STOP Buying ANDROID TV Boxes!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
- Repower your devices with iFixit at iFixit.com/LTT
These Android TV boxes have been around just about as long as Android has. Odds are, you or someone you know has had one over the years. But beneath their crunchy Android exterior lies a deep, dark secret. What evils will befall you should you choose to bring such a device into your house? And what alternatives are there?
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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:56 Setup and initial danger
2:45 CoreJava
3:58 Weird Android
5:03 Can we make them useful?
6:55 At least they can do 4K, right?
7:22 Redeeming qualities?
8:21 Closing thoughts
9:16 Outro - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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Here in Brazil the government is cracking down hard in these. A school work on received a literal pallet of these boxes provided by the police to be repurposed for educational purposes.
Lulz, Brazil will get new customers then. Not even Nintendo chases the clone consoles in Latinamerica...
Was literally going to say this, my college project involves using a surplus of these as hardware, so far we've only had sucess with one model
dedo no cu e gritaria !
I work on an ISP and we receive a lot of complains of these boxes slugging or locking up. The box doesn't work and the client blame the ISP.
wait brazil is worried about Chinese products ???, i belived brazil was friendly towards china, and didnt mind the oppression and hostilities china is known for these days.
I work at a Internet Provider and we get contacted by server protection companies all the time from abuse reports in our network from home users. When we inspect what has happened, it is almost always one of these boxes that attempt to bruteforce or attack servers online. These boxes are part of toxic botnets and also use your IP address and network to perform illegal actions online and DDoS without the users knowledge
my wifi has been so bad with packet loss, my stepdad had one of these with an ethernet, he was kicked out recently and ever since ive had no issues with packet loss at all, i feel like the box couldve been using the connection to its advantage i would be running on 800mbps but 35% packet loss it made no sense
@@lanarms you were getting packet loss because there was interference from android box causing the Wi-Fi signal to be wonkey. Eating up bandwidth and throttling you doesn’t cause packet loss on game servers.
@@OmgHeDidntJustDoThat thankyou bro
@@OmgHeDidntJustDoThat if the android box is trying to pull more bandwidth than what they were subscribing to it will create packet loss. Once the buffer fills up those packets are dropped. Usually gaming and VOIP are the first to notice. Then streaming apps. Web browsing usually not because people try again and it works the second time.
@@lanarms sounds like it kept attempting to reach blacklisted IP, those things are made so horribly they just spew garbage on your ethernet, because they aren’t grounded
Love how the US government bans Huawei for supposedly national security reasons, but allows any god-knows-where is made android device that will be used at homes.
huawei is installed AT SCALE across the country because huawei can/will be bought by corporations, while god-knows-where devices are bought individually by users (limiting the reach)
@@Optimistas777 Again, that wouldn't make the ban make sense as you can simply ban corporations from buying Huawei, and it's not new for USA's government to do that.
American Spyware or Chinese Spyware pick one
Democracy or Autocracy
I like that after getting hacked LTT said, "let's buy as much malware as we can find!'
Probably was the cause of the attack n only just got this video through production
@@kevzz108 Linus stated what caused the attack in his video about it weeks ago. th-cam.com/video/yGXaAWbzl5A/w-d-xo.html
its easy to make an isolated wifi network and monitor it
Except he found nothing here. 10 minutes of pure speculation (minus the sponsored segments). Just Linus in another chapter of his crusade against China. "Tencent is bad, give your ass to Google and Nvidia instead".
@@sovo1212 Not true, what he said is a real problem. Not everything made in China is bad, but most of theese cheap (re)branded electronics have serious problems. Linus also bashes against Google and Nvidia and other western brands when they do something wrong. It's just less because stricter regulations and external quality controls prevent more bullsh*t. I think people and companies are equally bad around the globe, just the difficulty to f*ck other people up is different from country to country
The "legitimate 4k" Android TV's (so Google TV & Nvidida Shield) still also run the UI at 1920x1080. It's only videos that are passed through at 4k. The ADB command used in the video is just reporting the UI size & not the actual display resolution being sent out, so it doesn't actually mean much.
I was wondering when I would see someone else say this ^^
Yea I'm running Kodi on my Pi4 in 1080p60 because it's more responsive. Still able to run up to 4k30 video content. The device changes resolution and refresh rate on the spot.
Even the Xbox Series X|S does this. It's to save on performance and resources, reserving extra for content and games. I'd take a 1080p UI over a stuttery mess any day.
Thanks to bring up ANOTHER reason why this video is pure garbage. "Tencent is bad, give your ass to Google and Nvidia instead".
Apple TV 4K also does this to save on resources.
God bless you linustech. I had a feeling there was something wrong with these. Now it explains why they would flood the whole market with these. This is insane.
Made my day thx. 😁👍
Thatz what i was lookin for. Thx for sharin.
Fun fact, when you showed the screen grab from Walmart you were actually looking at Amazon's store still. Unless you select the filter to only show stuff sold by Walmart then it will mix in things sold on Amazon.
I work at Amazon and we have a few dedicated pack stations for Walmart items to make sure we only use generic packaging material and don't accidentally send a Walmart order out in an Amazon box and confuse the customer.
Walmart and best buy adding "marketplaces” is incredibly frustrating when you are trying to fine out if they have something locally.
@@forrest225 The "In-Store Item" check box doesn't exist in your browser? Your frustrating "problem" is fixed with basically less than minimal effort.
@Nick Bylsma maybe needing to take that action is frustrating to him, Nick. The effort required to fix it is irrelevant.
You also could have provided that information to him without the snark. Alternatively, you could've just not responded. Clearly, you get off on giving people a hard time.
I suggest a therapist.
Have a great day, Nick.
Edit: I could have not written could of if I would have. I probably should've. Thanks for making me a better person, grammar nazis.
