of enshitification. It doesn’t get hate (yet) because they haven’t fallen to enshitification (again, yet). But the main reason is probably because you dont NEED Tailscale for Jellyfin. When it does shit the bed, use headscale, netbird, wireguard, or any other vpn if you are really are so apposed to Tailscale.
Tailscale and Netbird are foss software so they can always be forked. There are also. alternatives like Wireguard and Hyperspace. (Never tried hyperspace)
The Remote Watch Pass is only needed if neither you nor the server owner have a Plex pass: …plex.tv/…/requirements-for-remote-playback-of-pe…
No, as long as the Server owner has a Plex Pass the people on the other side don’t need to do anything… its only if the Server owner doesn’t have a Plex Pass then remote users would need one
That is correct and echoes what I said
My bad, this is all because I finally decided to purchase a lifetime pass.
Old guy here. Never, ever, ever fall for the lifetime pass deal.
Malwarebytes has worked out for me so far. I don’t think they offer it anymore though…
Plex has worked well for me for many years with the lifetime pass. Got it 10 years ago so it translates back to about 8 euro per year.
That’s not a bad deal.
For me, it’s worked out for plex. What it offered at the time was more than worth the price and I’ve felt a little bad about it being a once and done payment.
That being said they’ve hurt some of the good will with the changes they’ve made, but also I imagine they’re struggling to find a sustainable path for development.
Same
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LOL
Hope for the best, plan for the worst,
or don’t plan, you do you!
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All you need do is look at the histories of Playon, Evernote, LastPass, and the hundreds of other titles that have changed their business model to be less free.
If you hear your engine knocking, you should plan for your car to break down.
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As I said gentry, you do you.
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Nice gaslight you got there. You do you man keep trolling.
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This is cool, are you incapable of not getting the last word in? My schedule just opened up today and man, I’ve got all day.
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Fantastic, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you give on anything before.
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👋
If you consider paying a monthly fee for something that was free yesterday then I guess I’m wrong, go ahead and pay the subscription
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They care about the people who don’t have a “lifetime” pass? Having empathy for others who don’t have what you have, caring about the ethics of a company whose products you use and pay for, and taking a stance that software should be as free and open as possible aren’t “playing dumb”. If anything, as someone who isn’t just using Plex for free, they’ve earned more of a right to complain, because they’ve shown they’re willing to pay for quality services but think this one is exploitative.
Maybe even disregarding empathy, they’re worried that existing features will become locked behind a tier that the “lifetime” pass doesn’t apply to? Maybe they’re worried that their “lifetime” pass won’t be so “lifetime” if “lifetime” wasn’t explicitly defined to mean lifetime at the time of purchase? Anything bad that can happen will happen with VC-fueled enshittification.
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In 2012 (ish), I bought a lifetime subscription for a flat $75. Over the next few years of using it, they got worse and worse with shit like this, so I switched to Emby for a bit, and then Jellyfin. I never shared with friends, tho, because I have no friends, so it was always just a pretty interface and convenience for me. Lately, I’ve just been opening the files directly in VLC, because Remmina is refusing to connect to my media server, and I can’t be arsed to figure out why.
Old school is still the most sacred path.
People are saying switch to jellyfin, which I’m all for. But you’re expecting a service which will make remote access easy like Plex ur kinda fucked.
I mean if have to set up wireguard or whatever for Jellyfin you could just do the same for Plex?
Again go to jellyfin either way, proprietary software can suck my gurl cawk, but either way you need a VPN or open ports.
You can use a VPS to make it accessible without VPN via the internet: codeberg.org/skjalli/jellyfin-vps-setup
Oh yeah no you can rent out a vps and use it as a VPN/router appliance. I’ve done that before for other projects, just figured it seemed a lil overkill here.
