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Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss some of the new Amazon announcements, Elon Musk’s fortune, Apple’s TV+ news, Apple and leakers, and more.
Son in Houston, Texas listens to the free podcasts and asked: “I’m thinking about getting a Roku box, but then I saw there was a Roku TV. Which one should I get? If you can give me the pros and cons for each one, that would help make my decision better.”
Son, unless you want a new TV, just get the Roku box.
Roku TVs are nothing special, theyre literally just TVs with a Roku either built in, or in some cases literally just visibly connected the way you would connect it yourself under a little box or gate.
There are other smart TVs with their own proprietary smart features, if youre looking at those, dont.
Proprietary smart TV software, even from large and otherwise competent companies like Sony or Samsung, is usually terrible and its almost guaranteed to never get an update after the first year or so.
Thats a big problem because you wont just not get the latest, shiny, disposable streaming platform of the month, but you also wont get security updates on a device that is connected to the internet and has the potential of being the weak link in your security chain.
Getting a Roku TV or Roku box will get you around that problem and also get you a better day to day experience.
Pam – used the AskDave button on our site and asked: “What is the best security program to use in an HP Chromebook?”
Pam, the answer is none.
Chromebooks dont take external software except for Android apps. Android apps are sandboxed, so theyre useless for security.
That leaves you with the option of just running something that runs on the browser itself, but that would also be pretty much useless for a Chromebook.
Chromebooks are sold to be automatically updated when a new vulnerability is found, they barely store any local data, and no real software can be added to them, so they are by design safer devices than other computers.
Just make sure your Chromebook is updated and dont fall for phishing scams and you should be reasonably secure.
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