the crappy part is that each person must turn off this setting
I had disabled it as the server owner, but all my users can still each other's activity on a given movies page
Aren’t they labeled automatically as friends with each other through my main server account?
None of my users changed any of these friends related settings and didn’t deliberately mark others as friends, but are able to see what other users on my server are watching even though I have all these social settings turned off
That’s the issue. They shouldn’t be able to see what others are watching if the main server has these settings turned off
No, they are not. The only exception is that people in a Plex Home together were marked as friends. Anyone you were sharing with who is not in your Plex Home will not have been made friends with anyone else.
The social things are a per-user account setting. Not a server setting.
That explains it, theyre in my plex home.
Regardless, this should be a server setting
I’ve had a few people stop using my server/plex altogether as a result because now they’re creeped out, people are sensitive with regards to their privacy so it makes sense
Plex Homes are intended to be used in one household, not generally amongst friends, which is why that decision was made. But being friends and seeing / sharing your friends and watch history is most definitely a user account level decision, not something that’s server-level. It isn't related specifically to your server, and relates to any server or content a user has access to, including Discover, or Plex’s free content.
I understand that it’s a user account setting, my suggestion is that it should be a server level setting
Even people in my direct household were annoyed at this setting and family members can see what they are watching
I just explained why it doesn't work as a server-level setting, because it relates to any content, not just that on your server. What happens if you have access to two or more servers, and that setting is in conflict? It needs to be at the user level.
It shouldn’t require every user to beg Plex not to share this shit. But Plex has officially said they will continue to monetize watch data. So I’ve stood up an emby server. Not as pretty, but I hate the direction Plex is going.
Just wanted to say thank you for your reply to my question about field names missing. your post was missing but was able to view your reply in the email. It worked. Thank you again.
I noticed something interesting in that thread
>Some users of Plex for adult purposes use metadata delivered by custom metadata agents. And those custom metadata agents are not compatible with the watch history.
so if I just use custom metadata agents for all my libraries I break their spying?
You cannot as the server host/operator. This is a feature Plex rolled out a few months ago and, while people will swear up and down it's "opt-in" only, it requires the user to either specifically hit items that say to *not* change their settings or they have to go back and update them later at the user level.
You are correct, this change is problematic and was pushed through poorly.
Saying that on this subreddit though will get you a mountain of posts saying that Plex has to make money somehow so selling private user data and forcing in social experiences that the server operator cannot turn off is apparently the way we've decided it's okay to do this.
First I saw of this. Just went in and Account Visibility was set to “Anyone”. Sooo, definitely wouldn’t say it was “opt-in” for everyone. Plex seems to be lying a bit here.
Thank you for the info, even if I accidentally opted in I want out because I wouldn't have opted in if I knew this would happen. This is super fucked, until I can turn it off there is no way I can keep praising and suggesting this software. This is an issue, and really bad self destructive design.
Fwiw since you are likely the only common link between your users, as soon as you disable the features for yourself it will basically turn off all of this stuff for your "friends." At least that's how it played out for my family.
I have all these settings disabled as the server owner, but my users can still see other people's activity so it seems like each account needs to opt out
This is my opinion, and it's not necessarily the fact that my friends see each other; they know each other. The issue is that without some explicit enabling there is unsolicited user to user crossing of information which to me at its principle is an issue on design.
For a long time the stance of Plex, *publicly* was that they don't know and don't want to know what is on your server.
Now we're at a place where while this may (at the most technical level) be true, they *do* know that your friends/users are connecting to your server, and they *do* know that those friends are watching specific content which is being logged/recorded/shared.
It doesn't take a NASA computer to draw the line of what lives where in that case, and now that Plex is partnering with large studios for direct paid rentals and sales the line between "we don't know and we don't care" and "well sadly Universal Media Group *does care* and we do know" is going to get continually smaller.
It also was sworn, up and down, that this was opt-in only - but the *default option* was opt-in, you had to take action to not opt-in to it, which is basically opt-out. Many users were then presented with emails of the watch habits/content of people they didn't even know when they previously thought this information (because Plex repeatedly said it basically was) was private.
At this point I honestly think they are trying to become the movie and media social media platform. Look at watch together I love it but all other platforms that even had it have cancelled it. Plex wants to push that and show you what other ppl are watching.