Then you are vulnerable to all the security holes jellyfin has left open for years
Have to check their backlog then. I hope I’ve secured it enough. Even if someone gets into the system they should only be able to view the media I mount into the docker container and the logs. So hopefully nothing harmful.
yeah we primarily watch on a Samsung TV through a PS5. I’m not seeing any alternatives for either device. I might be able to slap together a desktop from spare parts but I’m not sure I want to start maintaining a whole other computer.
Probably time to make a switch either way, what with them paywalling HDR and h.265
Cloudflare tunnel and a domain name will stream Jellyfin to any device while delivering a decent amount of safety.
Can you elaborate? I’ve been trying to find a way to expose jf to the Internet safely without a VPN, and I’m getting mixed messages from people.
I just got a cloudfare domain the other day actually.
It depends on how you’re hosting Jellyfin. The easiest and most common way is via Docker in some form. You can also install a docker image of Cloudflare tunnel making sure it’s on the same virtual network as Jellyfin (I think it will by default). However you’re running Jellyfin, Cloudflare tunnel will need to be able to reach your local Jellyfin install.
Create a tunnel in the Cloudflare zero trust dashboard, create or edit the config file for your Cloudflare tunnel install using the code string from the zero trust dashboard, your tunnel will attempt to connect to the Cloudflare servers, when it does, you have a secure tunnel. Then you can add hostnames on the zero trust dashboard, using your local IP addresses and ports. For example, jellyfin.yourdomain.com points to 192.168.1.10:8096. The tunnel connects your local IP to the routing from your domain.
Be careful to not open this up to apps that don’t have security in some form at least. There are ways to improve security on your tunnel end with SWAG and such. And I recommend turning on the security tools in Cloudflare so your domain can’t be accessed outside of your country at the least, and maybe even whitelisting IP addresses for even more security.
SpaceInvaderOne on YouTube has a good video on creating a Cloudflare tunnel via Unraid. But everything is much the same in regular docker. I’m sure there’s good videos on doing it however you’re hosting Jellyfin. Feel free to reach out with questions, I’ll gladly help if I can.
thanks for this
Amazing thank you, when I get time to sit down with this I will probably have more questions!
It’s against Cloudflare TOS to stream video.
At all? Even just using their reverse proxy?
It’s against tos to stream video you don’t own the rights to
Unless you host the videos with them an use their Stream solution yes.
Well that’s annoying.
Forgive me for my ignorance, I know a lot of services are bundled in their domain registration. I haven’t looked into it at all. But I’m assuming I can just bypass all of that and host ngnx?
It is against Cloudflare TOS to stream video through them.
No it’s not. It used to be. They removed that part of the TOS about video streaming back in 2023.
I’m assuming you don’t just stream home made movies
Stemming pirated Covent is against tos
Who’s to say what content I stream. You do you, boo.
It’s not completely gone, it’s just that now they offer you a way to do it, here’s some doc about it:
Source: blog.cloudflare.com/updated-tos/
Source: …cloudflare.com/…/delivering-videos-with-cloudfla…
In short, streaming videos hosted on your server is still against TOS, but they now offer a thing called Stream where you can host videos to be streamed without violating it.
That’s for the CDN. It’s about serving static, cached content faster. I actually tried to pay and use their Stream service, but it’s only to be used for serving video in a web page. While they’ve not directly clarified on the topic (even after being asked directly in the forums several times), don’t turn on caching and it appears to serve the language they’ve used in the updated TOS. I’m not a lawyer here, but parse that all as you will. Don’t take up storage on their CDN and they seem to be happy. I actually did buy some domain names through them to make sure I’m not just using their services without giving anything back. But, that’s a matter of conscience.
A cheap streaming stick might work
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I prefer a VPN for this sorta thing because its a bit more hardened.
Nginx is a good reverse proxy for my publicly available hosts.
No I understand the benefits of open source software but this isn’t just a feature you can code in. Without portfords to the server, a VPN, or a reverse proxy, jellyfin would have to start hosting a service.
Is it technically feasible? I guess but seems like its both out of scope and not in the interest of the developers since the last thing they want probably want to get caught in is hosting streaming relays for everyone free of charge.