@@vegant42 why are you crying so much? Jeez chill. He’s right, just select that box that’s it. If he can complain about that publicly, then other can complain about him, just like you’re complaining about him. You see how the internet works? Mr niceness gatekeeper. What is this? Communist China?
@@vegant42 also, you might need a therapist yourself if you think comments are giving hard times and you decide to go on rants and bully ppl. Get well
That is the kind of reviews the public needs.
Would be great if he makes one on cheap Android car stereos flooding the internet
Biased wooohooo USA, USA, USA? Edward Snowden would like a word with this biased nonsense.
Linus getting hit by viruses so we don't have to!
Except it's largely BS and shows lack of deeper knowledge
@@VincentFischer
-says it's largely BS
-doesn't further elaborate the claim
-leaves
yeah.... sure buddy.. retard
I've been using my old i5-5200U laptop as as repurposed media player for the past couple of years and it has served me brilliantly. I Am not aware of the 4K capabilities but I do not use a 4K display either, it is technically free and I know what I am running. Running Debian with a cheap wireless remote mouse+keyboard (plentiful on amazon) and if i ever wish to dabble on the dark side, I can run that risk without much of a hassle. I think for a lot of people, re-purposing an old computer or in some cases, even a mobile phone can be a great alternative to purchasing a device, and especially when you talk of 'manufactured e-waste', this can be a smack in the face if such too.
Laptops are great media players.. They can do everything..
While smartphones SoC is much more powerful than any of those from Amlogic, I don`t see how I can connect it to my monitor via HDMI. Not to mention a remote.
i be using a amd 2400g or 3400g ryzen i love that is like so good gpu wise and 100.00 or so for a running ebay hp elite desk is a great deal i suggest the one with dvd drive yea its bigger but better unit just stay away from lenovo they cpu lock the cpu so i ant buying it out of principle .and if sub 300 is your thing AMD 5700g 8 core units are floating around
what I think it's concern-able is how normal house networks are so unprotected by something that just connect to. That more testifies against our network than TV Boxes themselves.
What about if
- I don't log-in nothing important on TV box
- I put a dedicated hotspot just to TV Box
?
will it still can have privileged access to my main router? it can not be a problem without solution.
@@AfonsoBucco i guess guest access is for preventing things like getting access to control ur router, but I don't really know what modern hackers can do
@@AfonsoBucco It still can "steal" your resources, like mining cryptocurrencies, use your internet connection for sharing pirated files or be used as client for DDoS attack or be used as mail server to send spam. Your IP address could be "banned" for some illegal activities. Interesting article on this topic is "Abuse of Honeygain".
100% agree
Honestly that is the fault of consumers. They buy technology they do not understand and expect everyone else to be responsible for their security. Secondly, the market demands new things so quickly, that the previous tech never has time to be perfected.
Something scary is some of these units end up running in digital signage and on business networks.
I used to work for one such company who would send these out to customers. I was highly against it due to many of the things mentioned in this video. I was overruled of course as they were 'a cheap way to get an internet connected media player'. I did try to custom image one of the units to get a clean unit once but was stopped as 'there was no point'. I stopped working for them shortly after.
So yeah, some of these ended up in places they really should not have done, and have internet connectivity. The only place these belong is in the bin.
That really sucks, man.
Good job for standing up to them for potentially harming their consumer base.
Although I have to ask, if you can and if it won’t impact your future job opportunities: Where did you work that had such a scheme going on?
Also a previous digital signage worker. We toyed with android boxes, but we wanted a solution that could do 3 screen outputs for some of our clients, and none of them could do more than 2 at best. I was wary of the China branded cheap boxes, as well, but it's because of hardware inabilities and jank that the boss finally said no to them. Instead we went with masses of Pi4's.
I had one of these. Specifically the 'Tanix' one. Can this thing infect other devices in the network? Especially a windows PC
WIndows embedded now IoT can be stripped down to just be the minimum Windows boot environment and a single application. Digital Signage is a example deployment where you deploy it to boot to Edge in full screen kiosk mode with the no chrome switch. A min win install is less idea attack risk because it lacks the 99.9%of the attack surface of a full setup. I used a Windows server install in college in the min win install. You don't get explorer for a UI it logs on to command prompt and and is aimed at running single use servers that can't go down. Like DNS servers.
In malaysia(my country) some isp salesman offer these kind of android tv player for free to customers who sign up with them. These set boxes with pirated software built in is not legal here, but since the government is so hardworking here they do nothing to stop the sales and distribution of these units, they just say its illegal. You might faces criminal charges if captured though. But the chances of getting caught is 0.0000001% so yeah nobody actually cares. And my country loves free stuff and most of the people here doesnt know what a malware is.
Great work....your channel really has matured...
I was looking at cheap no-name Android TV boxes awhile back. But my main concern at the time was finding on which didn't just have drive by update support, so was only looking for one which had supported open-source firmware (either by a project or building the firmware myself). In the end, I didn't find anything and ended up buying a Tivo TV android box, figuring a well known company would [more] likely do a better job at product support. After getting it, I heard rumors they were going to ditch development of the devices (and support going with it). 😟 But so far I've been getting occasional updates. Down side it barely has enough storage for the OS. Installing additional apps on an external USB drive is a must.
Open source firmware sounds interesting, how would I get that on my laptop
Some SBCs like Raspberry and Orange Pi can run Android TV OSs
The worrying part of all this, is that a bunch of common devices that appear to be the same devices or slightly rebranded as this are used as streaming legal audio, media board controllers and even lighting control boards.
Same thing with those shitty 1000 + joystick game systems
@@ProximalGames ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
@@ProximalGames And 1000+ shitty in-car dash camera systems
i write this under here because the probability that you see this is way higher under the top comment.
these boxes in the video are trash, but the company orbsmart makes very good ones with really good hardware and software, in small formfactors.
