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Comment by copperx | Hacker News Reader

Tailscale also runs on Android TV. If you don't have an Apple TV and want a cheap device just to have an exit node, you can buy a $20 Android TV thingy.

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Beware that a lot of cheap Android TV boxes come pre-loaded with heaps of malware. You don't want them in your network.

Linus Tech Tips has a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vpepaQ-VQQ&themeRefresh=1

That's true. However, Walmart's $20 Onn 4k Streaming Box has no malware, apparently.

I abandoned the Google TV thingy because it was great when it was new a year or so ago, but now after all the updates it frequently stutters when playing media from Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, etc. Apple TV is silky smooth and works perfectly.

At $200, it was 4x the price, though.

The expensive Nvidia Shield Pro is dogshit as well for streaming performance at $150-200. Ridiculous.

Works great for me?

You're the first one I've read that has had issues with streaming performance on the Nvidia Shield. I have the non-Pro nvidia shield and its been rock solid for streaming external content and local content. Including 4k. I even ran it as a plex server for a while. Are you using wireless or plugged into ethernet?

It’s most likely just because of new codecs. If you got a newer cheap device it would probably not stutter (until the next round of codecs, but Apple TV requires the same upgrades)

I don't think so, x264 and x265 haven't changed in the past 12 months, or even the last 2+ years. My suspicion is Elgoog releases Android system updates without thoroughly testing them on existing released hardware.

My friends have Apple TVs that don't stutter, for 3+ years.

If it were my machine I’d also investigate the audio streams. Audio decoding can be surprisingly heavy

It … kind of does, but if you filter the reviews by "TV" you'll see there's quite a few issues with it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tailscale..... Not sure why the back button issue hasn't been fixed, that makes it very inconvenient to set up. (Also: are you sure it can be used as an exit node? That wasn't supported a few months ago.)

Why, apparently it finally does - since when? Last time I checked, I'd have to sideload it on my Nvidia shield?

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