Technically literate people could host the relays.
HD/4K video streams eat bandwidth like a motherfucker. Gonna have to find some rich hobbiests for that.
I guess someone could start a nonprofit but you’re more likely to do that for the developers themselves first.
My point is if you’re paying anyone, it should be the maintainers and members of an open source project. But I’ve seen people host many other high bandwidth things for free so who knows.
I use tailscale for accessing my home network remotely, it was a super easy setup
Wouldn’t that count as a VPN, albeit one run on someone else’s machine?
Yea, I should’ve clarified, was just throwing out a simple option if anyone hadn’t heard of that yet, it was easier than setting up openvpn or something on my router. You can also self host Headscale on your machine if you want to have more control over it.
I’ve been thinking of messing with the FOSS tailscale implementations
Unfortunately most smart TVs lack a Tailscale app, so it’s not always possible.
Also, my mom doesn’t know what Tailscale is. She just want to watch movies
Fair. I’m the only one that uses my jellyfin server. It’s usually streaming to my local TV, or laptop if I’m traveling. Working on a portable mini lab right now too, travel router + raspberry pi
This doesn’t really affect my household. My wife, my daughter, and I all have lifetime PlexPasses.
That said, this level of enshitification has me wishing there were options (yes I know about Emby and Jellyfin and I’ve investigated both more than once) but they have me ensnared by PlexAmp and Sonos integration. I’ve been around since before anyone had even seen the letters MP3 strung together, and I have never had a music player as capable as PlexAmp.
Plexamp is honestly amazing. I’m investigating finamp, but I know it won’t be as nice. Them killing off the tidal integration did help the decision a bit though
I strongly recommend symfonium on android. Plexamp is a really polished app but I found the handling of downloaded files quite poor, I don’t think you can even search downloads when you’re offline? (other bonus to symfonium is it supports jellyfin and sources, in case you were to ever fully move away from plex)
I started looking at Symfonium some time ago, but something killed my interest. Maybe it’s time to revisit it.
The tidal thing didn’t bother me, as my music collection is relatively large. But yeah PlexAmp is truly an extraordinary bit of software.
I am very fortunate in that before Plex I found and used ps3 media server/universal media server. Because of that, it always felt odd paying just to stream my own content on my own hardware. I am certainly not against paying developers, but Plex always felt like paying for another service, not donating to an awesome Dev cause I love what they do. Another reason I stopped using Plex, I couldn’t get anyone but myself to give a dam and use Plex, (suddenly, when NETFLIX gets The Last Air Bender, NOW my sibling wants to binge watch it. 🙁). Jellyfin has served me just fine so far, it fucks up only in the same situation plex did, when I try watching with someone else.
Your users are getting that because they have a plex account that they use to stream. They might stream from just you, but they could stream from any other shared server they’re connect to. That’s why they get this email.
If you have a plex pass and are a server owner, they can ignore this and keep streaming from you for free.
If they try to stream from a server owner who does not have plex pass, it won’t work unless the user themselves have a plex watch pass, which let’s them stream from any server that doesn’t have plex pass.
Since you have plex pass, your users won’t be impacted at all.
This. Only the server owner needs a plexpass.
It’s a very confusing and poorly worded email. My users were equally confused. Not everyone is techy or even deeply aware of how Plex even works. Nor should they be expected to.
The message was designed to confuse and extract money from people who don’t know better. It’s trashy and they should be ashamed.
That said, I’m still using Plex for the time being.
How would you have worded it differently? Since the email needs to be sent because the person is losing a feature (they might not use it because they only stream from you, but they might stream from someone else, so they should be made aware of it)
For starters, they say “you MAY be affected” only once, maybe twice, and everywhere else they say you “will” need to buy the upgrade.
The whole thing could’ve been worded more carefully and cautiously. They know how their service is used, they know the majority of people with accounts are not hosts and never have been, and probably don’t even understand how it all works.