Its why regulations and standardizations are so important to protect consumers, or every product would be like this
I made the mistake of buying a T95, and after using it twice, felt uneasy about what I had bought. I went back to Amazon, to check out reviews, and all the T95's like the one I bought have disappeared.
Welp
I didnt know they sell american military tanks on amazon now
I hate that Amazon feels like Aliexpress these days, so many categories flooded with garbage and you can only hope for the best when you order. That uneasy feeling getting confirmed sucks, I hope customer service reimburses you somehow.
@@rokutv8870 t95 tank is russian my guy
@@Mr_Stone1 I have prime and haven't touched the store of Amazon in almost a year. If it's not a bunch of fake garabge it's pricing that doesn't even match local retailers, even small independant shops. It's insane how bad Amazon has gotten.
If the price IS better, it's only by a dollar or two.
Hey Linus how are you doing!?
question about this video please..
does the copycat malware problem also infect other devices then the Android TV Boxes mentioned here?
The specific Android opearting devices I have in mind are Retrroid Poket 2 and PowKaddy X55 (Android Retro Handhelds)
thanks and have an awesome day!
It also seems that these boxes like to overheat.The maximum temp could be 70-80°c,which is not good for a soc
It's not just TV boxes, some smartphones with random brands also contain malware. But if you are lucky, you can find a clean ROM somewhere. Also for the TV boxes, some can boot up libreELEC so you can avoid the tampered Android altogether.
I had a TV box that would only started snooping my home network when it was turned off! If you turn them off with the remote, they are still on! You need to unplug them from the power.
True and same for many smart TVs.
Mine stick is powered from usb, so it turns on with projector
To add to that discussion, Blu phones and Amazon had a free phone at one time (probably 2009-ish) that was basically locked and home screen ad-supported. It worked well until everyone realized that the phone came pre-loaded with malware that stole user data. After Amazon found out, they discontinued the program entirely. One day, my on screen keyboard got hijacked. I'm generally an optimist so I'm going to assume that it was someone trying to warn me that my phone was compromised. The whole ordeal put me off from Blu entirely, as it should anyone at this point..
Furthermore, I have a Motorola G7 Power from 2020 and when you uninstall Facebook and reboot, it re-installs it. No where in my user agreement did I agree to allow Facebook on my device, but here we are. My current phone is a G Power from early 2022 and it doesn't appear to have that issue.
OSMC (a FOSS linux-based OS that runs Kodi out of the box) produces something called the Vero 4K+. It's pretty much an Nvidia Shield but smaller and runs OSMC.
random brands? try iPhone, Google Phone and the entire "big name" brand, they are all spying on you in every way possible. why nobody is making so many vids about that?
They actually make a very usable Linux PC with armbian. In fact there is a TV box version of armbian specific to set top boxes like these. Should be interesting to see Linus get armbian working on one
Beat me to it ☺
Who is they? Why would you buy a virus when legit android tv boxes and Netflix exist. Why would you buy Chinese crap instead of solid USA hardware
could you give some source? it sounds awesome. cheap linux box
Glad I did an "armbian" search before commenting ;)
A simple media server with all main *arr apps and plex is easy in one of these (no transcoding)
Doubt it works with HDR and Dolby Vision.
The T9's can be turned into a Octoprint/Klipper host as a cheap replacement for a Raspberry Pi. Chris's Basement did a video on this a few weeks ago.
So they turn it into a full desktop experience Linux system
Yes, especially with s905 soc.
In China they have a box called unt403a(which is a retired tv box from isp called china mobile)it has 2gb ram and less than 10 bucks(RMB70) and people flash armbian and openwrt into it.
Yes, I'm late to the party here but, an open-source project for these Google tv/ android tv to either clean or replace the bootloader/OS itself would be something I'd invest in. Very informative LTT ty ,
a few months back my (very not tech savvy) parents were pushing to 'cut the cable' and replace with a bunch of these boxes... what sparse information i could find on them easily didn't look promising & i managed to convince them out of it mostly based on gut feelings. thank you so much for this video, this is the kind of accessible information average consumers need before making what could be a grave mistake. my parents are now especially relieved to have been persuaded out of picking these up 😅
Amazing “I told you so” moment 😂 That’s really cool that you put effort into persuading them out of it though!
Now you can show them Linus's video about those to make it even more clear your _gut feelings_ were right ;)
@@TwinShards i actually sent it to them as soon as i finished watching through myself, hence the extra sense of relief! 😂
Its called amazon firestick... LoL... go ahead keep paying the cable company Haaa dumb
I was going to tell you to show your parents this video ASAP.
Then I read the last sentence 😅
In Malaysia, TV boxes have basically replaced traditional cable since they also can stream cable channels. Not sure if ours are localised tho
how do you get cable channels from those boxes?
@@xilllllix iptv
Maybe but pirated box and illegal iptv host is still illegal in malaysia. My opinion : get an HDTV tuner like my freeview, or get an astro njoy box (my personal pick), or just plug an antenna that is good enough on the back of your tv (will need some work but just search the internet for guidance).
All of these options is completely free of monthly payment (njoy allows some content to be subscribed just like postpaid internet, absolutely recommended) just like using an fm radio is free.
Yeah iptv seems quite popular, it does serve its purpose tho, win or lose is win for now right here
Linus is completely right here...I used to love these boxes until my isp blocked the ports...the android boxes don't update time and date anymore, apparently my boxes were used in a ddos attack.
Did your ISP notify you?
@@goku445 no
@@action963 wow, so you figured it by yourself?
@@goku445 I rang them and they told me this was the reason they blocked the ports
I personally bought a TiVo stream 4K. I personally use it for Kodi and retro gaming, and it works great. It’s from a legitimate company being free of malware and the built-in, USB see means I could side load games at any time.
Props for verifying the printing on the chips. I would've seen the print on the chips, googled the name, and assumed it all checked out. They are onto us now. Probably watching this very video, the sick bastards. What if they get better ink?
better ink lmfao 💀💀💀
There's software you can run to verify what actual hardware these are using, how much ram they have and storage capacity, and what version of Android they're actually running. So far the ones i own are all legit what they say they have.
