I always was very happy with Plex / Lifetime but the last update is a real showstopper to me and a shock. I never asked for that streaming discover service and i want it opt out forever. All i care about is my local data and nothing else. My local search function is the most important to me and nothing else from anywhere. PLEASE let me opt out that new features and stop to force me to use it. I am free person, with free will and i love my Plex cause it always did what i wanted. If there are any ads in future or no way to opt that out, i seriously will stop using plex. Really i never asked for that and i just hate it. Also since the last update my plex needs about 50 seconds to start now. Before it was simply there and worked fine.
I see little purpose for this for me and I am a big advocate for Privacy and Security (one of the reasons I chose Plex to enable a local streaming service) and I fear what Plex will now be using the search data it is obviously collecting as part of this ‘feature’ for!
Also, just from a bare functionality point of view, if you search for something and do not have it in your library, it will try and open a streaming app? This just seems half-baked, if it cannot play the content directly in-app, then I don’t get what they are trying to achieve here… besides data mining of course.
I have both Plex and Emby server running on my server. This is sad to hear the direction in which Plex is going. I love Emby, I think the way your able to manage your local library and the look and feel for myself is so much better than Plex. I do have others that prefer to use Plex so I keep both running.
If Watchlist could work only with our shows as an option that would be great, at the moment I can’t queue to my watchlist some shows, currently if I click a show from my watchlist, I get seasons/episodes that aren’t from my library and this is confusing for some users, I had to explain last night how this thing works to my friends, they were pretty happy about the watchlist but pretty disappointed about how it works at the moment, they have no problem ignoring the discover results from the search bar but they still think that this doesn’t belong here.
At a bare minimum they need to add the option to only show search results for content I am able to play. If I’m searching in Plex it’s for something to watch, not for what streaming services I could sign up for.
I am in the camp that uses PLEX primarily for my own media and I’m not interested in having it linked to other streaming media. I don’t begrudge others to have that functionality but let us opt out if we so choose.
Heck, I’m still waiting for solutions to basic functionality for streaming my own local media: Playlists are still broken and subtitles are still wonky. I guess adding a feature to watch media on some other platform is sort of a solution to things not working on PLEX?
If I have everything in the Online Media Sources disabled I should not be seeing anything in the search results but my own locally stored content. I only use Plex for stuff I own and have on my server, I don’t need or want to be seeing ads for streaming services or online content I don’t care about.
So, I have Back To The Future ripped on my plex server. When I search for it in Plex I first get irrelevant crap from online sources as Top Results. First under, ”More ways to watch” I can see my files. What I wish I never payed to be lifetime member, now I cant show my displeasure with what plex is turning into by stop paying.
That doesn’t sound right. Plex always shows results from your own server on top, then the Plex online media sources (if enabled) and at the end the “where else to watch” section.
If it’s not showing in the search results at the top, try to optimize the database – that should also update the server’s index which is used by search.
This update also implies that anything you search for is being sent to some other server than YOUR server to find these listings. That doesn’t seem like much but I have come to the opinion that less is more in the broadcast of my personal life to anyone else. One of the main reasons to have your own library is so you can watch your own content without always getting targeted ads etc. It is unnecessary and invasive. They may not be doing ads with this new “feature” yet, but it is almost assuredly coming.