Not only could the whole message have been worded better, more softly. They could’ve used two templates. They have usage metrics, they could see that my user has never ever connected to any other library, only mine, and mine has always had Plex pass. They could’ve sent him a softball message, informing of the lost feature, sure, but assuring him that his service should remain unaffected because the libraries he’s connected to already have Plex pass.
But no. They sent one message, full of FUD, trying to scare people into buying what they don’t need, because money.
They do not care about users, they care about money. It’s been getting more and more clear over the years with no effort put into fixing bugs on the self hosted side. But now it’s crystal clear, to me anyway.
Thank you for posting this. I thought it was just me.
In my case, one user actually lost access entirely to my libraries, the updated app was trying to force him to buy a personal pass, even though I have a Plex pass.
I had him reset his app and clear cache, to no avail. I ended up having to REMOVE his access to my libraries, and then reshare them to him, before he could access them again.
He was quite upset at Plex during the entire process.
Then the next day, he got this same email, and was frustrated all over again thinking he was gonna have to fight it again.
Really terrible customer service here, very sloppy. Aside from the fact that this is a greedy cash grab, it’s just being done poorly.
Jellyfin still isn’t feature packed enough for me to switch to, unfortunately.
What’s missing from Jellyfin for you?
I’m going to migrate over soon personally. I canceled my plex pass instead of upgrading to lifetime a few months ago because I felt like Plex was going to go down enshittification alley soon. I haven’t used Jellyfin much though, so not sure what to expect at this point. I don’t have a lot of users luckily
Public exposure to the Internet without needing tailscale or a VPN. I keep hearing mixed opinions on whether it’s recommended or not.
I’m not afraid of configuring it, reverse proxy and all that. I just want it to be secure, and I keep getting mixed signals.
For now I’ll keep dealing with Plex, but eventually I’m sure I’ll need to figure out a solution using jellyfin.
Ah, personally I just figured I’d use wireguard. I have few enough users that a bit of setup isn’t a huge issue. No way I’d want to expose it completely publicly, same with any other home servers I run.
The public availability without open ports is indeed a strength of Plex.
Personally, I think setting up a reverse proxy for accessing Jellyfin would be fine, just make sure you’ve got your firewall setup accordingly to limit exposure should someone gain access to the container/VM running Jellyfin
Thanks, I’m hearing similar things in this thread. I’m gonna look into it
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’m getting a lot of vitriol here from people saying “Well your users are idiots”, or other angry things. No, my users are family members, and not everyone needs a degree in CS to be able to connect to a Plex server. A few of them are elderly. The email was misleading to them, on purpose. It threw many of them into a flurry. The whole thing was handled terribly by a company who keeps going out of their way to make it difficult for them already to simply watch my server.
I’d suggest trying Jellyfin out again. Personally I was in the same boat even just over a year ago, I wasn’t impressed, but it’s come a long way. It’s absolutely not as polished as Plex, but if you can look past that I’m finding most of the features I need are there.
Yeah, odd response from this community. Entirely unexpected.
I plan on looking into it again, if nothing else than to have a backup when Plex finally does completely crap the bed.
Which I agree, this is pretty close, but I’m not there yet.
I’m glad you posted this because I thought I was alone too, I searched for and didn’t find anyone with this problem. Almost made a post here, but decided I didn’t want the abuse haha.
After posting, I get that deep now
I find the server part of Jellyfin to work pretty well and I love that it provides some features you would have to pay to get on Plex (skip intro/credits for instance). The clients on the other hand, specially for tvOS and the fact that you can’t install it from the store on Samsung TVs, are really what’s making it difficult for me to switch.
That’s good to hear. I honestly haven’t tried it yet, I need to. The problem is exposing it to the Internet without a VPN.
Clients don’t concern me, from what I understand it works on Roku and you can stream from your phone to a Chromecast, that’s all my users need.
I refuse to use any TVs built in smart features 🤷♂️
Yeah it “works” on LG TVs but only if I don’t use SSL, possibly due to the (perfectly valid) LetsEncrypt certificate in my case.