@@madmax2069 Which ones do you own, planning to buy one of these for my old monitor
Hmm mm DoNT cHeAp oUt?
@@zetsubou3704 the ones I bought was the X88 pro mini with an S905x3, 4GB Ram, and 64GB storage, but this was a while ago (around 3 or 4 years ago), I've not been able to find these for a while. And even if you could I wouldn't trust buying one them today as you just don't know who's actually making them if they're legit or not, or if they have malware on them. There's a lot of fakes going around.
This is why I watch this channel so often. Videos like this are an absolute godsend and are fantastic for increasing peoples awareness of dubious products out there which can really screw them over.
The vast majority of buyers are pirates. They buy them from local resellers who load custom Kodi in order to get free streaming, especially for pay-per-view sports.
Whenever people dabble in illegal backcorner stuff, they know (or ought to know) what they're getting into.
Bro used the word "dubious" 💀
@@Mistner God I hate zoomers
My god, dude... if this channel is godsend for you, you should question your life a bit.
Or you could just not blindly trust cheap products that are listed under 25 different names all with the same picture. You only fall into these traps if you wear a blindfold and refuse to listen to all the warnings.
The internet and China are not your friend. They are not selling cheap products out of some goodness of their hearts.
I have my Shield TV in active service since 2017. Bought it on sale for 120-130€ back then. The Nvidia price hike is unacceptable imo but back when I bought mine it was a great value and still works like a charm.
It may be unacceptable if you use it as you would use a Chromecast, but if you actually need what it is capable of it is well worth the price
I bought the 2015 model in 2015 and it has been reliably working for me ever since. Best investment in a media player I ever made. Not like the Open Hour Chameleon, which never received its promised update to Android 6 and stopped working just outside the warranty period or my Boxee Box which went obsolete when the producer got gobbled up by Samsung.
same bro love it
Not a big fan of Nvidia anymore due to their removal of Gamestream to Push Geforce Now to people that don't want it or need it, but the Shield, objectively speaking, is a great box and while I wont be guying anymore Nvidia products for the foreseeable future if ever again, I will run my shield until it completely fucking dies.
Get a Roku.
Liked and subscribed. Informative and entertaining! Thank you Do you have a video on how to check if any devices on the network are performing suspicious activities?
Excellent Excellent Excellent. This is the real truth I learned after first 7 years of my career when I left my first company. I was in Mahesh place. The sooner you learn this the lesser the shock
A very useful and necessary video! As a follow up I wonder what other cheap Amazon tech has malware installed out of the box? Would be class to see LTT make this a series ❤
Yeah, I remember my only ever Lenovo PC having that problem.
yeah the cheap amazon china phones are the same deal
those malware is a requirement if u understand CCP laws.
Read up and understand China's National Intelligence Law.
You ignored the most common Chinese TV setup box : the Xiaomi Mi box S series. vanilla AndroidTV OS. range at 60-70$ on Chinese markets . Certified by Google and still gets frequent OS security updates. The spec is not great but it will do the work (Netflix 4K HDR). These are so common they surpass Google's own device in sales. Unlike some Chinese boxes the Xiaomi boot loader is locked. Hard to root and mess it's base android security. Unlike some Chinese boxes , Xiaomi does not include alternative google play stores that also expose you... . A rooted device from the box is red alert to any user.
Absolutely. I have two of these (one a stick, the other one a box). They're kind of slow but once you hit play they work very well. And they do Netflix HD, which none of the other boxes does. Can you do HD with a RPi, for example?
There are a lot of maybe's, possibly's and we don't knows on this video's script. Not endorsing these boxes but there is a lot of "it comes from said country so watch out!" here.
@@cassiodalcin This is exactly my problem with a lot of US centric tech content in general , a lot of sinophobic fear mongering without any facts to back them up.
He doesn't like the real chinese stuff, like Xiaomi, DJI, Anker, Ugreen,
my ROM that Linus mentions is based on this devices firmware (Mi box), although Xaiomi hasn't had an update in over a year for this device, older security patch :)
Since 2019 im a Nvidia Shield Pro user and I can say it's the best purchase I done in long time. Secure, fast, good ram and storaga, real 4k, I can play my PC videogames using GForce, Steam and Amazon Luna. During long time I enjoyed my shield pro + Google Stadia, but what I like the most is the update software option. Most of those Android TV boxes won't allow systems update.
Would be nice if you test the branded boxes as well. I guess they will have something similar but with other IP adresses :)
In Brazil there is a TV BOX called BTV... some say it's legal, others illegal... but no one talks about it's safety and it is VERY POPULAR here. Hope you guys can take a look at it!
Mention this on their forum. They'll be more likely to take notice.
Unless the content is properly licensed it’s illegal.
same things in asia, all illegal especially if you're watching any Americana content.
@@EvertG8086 Illegal in Brazil or USA?
@@i64fanatic: Every country except North-Korea, South-Sudan and a few others.
Thank you for making this video. Security is becoming more and more important and with teleworking people at home should be aware of what is happening in their infrastructure.
I would love a way to install Android TV on a Raspberry Pi 4 or a micro PC like an Intel NUC or Lenovo ThinkCentre. Android TV's casting feature is great, the Play Store has decent apps and there's even a ports of Kodi, VLC & RetroArch to Android TV.
Boot loader can be hidden into chip area, which will execute malicious system in parallel from hidden sectors in flash and ram. Manufacture can easily install twice more memory or use very little OS. Even without malicious software, this device can hiddenly dig bitcoins or hashtags .
Going on the security run you should peak into wifi or server based baby monitors. Would like to see some digging into those
especially devices made in China after the CCP imposed their National Intelligence Law. A law that no one speaks about, read and understand its scope and purpose.