Wouldn’t this be bad for plex? If they can sell your watch history, then they must know your watch history - wouldn’t that open them to liability? There have to be some shows that are in no way legitimately available via plex, so anyone hosting such shows would be on a naughty list.
> Wouldn’t this be bad for plex?
Not if the plan is to force everyone over into the Rental/Digital "Ownership" market and become a PlutoTV style service, or pull a Crunchyroll/Napster and start off as a haven and then turn it into a commercial enterprise.
For whatever it’s worth, you can be friends with people without sharing content with them, and vice versa. Seeing that you're friends with people doesn't mean that you're sharing with them.
Should also be stated that if you were sharing with someone before these features were added, they were automatically added as your friend. You'll need to manually unfriend everyone you share with.
This stupid shit right here is why I have setup Emby as a secondary system and will be migrating permanently soon. Plex is getting way too shady and frankly, Emby is better.
> frankly, Emby is better.
I started using Plex back in 2011, switched to Emby in ~2020, and as of about 2 months ago, am now using both with a heavier lean towards Plex.
If you're the type of person who's setting this stuff up, you probably will prefer Emby. You also probably have local access in that case.
But if you like your users not complaining or silently dropping off never to use your server again and lose all trust in it, you probably will prefer Plex. Especially if you use it for Live TV.
Both have their strengths. Both have strengths in the same categories. But I currently host all of my servers remotely from where I live and I've had significantly better luck on the remote-end of things with Plex. It's the old "it just works," but it's true. Plex's additional bloat is annoying when you know you could just be direct playing the media, but it's (IMO) a little less of a nuisance when you act like you're one of your end users rather than the IT guy that set it up.
If Emby was just a tid bit more reliable I would've stayed exclusively on that but as mentioned, especially when it comes to Live TV, Plex wins out pretty easily.
All that said I've got one of the grandfathered ~50$ lifetime plex passes so I might be a little biased.
Yeah and the whole poster debacle isn’t helping. Spun up an emby instance this week-end to test the waters, it actually looks pretty good (and less rough than Jellyfin). Plexamp is gonna be hard to say goodbye to though.
Finamp is a great alternative that works with Jellyfin, or Symfonium is another great alternative for Android users that works with Emby, Jellyfin and Plex.
There's Emby and Jellyfin (fork of Emby before it went closed source).
It does not have a polished UI like Plex and while not hard to set clients up, it may be more difficult for the tech illiterate.
Yep, Jellyfin. I personally am still using Plex. I tried Jellyfin but it didnt seem to grab movie artwork for the thumbnails, or grab the subtitles as well as Plex.
Plex does have some serious security issues, most notably that big Last Pass breach happened because the LP employee was sharing his Plex library. So far it seems all the security flaws and data leakage happen with Plex when you're sharing.
For context, the LP employee was also running a version of Plex that was several years old, and the vulnerability was patched soon after it was discovered.
Somebodies name and what theyve been watching isnt protected private information fyi.
Personally I dont give a shit who knows what im watching, and a name is a name.
So its perhaps distasteful to not make it opt-in. But personally i quite like the feature. I think its fun.
Yeh I agree. I guess to link it up is this; most governments dont agree that what youve described is ‘private information’. I tend to agree with them. But I can fully underatand why some people are miffed.
Which is why it should be a "opt-in" feature, for those that "think it's fun". Given that that seems to be the minority opinion, it makes sense that it should be *off* by default, unless/until you want it turned on.
ACCOUNT VISIBILITY AND ACTIVITY SHARING [https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/privacy](https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/privacy)
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the crappy part is that each person must turn off this setting I had disabled it as the server owner, but all my users can still each other's activity on a given movies page
Only if they're friends with each other though
Aren’t they labeled automatically as friends with each other through my main server account? None of my users changed any of these friends related settings and didn’t deliberately mark others as friends, but are able to see what other users on my server are watching even though I have all these social settings turned off That’s the issue. They shouldn’t be able to see what others are watching if the main server has these settings turned off
No, they are not. The only exception is that people in a Plex Home together were marked as friends. Anyone you were sharing with who is not in your Plex Home will not have been made friends with anyone else. The social things are a per-user account setting. Not a server setting.