That’s not a huge deal for my LAN access but it’s still pretty dumb. It would be nice if more devices properly supported it.
What features are you looking for? Jellyfin plays movies just fine, what else do you need?
Remote access, primarily.
And not with a VPN, but properly exposed to the Internet. I’m learning now that it can be done, just has to be done carefully. It’s on my list of things to look into.
I don’t use either but have wanted to get into them. What’s jellyfin missing?
I haven’t used jellyfin, only Plex. I hear they are similar in features, with Plex pulling ahead both in features and polish, as well as the variety of apps that can access it.
Jellyfins main problem, for me, is its lack of easy remote access. Lots of configuring to do to make it work safely, or safe but clunky to use with a VPN.
The more users on Jellyfin the better shot it has at getting more developer attention and users willing to contribute financially even if just occasional one off donation. How it goes with any open source application. More users, more developer interest, more feedback from users, subset of users willing to financially support the project
i love jellyfin. been very good to me so far!
Oh no a paid, proprietary, piece of shit software does something shitty. Who could’ve ever saw this coming?!
I’ve said it for years anytime anyone mentioned running a Plex server. As soon as you install that on your server or your homelab it’s no longer your server. Proprietary software is malware
B-b-b-but my convenience!!!
I hope more people realise this.
If it’s not Open Source, I don’t want it
The worst part for me was reading that they monitor everything you do, and what you streams and who looks at your stuff.
Wtf
“On 21 May 2008, XBMC developer Elan Feingold forked the source code of XBMC and started a new project called Plex”
GPL v2 source.
They’ve long been suspected of being greedy lil GPL violaters.
trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/2974
Another reason donating to FOSS is better than paying for proprietary software. Proprietary software devs get to run around stealing whatever code they like from the open-source community and never suffer any consequence because they don’t make their source available. I can think of a select few proprietary projects that have the balls to be source-available.
If you want to intentionally create a system that lets you evade accountability for stealing code, “fine”, but I have zero respect for you or your product, and I’m certainly not paying you a dime. I’ll put my money toward the developers who work to better the world instead of the rat fucks who steal from them to make money and pollute the software ecosystem with proprietary trash.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/6709fa5b-f525-4dd3-b583-29888a733931.png">
Wasn’t expecting to see that.
People use Plex?
Open Source
I have plex set up with cloudflare tunnels, with the url configured in plex under
Settings > Network > Custom server access URLs, does this mean that my users will no longer be able to view content inside the plex app or app.plex.tv? The enshittification is realIf the host has Plex pass other accounts dont need it to watch, iirc.
I saw that in the email. I’ll be switching to jellyfin or emby before I give Plex my precious schmeckles to unlock a feature that doesn’t cost them any money.
I love Plex and will continue using it. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass years ago for and have no regrets. My Plex Pass means none of my watchers have to worry about paying anything.
Woosh ? Thats literally the proble. thr OP referred to,he to has a Plexpass and his watchers are being notified.
My apologies for not coming back and reading all the comments left after mine to find that OP responded to a comment with that info. I stand by my original comment. His watchers should be notified. How do you or OP know that those watchers don’t steam content from other servers that don’t have a Plex Pass? Or did I miss that info buried in a response to a response too? 🙄
Dropped this for jellyfin years ago
Same. Plex is wack
I’ve had them side by side in preparation for this day.
Us jigglers tend to prefer jelly
Indeed we do. Big fan of your work btw.
Its my honor
What’s the jellyfin experience like nowadays?
It is still more spartan than plex, more of a media library serving framework only. However even people who aren’t particularly well adjusted to tech (like my 75 yo mom), don’t seem to have an issue using it once it is set-up, and younger people with marginal tech expertise seem to be able to set up a server, and clients, with a little time on google. People complain about it not working on a lot of smart TV OSs, but I have not run into this, at least with the most popular ones, Roku, WebOS, TVOS, Google tv, Samsung, Vizio, however I have not tried it with an Apple TV. The biggest complaints I have personally received are mostly secondary features like polished library management interfaces.
