Sideloading apps on iOS has gotten a lot easier. I use sideloadly. It has to connect to your computer (wirelessly) once a week but does this automatically in the background. I’m still running Apollo, the best Reddit iOS app this way.

I have YT premium through Sri Lanka for $3/mo. Sponsorblock works in safari.

ROM apps like delta are in the App Store now. I have no idea about phone gaming otherwise.

Never ran into any content filtering.

If your gf uses iOS try it out there first and see how you like it.

New iPhones release on a pretty strict schedule each September so even if you don’t want the new model best to wait for older ones to be discounted.

This will be an unpopular answer but I use Nordvpn mainly because during Black Friday sales you can get it essentially for free using a cash back portal. The start of the sale last year, which I missed, was offering over 100% cash back. They’d pay you to use it!

Others are better but if the level of protection you’re looking for is “Comcast stop sending me piracy warnings” this’ll work.

It does seem unlikely Plex would include this ever. Hate their generic pivot to ad supported bs. But as a lifetime sub to Plex I’m riding it down.

I hear jellyfin supports plugins which is one step easier.

At home I watch on an Apple TV with a nas running isponsorblock. Works well but is a single device/location solution. And I am still paying for YouTube premium.

Interesting. Just need it to work on a server with an interface as effortless as sonarr.

What if I want to watch on my tv or download for offline use?

Yep. Add to the server with ads and sponsor bs removed.

Interesting. I’d not considered that Plex could build it in. That of course relies on accurate YouTube metadata but it’s not impossible.

Arr software for YouTube with Sponsorblock built in.

A way to use Sponsorblock on podcasts.

Would be great for commentary tracks too.

A quick googling says these are both shut down. RIP.

Anyone have a private tracker invite they’d share with me? Lidarr is the only arr I haven’t set up yet. Wouldn’t mind upgrading my library which I haven’t looked at since college.

Wow, never heard of cinemageddon but it sounds right up my alley. I host a weekly ‘bad’ movie watch party and am always looking for more sources.

I have fios and a media server nas. I have good upload ratio with 3 other private trackers if anyone would be kind enough to invite me I will seed.

Interesting. Detected the same way, audio scan? Maybe I need to finally try it out.

What sealed the deal for me was skip intro. Incredible feature I don’t believe any other option has.

Wait for lifetime memberships to go on sale if you can. There are a few sales a year. Usually on Black Friday.

As someone who setup his own nas over the pandemic I really like this approach. Needed a time intensive project to stay sane and I keep finding more useful things it can do.

Another thought I’ve had, plex has a skip intro feature. This works by scanning the audio from multiple episodes and showing the skip button when available. Maybe something like that could build up an ad library of the most obnoxious repetitive podcast ads and work across different podcasts. It wouldn’t work for unique self reads though.

I wish I had the technical knowledge to build something like this but I done even know where to begin.

IHeartradio is the worst. I have dropped off listening to podcasts I otherwise really like. Behind the bastards, anything Robert Evans does really. The ads are too bad.

I do wish that was more common. I have no problem with Patreon to remove the ads.

I love the idea of using AI for for ad skipping. Let it do something positive instead of just our jobs in the near future.

To add to this, some podcasts on certain networks dynamically insert ads based on your location, any other data they have on you. so the ads may be different length for different users, further complicating this.

Definitely a difficult problem still looking for a solution. thanks for your input.

I do support a few to get ad free versions but these are almost nonexistent. very few podcasts do this.