Sounds like it’s time for LTT to make a streaming box. Since the only option is the shield and it doesn’t fully
support Dolby vision. And it’s now covered in ads.
I don't know if this would help or not, but you can install alternative home screens on the shield, so you don't need to see the ads if you don't want. 😊
Google's the one that added ads into the AndroidTV stock image, not NVidia.
My Roku TVs support Dolby Vision. I got an ONN QLED set that also supports Dolby Atmos out of the box.
@@MrMega200 Your roku does not support every dolby vision proifle
Apple TV supports Dolby vision, but obviously if you want android you’re out of luck there. I do like my Apple TV though as it’s very smooth and polished and NOT covered in ads (yet)
Your shirt was machi machi with the 8K rounded one🤣
For self-dependent video setup for a proper copyright abolitionist I can recommend Rock64 or Raspberry Pi 3, as you can run Linux, Kodi or whatever you like on it and cram as much storage as you want via USB or SATA (via HATs) ports. It's secure as soft is FOSS and both of them can do 4K
Get an n2+
Thank you for doing this video cause I was worried about this as well and had checked a couple friends and found similar backdoors and all sorts of sketchy shit in the coding. So I of course was worried about this but do not possess the resources to actually test all of them on a mass scale so thank you
Yessss!!! More security videos.. it's like you actually listened to me (which I know isn't the case, lol) -- but I love these and how you guys present them and you guy's security research is top notch. Thank you so much and pleeeease make more of these!
Very informative video. I always considered Ugoos to be top Android TV boxes; reliable and pretty much always received good reviews. Should I now get rid of it ......along with the other cheaper Chinese devices I hae (one of which I spotted in your video)?
I have a zidoo. And it's a solid device.
Could use a work on processing power. But does the job pretty much. Lossless audio, and 4k bluray quality video. Up to 150mb bitrate. And it does raw as well, so you don't get some funky conversion, but straight from the source.
If you are into 3d printing you can flash them with Armbian and install whatever you need ( klipper,Octoprint,ssh) etc .
I got a MI Box S that I've been using for serval years, and I'm happy with it - I use it primarily to run Kodi to play videos hosted on my Raspberry PI based file server/Pi-Hole/torrent client (just a simple Raspberry PI 4 with SATA M.2 drive connected to it using USB enclosure).
But that's Xiaomi, a reputable brand, even when in America it's ignored by most people.
Linus, would the same apply to all the no-brand name android tablets? What about all the no name mini PC’s or HDMI mini PCs? Thanks.
Brother...perhaps no big company truely cares about our privacy. Google, Microsoft, Meta all collect data....with your permission or not. They only dare at China. Because China is the only country who disrupting the west dominations in all fronts.
"When I did...it's a murder....when you did....it's a sin".
Would love to see a similar test on all the wireless android/apple auto dongles out there. Can't seem to find the Motorola one in Canada.
We need a similar video on the android car head units. That would be a great expose to see if those are infected, as well.
+1 to this because I feel they very much are and want to see the proof in a medium like LTT
Haven’t watched it but just from the title alone, I need to send it to my dad
He keeps getting those 40-50$ ones that stop working or are slow af, then he complains.. buys the next one and repeat
For 40-50, he could just buy a Chromecast. Which also runs Android/Google TV. It's the exact same thing except not bad.
@@Marco_Onyxheart Chromecast is shit. Install a couple of apps and watch it stutter. Not enough RAM to keep it smooth. Same with Firesticks.
I've had the Nvidia shield tv pro since 2015 and it's still a beast, today we have one shield in every room in the house, latest one it's a must have.
Probably the best purchase I've done in the last decade.
Thanks for this video and information guys!
And what makes you think nvidia is not doing the same as this tv box? Most companies does the same thing regardless of user concern.
@@GauravKumar-wb9xp Well, at least you know it would be a blow to a serious brand if it came out. Random no name android boxes doesn't have a reputation on the line.
@@rBennich How many times did Facebook close for leaking/selling data? Lost couple of bill and still breathing. Blowback is a joke for multibillion companies that have no competition, because they are backed by the ones whose names we should not mention.
@@rBennich I can agree on reputation part but from my understanding they all do it's just "how they are doing", normally no one going to find out what happening inside.
@@GauravKumar-wb9xpWell, it's hard to disprove speculation. But honestly, it's even worse than a virus-infected andriod box. Ericsson has made the telecom infrastructure that makes up the internet, and they're probably the most corrupt company in the world. Nothing sent over the internet escapes them.
A fun thing to do if you wanna get into the scene for arrg movies and shows is to buy a basic office pc, swap out the case for a microatx build or a custom slim fit case then just replace the parts and wala, new streaming box.
or be normal like me and use your steam deck.
I'm glad to see this being brought to light. I've suspected that these devices were malware since they began to appear and I already tell people I know not to buy them. It's unfortunate, though, as an Android box is quite attractive for this purpose; it's already optimized on many chips for high def video and games. I didn't expect the exaggerated memory problem, though.
they do not have malware but it's implied, these are manufactured in china so they will call home to a china ip adress for firmware etc... that's the only thing. These things will not steal you CC or have any malware installed but they are vulnerable.
I seriously don't understand the issue here. Does it really matter if it is some Chinese company invading the privacy of every single customer, or if it is Google, Facebook or any other entity charting your every step and selling the information to whomever?
"I'm glad to see this being brought to light. I've suspected that these devices were malware since they began to appear and I already tell people I know not to buy them."
The kodi community call them "loaded boxes", you could create your own legitimate TV box with any computer hooked to a TV and by installing a clean Kodi. Kodi devs even had to spend money to register themselves as a brand, in order to be able to retaliate in courts (which is guy those scammers switched to other names like "android box").
The HUGE issue is that those loaded boxes give the mainstream idea that Kodi is a piracy malware tool while it's simply a client to manage local files and custom addons.