Jellyfin users have been warning about such things for a long time, but very few actually listened. Well, here we are, hope more people migrate now
Uninstalled. I don’t mind as much for sharing my library but if I have to pay to stream MY OWN SERVERS CONTENT using your service, that’s a hard pass. My homes all use jellyfin now
thats closed software 101 now, hook us then make us pay if only there was something that was always free forever
I feel like people getting mad at this shit don’t even use plex. I run my server on lifetime pass. Have it on my Nas with overseer, radarr, sonarr, all that shit. Just a couple of months of not having subscriptions for me and my family pays for plex. If you log on plex once a month this shit ain’t for you to worry about.
Some pretty easy work arounds.
Edit: Okay since I got the downvote. The easiest way to overcome this garbage is to make it appear that all traffic is coming from the local network. This is really trivial these days. Just use a a tunnel/vpn. I recommend wireguard for how simple the client operates. The client is available for many platforms including crapple devices and android.
Use jellyfin, it’s much better. Also do not kill Elon Musk and Donald Trump, as much as they may deserve death.
Did you know, It’s illegal to say…
2nd amendment is the only check and balance left and the idiots need to realize this within a month before it’s too late.
Martial law and gestapo raids were just legalised against anyone.
Ditched this crapware for Jellyfin several years ago. Glad I did. It’s been great.
I bought Plex Pass when it was $75 for the lifetime option.
I prefer Jellyfin, but sharing is harder for family members with it because I can’t get them to just log in without existing credentials (Google Account, Apple ID, etc). Trying to convince my 67 year old mother-in-law to enter a URL, username, and password into an app with a remote is like asking my child to eat broccoli.
For now, I’ll keep running dual stack with both. If Plex pulls lifetime passes, even though it’ll be a PITA, I’ll convert everyone to Jellyfin despite the pain.
One other sad thing of Jellyfin is that you can’t access multiple server at once with a unified view
Also true
I can’t even get my mother in law to use Plex tbh
Enshittification marches on.
What’s Plex’s use case? Why not just mpv locally?
It’s useful to have one of your friends host a home server and share all the movies with your friends. Then you can watch from the smart tv
Plex sucks but jellyseer, the *arr stack and jellyfin are all open source and entirely free. Together they provide an experience almost as straightforward as any commercial streaming platform: find a media on jellyseerr and request it with a single click. A few minutes* later the media is available in Jellyfin, and you can watch it on your computer, smartphone, smart TV, …
*with Usenet and a good internet connection
Plex (originally) and Jellyfin are a centralized way of managing your media with aesthetic and easy to use interfaces. I have one Jellyfin server and I have a Netflix/Display+ type interaction with my media. I have the same content on my phone, wife’s phone, my desktop, laptop, my TV, etc.
All watch history, recommendations, up next queue, and so on.
And with the right setup (Wireguard in my case) I can access that content from anywhere.
So let me get this straight: you own the content, you host the content on your machine, you pay the electricity and internet and plex says it can’t afford to let you share it to others without a subscription fee?
I mean making plex a one time fee if it’s good turnkey solution is fine but subscription…
I am also a Plex pass person. Multiple times over in fact. I actually have a dedicated account for my server administrator that’s separate from the account I use to watch content. Both have Plex pass lifetime.
I’ve been familiar with this coming down the pipeline for a while and because I have Plex pass, I too, am unaffected, as are my users.
At the same time: here is a piece of software that I paid for. It’s “server” software, sure, but it’s just a software package. What it does isn’t really relevant. The fact is that it processes data stored on my systems, processing by my systems, using my hardware, and sends that data over the Internet, using the Internet connection I pay for separately, and delivers that data directly to the people I’ve designated as capable of doing so.
The only part of this process that Plex, the company, has any involvement in, is limited to: issuing an SSL certificate, managing user accounts and passwords, and brokering where to find data (pointers to my systems).