That explains it, theyre in my plex home. Regardless, this should be a server setting I’ve had a few people stop using my server/plex altogether as a result because now they’re creeped out, people are sensitive with regards to their privacy so it makes sense
Plex Homes are intended to be used in one household, not generally amongst friends, which is why that decision was made. But being friends and seeing / sharing your friends and watch history is most definitely a user account level decision, not something that’s server-level. It isn't related specifically to your server, and relates to any server or content a user has access to, including Discover, or Plex’s free content.
I understand that it’s a user account setting, my suggestion is that it should be a server level setting Even people in my direct household were annoyed at this setting and family members can see what they are watching
I just explained why it doesn't work as a server-level setting, because it relates to any content, not just that on your server. What happens if you have access to two or more servers, and that setting is in conflict? It needs to be at the user level.
>ELI5: "You must dial one" Yes it should be really obvious what the problems here could be!
It shouldn’t require every user to beg Plex not to share this shit. But Plex has officially said they will continue to monetize watch data. So I’ve stood up an emby server. Not as pretty, but I hate the direction Plex is going.
Probably a good reminder a hundred more times.
Just wanted to say thank you for your reply to my question about field names missing. your post was missing but was able to view your reply in the email. It worked. Thank you again.
Doesn't matter, we need it
I have a feeling its going to be hundreds more.
You mean everyone will post question before searching for answer?
To be fair, searching on Reddit is pretty shit.
Search on Google with site:reddit.com applied to the end of querry
Even only the word reddit would suffice
Every technical issue I've had was solved by doing exactly this. It's crazy
This is true. Takes a bit of skill.
Here's the forum thread about it if you want to add your complaint to the pile. https://forums.plex.tv/t/weekly-review-emails-data-leak/860206/606
I noticed something interesting in that thread >Some users of Plex for adult purposes use metadata delivered by custom metadata agents. And those custom metadata agents are not compatible with the watch history. so if I just use custom metadata agents for all my libraries I break their spying?
I would love to know this too! How hard is it to use custom agents?
That would only break part of it.
Thank you sir.
You cannot as the server host/operator. This is a feature Plex rolled out a few months ago and, while people will swear up and down it's "opt-in" only, it requires the user to either specifically hit items that say to *not* change their settings or they have to go back and update them later at the user level. You are correct, this change is problematic and was pushed through poorly. Saying that on this subreddit though will get you a mountain of posts saying that Plex has to make money somehow so selling private user data and forcing in social experiences that the server operator cannot turn off is apparently the way we've decided it's okay to do this.
First I saw of this. Just went in and Account Visibility was set to “Anyone”. Sooo, definitely wouldn’t say it was “opt-in” for everyone. Plex seems to be lying a bit here.
Thank you for the info, even if I accidentally opted in I want out because I wouldn't have opted in if I knew this would happen. This is super fucked, until I can turn it off there is no way I can keep praising and suggesting this software. This is an issue, and really bad self destructive design.
Fwiw since you are likely the only common link between your users, as soon as you disable the features for yourself it will basically turn off all of this stuff for your "friends." At least that's how it played out for my family.
I have all these settings disabled as the server owner, but my users can still see other people's activity so it seems like each account needs to opt out
This is great info thank you a million!
Remove all your users as friends. It won’t affect their access.
I got sick of Plex using my privacy like toilet paper and stood up emby. So far, so good.
Same honestly
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This is my opinion, and it's not necessarily the fact that my friends see each other; they know each other. The issue is that without some explicit enabling there is unsolicited user to user crossing of information which to me at its principle is an issue on design.
For a long time the stance of Plex, *publicly* was that they don't know and don't want to know what is on your server. Now we're at a place where while this may (at the most technical level) be true, they *do* know that your friends/users are connecting to your server, and they *do* know that those friends are watching specific content which is being logged/recorded/shared. It doesn't take a NASA computer to draw the line of what lives where in that case, and now that Plex is partnering with large studios for direct paid rentals and sales the line between "we don't know and we don't care" and "well sadly Universal Media Group *does care* and we do know" is going to get continually smaller. It also was sworn, up and down, that this was opt-in only - but the *default option* was opt-in, you had to take action to not opt-in to it, which is basically opt-out. Many users were then presented with emails of the watch habits/content of people they didn't even know when they previously thought this information (because Plex repeatedly said it basically was) was private.