*And to answer the obvious question : yes, you could add yourself the addons for illegal content. Those exist somewhere in the world. Not in kodi's official repo of course (those ask for an API key to prove you paid for legal access, HOW DARE THEY?)... but at least you'll get a free malware instead of one priced at 30$ ;)*
Oh and by the way... that also voids your right to support : if you report a Kodi issue and your debug log shows illegal addons, your ticket is closed. Why should the already overworked devs provide free support, if you paid *somebody else* for a full (illegal) setup?
@@johanmetreus1268 The problem is invasive malware that may physically compromise your (network) data and/or contribute to bot attacks on institutions. Not the same thing (nor goal) as stealing privacy data.
@@johanmetreus1268 yes it matters, child
Great video, there's also a plethora of cheap projectors with "built in smart OS" that should never be connected to your WiFi for the same reasons you showed here.
Seems like you could lock it by itself on a private guest network with very limited upload capabilities and make reasonable use out of the other functions, but if you know how to do all that, you can set all of these apps up on your own to start with I suppose.
What's about to flash them with armbian for example? This should be save or is the hardware itself a problem too? 🤔
We Vietnamese are very familiar with these boxes and the community is quite active. We have some devoted android rom dev flash the stock atv rom to these boxes for an amount of fee. Some are quite enthusiastic to share those roms for free or modded them with reduced bloatware and reup. Try checking xda, 4pda. But thanks for reminding us, now i'm quite scared of those boxes. 😂
Hello Mr. La, i'm quite interested in those debloated custom roms. Where can i contact the devs or what should i look out for?
@@blkgravidoXDA
For me i don't use amlogic android tv boxes for Android, there is an amazing small yet big enough open source community for those things, we have EmuELEC and Lakka for retro gaming, we have LibreELEC And CoreELEC for kodi media center, we have somewhat official linux manjaro support, we have armbian that has two build one on top of debian and one on top of ubuntu.
If you buy a box to steal the data from someone else, such as stealing movies from Netflix without paying. Then you shouldn’t be surprised if someone steals from you via data theft as well.
I have one that says 6k of course it was fake but the actual specs where good. I have never used Kodi honestly in my country maybe that don't work and I found 0 tutorials on how Kodi is supposed to work ?? But Stremio is the best honestly. I have watched everything for free on Stremio
Thanks for making this video. Finally, someone with influence addresses this issue. I was in the market years ago shopping for an Android TV box. I noticed so many red flags. Plus, many people say those TV boxes overheat so much so quickly. I am surprised they are even worse than I thought. I ended up buying an NVIDIA Shield Pro for over $360 CAD at the time.
After owning two cheap Chinese boxes I purchased the first gen shield. I've had it for like 7 years still going strong.
Love the hoodie, where did you get it?
The practicing safe computing has me rolling.
Could we make them into useful devices? Yeah, I use an X96 Air Android TV Box to run EmuElec. I play retro console games for the NES, SNES, Mega Drive, TG16, PSP, PS1, Dreamcast (hit or miss though), and many other consoles and arcade systems (Sega Naomi, Atomis Wave, etc.) on the said TV Box with two wireless controllers and a 128GB microSD card that overrides the built-in Android system. Pretty neat. As a TV Box though, it's utter crap.
surprised he didnt mention this
Whats the name of this stuff? Or what do i search for to find info? I have a box to i could use for something else!
thing is, lots of those boxes cant even emulate snes. There are cheaper alternatives for emulation
🐝 links gt king pro dl boots os you do bouth for emaution hes just trying to scare people to buy Amazon tv os crap the bouth actly have adds and tracked too lol 😆
But why would you need to use these TV boxes for emulation? You can probably use an older PC or laptop and it'd be much more flexible and convenient. If space is a concern, a second hand mini PC is also an option. Those cheap TV boxes might even be too weak to run 3D games.
The local mall used to have a kiosk selling these. I was shocked they allowed them to sell the boxes as they advertised it as $250 for all channels and life long subscription.
yeah.... can say the same in brazil
Like the days of the cheap sat receiver with super software (smartcard encryption emulator) being sold even in petrol stations in Germany 13 years ago. Good times, all major sat pay TV providers encryption cracked across Europe.
@@mr.bee5225 I’m aware. Just weird to see it being sold in the middle of a mall.
I remember buying a few of these back when and getting frustrated with how slow and incapable they were (despite the specs they promised) I'm not surprised to hear that they lied about their capabilities and that some were probably loaded with malware. Glad I spent the extra money to get a nVidia shield, although I wish more proper companies would step up to make more affordable/powerful tv boxes.
I got the Nvidia Shield TV when it was first released, I think it was in 2015. They weren't selling as well as expected and were discounted. It came with both the remote and controller for, I think, around £120. It has never faltered since and plays everything I've thrown at it so far. Money definitely well spent!
looks like you have identified an gap in the Android TV market. These chinese brands are cheap and unsafe. Nvidia is safe and expensive. You can provide something in the middle. Affordable and safe
@@BuckingHorse-Bullxiaomi boxes are pretty cheap their like a bit more expensive than those cheap ass boxes and well Xiaomi is a trusted brand
@@BuckingHorse-BullSo Xiaomi mi tv box is safe right?
@@Asian_Italydid you not watch the video. anything from china is not safe. you have to spend money to get a name brand device to be safe
What about the onn. Android TV box sould by Walmart? How good or unsafe is that one?
Makes me wonder about the car-display-units sold on various sites. Do they have mallware/backdoors installed on them? And what happens when you connect your phone to it?