You can get a free SSL certificate from let’s encrypt. User accounts, authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA), is a function of pretty much everything that you remotely connect to, whether a Windows SMB/cifs share, your email, even logging into your own local computer regardless of OS… And honestly, brokering the connection isn’t dissimilar to how torrent trackers work, DNS or a goddamned IP address punched into a browser.
They’re offering shockingly little for what they’re asking, and the only thing that’s on the list that would be costly in the slightest is having a DNS name for the server (registration of the domain, DNS services, etc). And given the scale that they’re doing these things at, the individual costs per name is literally pennies per year.
This is not a good look at all.
I have domain names coming out of my ears. I’m tempted to buy one more and just offer to anyone that wants it, to have a subdomain name under that to run their Plex alternative on, so you can get a let’s encrypt SSL certificate, and stay safe on the Internet. I don’t want the feds snooping into what totally legal Linux ISOs are being shared.
I just don’t know how to program at all, so I have no idea how I would go about setting up a system for that. The concept would be to automate it, and have people create an account, then request a DNS name under one of my DNS domains, and have a setting if you want it to have an A record, AAAA record, or cname (if you have a ddns setup). Once the request is in, it would connect to be DNS provider and add the record for you.
The part I’d want to have as a check on the system is to make sure that you’re hosting jellyfin or something from the address you submit, to prevent people from using it for unrelated purposes; but even with that… Do I care of people do that? Probably not. I would limit how many addresses you can have per account.
Lot of words to say you don’t know how a business works or how much it costs…
I have a very good knowledge of business operations.
They already offered Plex pass to earn their income. Plex is an extremely price elastic product, given that alternatives like jellyfin exist. They are taking features away, and charging people if they don’t want to lose those features. That’s a really good way to piss off your existing userbase (or customer base). Better would be to offer something new, and charge for that. Keep existing products at the same cost, but have “better” products at a premium. You won’t get a huge number of people buying the extended product, but it will likely be more new paying users than how many you would get with the crap they’re doing now, and they wouldn’t lose any customers in the process.
When you understand the social and economic factors here, this is a super idiotic move. When you’re only looking at how many dollars you can extract from the customer base, this is a golden idea… I mean, it will fail, but it looks golden if you’re only looking at the money numbers.
I would question whether you know how a business works (or whether Plex does, for that matter).
As far as I’m concerned, Plex failed to read the room. They were already walking a fine line with the people in a legal grey area, which comprised a good amount of their customer base (those that are sharing media at least). There’s a nontrivial number of people who share media that are rather paranoid with reason. Nobody wants the RIAA/MPAA to have any reason to investigate what you are doing on the Internet. We all know how well that goes from the whole Napster thing. So now than a few are almost tinfoil hat level of paranoid. Many have already jumped ship to jellyfin or something similar. The rest are either unconcerned, not paying attention, or simply don’t care. I would argue that the numbers of people who run servers currently that host content using Plex, that are not looking at alternatives because of this, is pretty damned low.
Plex alienated the group that brought everyone into their umbrella. When the people who host media entirely abandon their product because of this shit, their client base vaporizes.
Can’t have a product or company with no clients. At least, not for long.
I’ll trust my MBA and decades of industry experience over an unreasoned gut feeling of everything should be free and developers shouldn’t get paid. And please cite the data indicating the number of users who host Plex servers that are not looking for alternatives is pretty damn low. A few folks in a fediverse echo chamber does not a user base make.
I think the most salient point here is it is indeed increasingly uncomfortable to put content in a plex server due to the increasing likelihood this telemetry makes it to MPAA/RIAA types and that will definitely be a self inflicted wound from a double barreled shit shotgun for Plex.
I have two pieces of paper from my time in post-secondary education. One says information technology, the other says business. I’ve worked in an IT field for well over 10 years in a B2B capacity. I’ve had to handle cost/benefit and ROI arguments with customers, and justify having them spend incredible amounts for their own good.
