AppleTV hardware now supports Tailscale, with exit nodes.

I am astonished that Apple allowed this blatant circumvention of region coding, but they did.

Get it while it’s hot, I guess.

23 points

You want to explain more about your experience, or just leave everyone guessing here?

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11 points

You can now install Tailscale on AppleTV. Tailscale is a sort of personal VPN service that allows you to directly connect your personal devices to each other over the internet. tvOS 17 added support for VPNs to run on Apple TV.

What this means in the case of AppleTV region coding:

If for example, you have a computer at home that’s running tailscale, and you take your AppleTV with you while on vacation in let’s say, Egypt, you can set Tailscale on your AppleTV to use the Tailscale node on your home computer as an exit node, and you’ll be able to stream Hulu on that AppleTV in your hotel in Egypt normally because the traffic is tunneling through your computer back home in the US, and it thinks that’s where you’re located.

Normally with commercial VPNs, that wouldn’t work because Hulu/Netflix/etc have a list of IP addresses associated with VPN services, and so they’d detect youre connected to that VPN and block you from using it. But in the case of tailscale, the IP address they see is that of your computer back home, so they don’t think you’re connected to a VPN.

This can also theoretically help get around Netflixes password sharing restrictions, because if the account owner runs an exit node on their AppleTV, and the other password sharers set their AppleTVs to use that owners AppleTV as their exit node, Netflix will think the logins are all coming from the same IP address located in one place.

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2 points

This can also theoretically help get around Netflixes password sharing restrictions

This is the interesting bit here. I assume others will follow in Netflix’s steps shortly (Netflix made a fuckton of money from this) but this would also help you circumvent this crackdown with your Apple subscription…

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2 points
*

This post specifically mentioned Tailscale only, does it now also allows WireGuard installation?

EDIT: Other comments says it does, so not Tailscale only. The post should have just mention VPN instead of Tailscale.

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14 points
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Removed by mod
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11 points

If you have experience with Jellyfin and don’t mind me asking, if i have Plex pass is there any reason to switch to Jellyfin? I have never even looked at Jellyfin but i keep seeing people talk about it as a Plex replacement.

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16 points

If you haven’t run into any concrete issues with Plex and don’t mind the cost, there’s probably no reason to switch.

Reasons I switched:

  • I didn’t like it when Plex asked to control my user accounts. It allows them to cut me off whenever they want, for any reason. It also prevents me from using my own server in my own home if my internet connection drops, even if my server and my network are still working.
  • Plex can have issues with some VPN setups.
  • They kept moving more and more features that used to be free to paid accounts only.
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3 points

@lemmyvore @Kbobabob
I didn’t sign up for Plex when I realized I had to pay to use media on my own network. I can use many other media players that don’t cost anything.

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2 points

Well cost is not a factor for me. I’m a lifetime Plex pass member. Probably why i didn’t notice a lot of what people are mentioning about Plex. I don’t use it a ton really anymore as i don’t watch a ton of TV and kids are grown.

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10 points

The biggest reason for me was that Jellyfin is fully open source.

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6 points

The second reason for me was advertising inside Plex, and generally a UI focused on what they want me to see instead of what I want to do. Jellyfin isn’t a commercial product so it won’t get enshittified over time.

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2 points

i should give jellyfin another shot, its been some years. When i tried it last, it was not a nice experience. But i refused to use plex after it required login for even offline access (i wonder how many people remember that. If you lost internet access, you couldnt watch plex)

so i switched to Emby, which is still closed source, but didnt have the bullshit plex requirements. The advantage was [sic] that being closed it could offer proprietary stuff like codecs or DTS. (dts and similar were only available on plex and on nVidia TV device)

Everything i do (as much as possible) is oss, but some things just cant.

Ill try jellyfin again in the next month or so and see how its doing.

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1 point

That’s actually how I went, through Plex, then Emby and now Jellyfin since last reinstall, with a brief detour through Servio.

I don’t begrudge Emby for trying to make money but it leaves a bad taste when a project starts at open source, builds up features on volunteer work, then takes those features behind paywall. And at the end of the day the Emby experience is not that much more polished than Jellyfin, which is ridiculous. At least Plex offers a smooth experience for the money.

Servio is very basic compared to these three but some people like that about it. If you don’t want to bother with any niceties and just want something where you dump files and play them it might be for you.

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1 point

Plex has been more and more pushing their personal shit into your UI over the years.

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1 point

Yeah, I noticed they added some stuff and annoyingly tried putting it first. I just hid the crap i didn’t want. The live TV actually has a lot of options. I don’t really watch much TV these days but there’s been plenty to choose from so far. I think having the lifetime Plex pass makes it different.

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1 point
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If you run a Jellyfin server you can connect to it from the AppleTV via the Infuse or Swiftfin apps.

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1 point

Can connect with Infuse to your server, swiftfin has a ways to go to be ready for primary use

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3 points

Apple TV doesn’t support VPN apps?

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11 points

TV OS 17 adds VPN support.

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1 point

@Moonrise2473 Tailscale is literally a VPN app.

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1 point

ah ok, because the way you phrased that looked like it slipped apple approval process as this kind or stuff is not permitted

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0 points

@Moonrise2473 VPN apps are supported as of TvOS 17. Tailscale is one of the first

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