My TV has Roku built into it. Frankly I never used the apps until recently, and then I realised that Roku added a ton of streaming TV to the 'Live TV' channels, so uh. I have like 300 channels of streaming and I bought an antenna awhile ago, and hooked it up, so I also get a couple over-the-air local TV stations. I'm happy, considering last week I didn't have any of this, and I thought my antenna didn't even work. The apps might be a bit sketch, but that one single feature of Roku, adding the streaming channels to live TV just made me change my opinion of Roku. Right now there are very limited ads (might be because I'm in Canada) but the ad spots are locked 120 second blocks, just like live TV, so even when they do bring them in, they do have a limit, and set times where the ads are brought in. For example, I now have an Unsolved Mysteries channel, and right now the ad spots are literally just a countdown timer with the channel name on it. Most channels are like that right now. CBC, Al Jazeera, etc. Like I said, probably because I'm in Canada, but considering I actually have my OTA local channels on in the background all the time now, commercials and all.
I love the cases though, sbcs on that kind of slim shiny package, with i2c and uart available on the side would be pretty cool.
Especially the Tanix TX6 , makes for an excellent homeserver after putting Armbian onto it.
You should do the same tests with similar tablets. I have 2 tablets from aliexpress, and now I'm worried 😅
I've had a tablet from AliExpress with confirmed malware. Sometimes a horoscope ad popped up instead of the website which you were trying to visit. Since i also have Pihole, i could see it trying to access dubious domains just like in this video. As soon as these domains were blocked in Pihole, the ads also stopped popping up...
Even more terrifying was that when you put in a pre-paid SIM card, it would randomly dial expensive nternational numbers until the SIM was out of balance (and also it would *receiv* text messages with account verification codes for services i don't use).
The only valid reason to buy any of those tv boxes, tablets, etc with a supported SoC from china is to flash a linux rom like armbian onto them. Wouldn't touch the stock image with a 10 foot pole otherwise.
@arjanvlek I've not had any problems tbh, I bought the iplay40 and iplay50, and they've been running smoothly, and also no bloatware
@@ky5666 true
@@elijah_m not having problems just means you arent aware of what could be going on since its not in front of your face, the devices in this video didnt have bloatware but that didnt mean they didnt have backdoors wide open.
I bought 2017 Shield, its great, awesome, although a bit laggy compared to a Roku, but there's no end for content, just having android with a reasonable powerful chip there's a lot of possibilities even with the death of GameStream (which as of April 2023 still works for me). I also bought Walmart's Onn 4k android box which only costed me $20, its not powerful but its extremely impressive and outputs 4K content with AC wifi antenna, it has 0 Dolby support but you have all the Android goodies and a good remote with volume and power control :D AND NO ADS/JUNKWARE.
Install a armbian on it and you got a true low cost sbc with case.
Especially with S905/H616/rk3xxx soc
Can you do the same check for Apple, Google, Amazon etc. tv boxes, sticks, cubes? :)
You guys should do a video on IPTV subscriptions and programs. There are hundreds of companies trying to sell live and on-demand tv/movie content for a monthly fee.
I wonder if this issue extends to Smart TVs too. Some cheap TVs may not be much more than one of these things attached to a screen, is the problem limited to more "legally iffy" boxes, ones that promise easy pirating or whatever? Or to other boxes as well?
smart tv,s snoop on you to youtube it .
Consider this a topic suggestion. One of my frustrations with Android TV streaming devices is the dead end when it comes to version upgrades. Aside from possibly Google TV streaming devises, which brand that uses either Google TV or Android TV keeps up with version upgrades?
The claimed-resolution mismatch sounds much the same as with the cheap video projectors from the same kinds sites. When they say '4k' (or formerly 1080p when that was 'high-end') they don't mean the device actually operates at that resolution, just that it is compatible with devices that do.
For example: a $100 '4k' video projector will have a native resolution of 720p but accept a 4k signal and down-scale it, so gets billed as '4k'.
I assume they work it the other way with theses devices, which are '4k' only in that the 720p signal they output will be picked up properly by a 4k TV - which then up-scales it (because all HDMI-compliant TVs have to be able to do that).
(Some times I am in the market for a cheap low-res projector for an art project, and I buy such devices happily, though as a matter of principle I only buy from sellers who do list the 'native resolution' accurately down in the small-print of their product listing).
L🤭L Frontend doesn't have to be 4K. Google TV home screen isn't displaying a 4K resolution. Those resolutions are reserved for video streaming Apps like TH-cam, Netflix, Plex, Disney+, Apple TV etc 🤔
Been quite happy with my Odroid N2 + CoreElec software, giving me 4k HDR10, Dolby ATMOS...and it was cheaper than the Shield. It's my go-to Plex client for my 82" TV.
Too bad there is no Dolby Vision support. I went with Ugoos AM6+ and really enjoying quality improvements from DV!
😂 most people that buy these Chinese boxes are not Odroid customers
I was looking at a few of these boxes to use for retro gaming a while back. I ended up putting a full PC in the living room but this is exception ally interesting. Will have to watch when I have time tomorrow.
@@googlewolly not all of them are bad, BUT it's hard to know what is and isn't bad. The three I own are good (actual specs s905x3, 4GB ram, 64GB storage), and no hidden software, and no pirate stream software or movies, and not loaded down with bloat), but they're also not available anymore.
@@googlewolly Not exactly. His advice was more on the line of "Buy one from a reputable source, like one from Google or Nvidia". I have a Nvidia Shield and I trust it. It's 4 times the price though 😅 (but there are reasons for this)
@@mr.bee5225 yeah, I know what they are, And I have no use for pirated content, which is why I'm glad mine had none of that junk on my systems.
@@madmax2069 oh, i mean the box itself usually is clean of junks software when released from factory, usually the seller is the one who install these software on it. usually. urs probably the seller didnt install those. i use mine for retro gaming these days, i dont watch any tv or stream anymore
@@mr.bee5225 I know this already
You should have a look at the boxes again as Armbian can be installed on most arm boxes
Those box has a good use just to install retro game platform and boot from it and just play. No account loggins are needed. So, it depends the use you want to give to it.