Are we done dick measuring about what we think we know?
Listen, we’re not going to agree on this. I couldn’t give any fewer shits if you do or not. Bluntly, I’m unbothered.
Good day to you sir.
You have had one of the more reasonable outlooks of this. I get that most of this stuff is fairly advanced for the average person who may be wanting to host, but anymore with letsencrypt, if you can port forward and spin up a container to run a plex server… you’re pretty close to just doing everything yourself. I don’t know why Plex feels the need to charge for “remote streaming” when from what I can tell, the most they’re doing is pointing a client at my server. As I said in other comments, it seems like a fancy dynamic DNS service, which is like, pennies for a multi year subscription. (Because it really doesn’t do much)
It really doesn’t do much and the cost is barely pennies per user when you operate at scale. The largest costs will be for the DNS resolver service and the domain registration, both of which you are already required to have, in order to have a functioning presence on the Internet. The cost of the issuing intermediate certificate is probably the largest single cost of the whole operation.
To be fair to Plex, they run some intermediary (caching) metadata servers to offload the demand their users put on services like the tvdb and IMDb. Honestly, is probably not required… But they do it. (I’ve seen their caching system fail more often than either site, so, it’s not all good), but even with that, you can put most of that load into your existing webhost, and it’s unlikely to make an impact on performance.
When you do this stuff at scale, the costs of simply having it set up, usually cover the costs of using it for thousands, if not tens of thousands of users.
Been on Plex for years, I will be fully migrated to Jellyfin by the end of the week
I started on Plex and even considered a lifetime Plex pass, but I felt like it was more interested in showing their content than my content. It was a lot of effort just to show music and movies.
My family and I use jellyfin every day now, and a key thing is it starts off boring but it shows your music, your movies, your books, your photos.
For folks who migrate who were paying, consider a donation to projects you make heavy use of. They don't usually have big companies behind them and can use the help.
Exactly how I’ve felt. I paid for a pass a long time ago, when they were actively making features for us server owners - but lately it’s been a good 80-90% of their crap content and very little for server owners. I’m not even upset about their content really, it’s just they blately have ignored everything else. It’s shifted, and so I have to as well.
The business model here is to basically paywall one user sharing (probably) pirated content with another person?
I can’t imagine how that could go tits-up for them in court
I’m sure their TOU moves all risk and liability to the users, so if anyone is getting sued, it’ll be the users.
The more likely outcome is that Plex just loses most of their users, since pirates (the majority of Plex users) won’t be willing to pay to access the content they already pirated.
Do you guys know a way on jellyfin to download media to the phone in lower quality/ less storage intense? This is the only thing I miss in my jellyfin instance
Not really a big deal for me but I looked around and couldn’t find anything sadly. My media is generally 2k with a larger phone it hasn’t hit me to hard to switch seasons in and out (as they allow bulk downloads of seasons). Certainly would be a good feature I’d say!
There are several third-party clients that you could try, depending on which OS you are using
I tried Streamyfin on android but that one is not working. Can you recommend something for android?
I don’t use it on Android, sorry
I don’t see this talked about much anymore, but the day Plex added telemetry in 2017 was the day I became five-alarm desperate for an alternative. Had to wait a 2-3 years with Plex’s telemetry IP’s and domains blacklisted before Jellyfin was mature enough for me to make the change.
How Plex users can be comfortable with any telemetry is beyond me.
Not everyone cares that much. I don’t.
Heloooooo Jellyfin!
How does this affect people who bought the lifetime service back in 2010?
.
It doesn’t, even when you share the Server, your users will be able to stream remotely.
“Your friends” hahaha good joke
Should have use libre software from the start my guy! Jellyfin / Kodi let’s go
As someone, who started with jellyfin, I never saw the reasons for the existence of Plex. There is no difference and people pay for it?
Hey Plex users, save your money and buy a coffee for the jellyfin team!
There are several differences. Let alone the fact that Plex existed first and therefore people have been using it since before jellyfin was created.