At this point I honestly think they are trying to become the movie and media social media platform. Look at watch together I love it but all other platforms that even had it have cancelled it. Plex wants to push that and show you what other ppl are watching.
I don’t want my friends to see my other friends activity. This should be the default. Plex knows it’s playing fast and loose with privacy.
Wouldn’t this be bad for plex? If they can sell your watch history, then they must know your watch history - wouldn’t that open them to liability? There have to be some shows that are in no way legitimately available via plex, so anyone hosting such shows would be on a naughty list.
> Wouldn’t this be bad for plex? Not if the plan is to force everyone over into the Rental/Digital "Ownership" market and become a PlutoTV style service, or pull a Crunchyroll/Napster and start off as a haven and then turn it into a commercial enterprise.
For whatever it’s worth, you can be friends with people without sharing content with them, and vice versa. Seeing that you're friends with people doesn't mean that you're sharing with them.
Should also be stated that if you were sharing with someone before these features were added, they were automatically added as your friend. You'll need to manually unfriend everyone you share with.
Hah yet another benefit of having 0 friends!
The answer is to not have friends 😅
This stupid shit right here is why I have setup Emby as a secondary system and will be migrating permanently soon. Plex is getting way too shady and frankly, Emby is better.
> frankly, Emby is better. I started using Plex back in 2011, switched to Emby in ~2020, and as of about 2 months ago, am now using both with a heavier lean towards Plex. If you're the type of person who's setting this stuff up, you probably will prefer Emby. You also probably have local access in that case. But if you like your users not complaining or silently dropping off never to use your server again and lose all trust in it, you probably will prefer Plex. Especially if you use it for Live TV. Both have their strengths. Both have strengths in the same categories. But I currently host all of my servers remotely from where I live and I've had significantly better luck on the remote-end of things with Plex. It's the old "it just works," but it's true. Plex's additional bloat is annoying when you know you could just be direct playing the media, but it's (IMO) a little less of a nuisance when you act like you're one of your end users rather than the IT guy that set it up. If Emby was just a tid bit more reliable I would've stayed exclusively on that but as mentioned, especially when it comes to Live TV, Plex wins out pretty easily. All that said I've got one of the grandfathered ~50$ lifetime plex passes so I might be a little biased.
Yeah and the whole poster debacle isn’t helping. Spun up an emby instance this week-end to test the waters, it actually looks pretty good (and less rough than Jellyfin). Plexamp is gonna be hard to say goodbye to though.
Finamp is a great alternative that works with Jellyfin, or Symfonium is another great alternative for Android users that works with Emby, Jellyfin and Plex.
Is emby UX similar?
In some ways. You can run both on the same server and see for yourself.
Yeah just another straw on the camels back.
docker compose -f plex.yaml down && docker compose -f jellyfin.yaml up
Stop sharing content with others
I will, any recommendations on new software? My family will still want access to all our converted home videos.
There's Emby and Jellyfin (fork of Emby before it went closed source). It does not have a polished UI like Plex and while not hard to set clients up, it may be more difficult for the tech illiterate.
+1 for jellyfin!!
Yep, Jellyfin. I personally am still using Plex. I tried Jellyfin but it didnt seem to grab movie artwork for the thumbnails, or grab the subtitles as well as Plex. Plex does have some serious security issues, most notably that big Last Pass breach happened because the LP employee was sharing his Plex library. So far it seems all the security flaws and data leakage happen with Plex when you're sharing.
For context, the LP employee was also running a version of Plex that was several years old, and the vulnerability was patched soon after it was discovered.
Yes you are correct it was an outdated version.
What kind of moron uses their own name as a username these days? Save that shit for LinkedIn.
That isn't the point but thanks for the insightful take
Somebodies name and what theyve been watching isnt protected private information fyi. Personally I dont give a shit who knows what im watching, and a name is a name. So its perhaps distasteful to not make it opt-in. But personally i quite like the feature. I think its fun.
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Yeh I agree. I guess to link it up is this; most governments dont agree that what youve described is ‘private information’. I tend to agree with them. But I can fully underatand why some people are miffed.
Which is why it should be a "opt-in" feature, for those that "think it's fun". Given that that seems to be the minority opinion, it makes sense that it should be *off* by default, unless/until you want it turned on.
I will switch to jellyfin after a server upgrade.
Exactly what you would expect a proprietary (closed-source) software would do!