I had one of these a few years back! Bought it because a college classmate was telling everyone how her boyfriend was watching “thousands” of anime shows and movies. Did the whole shabang of getting Kodi on. What made me toss it is how slow it became after a year of use(despite not installing a job of apps), and being unable to update the android os or Kodi for some reason. Ended up getting a Firestick 4K. Glad I did after this video!
Lmao, you could have just ran the OS from the SD card as the bootloader is unlocked on these. It probably slowed down because it was probably being cooked to death as these have pretty horrible cooling.
@@madmax2069 yea, these box usually not lasting long because of the cooling, have a few that broke after few years. but it does its job well, stream and tv.
They slow down because the video quality slowly gets better over time online and the processor cant keep up because they are cheap. Buy a used phone from like 5 years ago and itll be 8x better than any of these devices and still cost like $100 because no one wants Samsung and you have a retro gaming masterpiece
@@chiquita683 you can even see the issue with a local video file, not just internet streaming, so no it's not what you're saying it is.
Doing a factory reset usually helps, but if it doesn't it's usually due to the poor cooling causing the components to cook themselves to death causing the system to run unstable which effects performance and often crashing all the time when they're too far gone.
A few holes and a small fan completely stops this from happening.
You're not going to find a 5 year old phone for $25 that's going to beat the performance of a s905x3 or an s922.
Google Chromecast with Google TV is everything I wanted: a streaming player, and with a USB-C hub, it allows for VLC. Plus, Black Friday sales make it super cheap (HD for $20, and $25 for 4K). Easily replaced my Roku Premiere and Amazon Fire Stick.
Over the last few years I set my family up on Amazon fire devices it started with me giving them ones when I was done playing with them. Black Friday sales also. I have had Shields since about 2016. I was getting them for family. Now that Amazon is making it abundantly apparent that they own the device and you are just renting it, I am switching them off and I'm going to start getting Chromecast with Google TV. I wish they would have put Android TV in them years ago. I figured I would do exactly that again, wait for a Black Friday sale and get a few and let them junk the fire OS.
i like that subject and want to ask you linus what about Mi Box S ? is it included with the legit devices ?!
im wondering too
great that you did this are there save anderoid tv boxes available
This is by far the best video explaining these Android Boxes. They are basically as Linus said "Manufactured E-Waste" 😉
More like manufactured E-Waste that demolishes the home media community, in particular the popular image Kodi which is prominently listed in the components ( at 0:19 ) despite being a totally legit software when you download it by yourself
The video is full of errors. He completely missed his subject.
This kind of box is great for audio passtrough, and 4k video playback from a NAS, for retro gaming...
Better than chromecast and fire tv.
@@JJ-bu8sq
"This kind of box is great" this kind, yes.
Not the ones who claim to provide illegal access to content.
In particular, the ones tested in the video are NOT capable of 4k, they can do 1080p or sometimes not even that [check edit below]
The issue is that Linus is implying all "Android boxes" are "loaded boxes"
[EDIT] Yup, video is really substandard. The command they show is the size of the UI but doesn't reflect the resolution of the video.
Seems like somebody wanted linus to say "third-party boxes are bad" and they rushed through production.
@@laplongejunior none of them claim to provide illegal access to content. They dont have any streaming apps on them
@@chiquita683
The boxes discussed in the video are bundled with apps providing illegal access. So I'm confused with what you are talking about
Would love to see a video tackling the same matter with all the "android car multimedia" units
Even if you succeed in flashing the OS (or "firmware"), you can never be sure what other layers of lower-level firmware there are underneath, ones that you don't have access to.
Would love to see on Android Car Headunit. Thanks for sharing
I'm loving the security content lately.
Nvidia shield is quite good but expensive, although now is a little outdated, I would love to see a new version and since they are nvidia, they could also have that new RTX super resolution for videos or something similar, that would be amazing. Yeah, they have AI upscaling, but it could be better, and for that it needs more power. Best
Isn't Linus one of the people who said the Shield already does "amazing" quality upscaling? The new RTX upscaler doesn't even beat half a decade old free technology (MadVR and NGU). The recent tech is only good for low resolution content, not for anything over 720p. And it often uses 2-4 times as much gpu power to do the same job. I doubt you would buy a $150 box just to stream at 480p.
Does this also aplies to android car stereo screens from aliexpress? D:
what about modified rokus & firesticks are those safe?
Running the menu at lower res is common, even the Nvidia Shield does this. Video content uses native decoding hardware, which then is able to output true 4k directly
🎉 🎉 He mentioned my Custom ROM! Wow THANK YOU! 🎉 🎉
> I make ROMs for these devices, based on the mi box firmware, I DONT include any piracy apps though, debloated and empty
Sales for these are about to go down down down
@@baki1682 they already were as some markets were getting certified devices for similar prices to these boxes rather than 2-3x the price (onn for example)
@Gomam0n awesome :D
Love your work. As a developer, what do you think? This video sounds like bullshit cuz he didn't prove anything.
If the box is pinging chinese IPs, it must be malware? You must have used a lot of these boxes for testing. Ever got a malware due to it?
@@epicsaves5644 i cant say ive notaced anything crazy, ive logged into apps on some these stock firmwares & not seen any issues with account details being compramised, i would be more inclined to see it more like telemetary, the amount of data Google/Micrrosoft collect on you is probably far more information, i cant say ive dug deeper into network traffic coming from these Firmwares speciffically (usally overwrite the firmware anyway fairly quickly), i cant say linus is wrong, hes just giving the reasonable advice to err on the side of caution & just like anything there are probaly some shady firmwares out there, like dogey copies of windows exist :)
My grandma bought one of these a few years back, we were amazed she hadn’t gotten any sort of malware in the 4 years she owned it.
It was used for free cable rather than streaming but still scary
I too had a bunch of those android boxes and then bought the shield (tube version). a massive difference, should have got the tube to begin with. I'll buy the new version, if it ever surfaces