Enemy and Jellyfin both have Android TV and Roku apps. I don’t have an apple TV, but I imagine apps exist there too.

A lot of folks are talking about how a centralized repository would be a big target for governments, ISPs and rights holders, but I have a different angle.

Who is going to pay for all of that development and maintenance? We are pirates. We don’t pay for stuff. It’s kind of our thing.

Additionally, you are proposing an option with social features and algorithms. Both are a negative because they necessarily encourage users to explicitly say what they have been downloading or uploading in a way that is being logged and therefore is evidence against them should a media company want to push for legal action.

A raspberry Pi is a very good emulation device using the RetroPie image. A Pi 4b can go up to PSX/N64 fairly easily.

On the handheld side of things, most of them that “come with” ROM sets will have them loaded on an SD card. These manufacturers often skimp on the cards though, so expect it to die quickly. You can usually just clone the whole SD to a new one and it’s fine.

Most of these devices use RetroArch and software emulation. However, there is another option. The Mister project and devices sold by Analogue use field programmable gate arrays - chips that can change their structure according to software. This means running an NES game on one of these devices is more literally like running it on original hardware. For accurate emulation, this is the best option by far. However, it comes with a significantly higher price tag.

In general the easiest and least expensive startup for emulation is on the PC. With fairly modest hardware, emulation of everything up to PS2 is possible with some newer platforms also being very emulatable (notably everything Nintendo puts out is easy to run because their architecture is largely straightforward, their systems are lower power, and there is significantly more demand for their games)

If you specifically want something hooked up to your TV, a first generation (launch window, before they increased the battery life) Switch can happily run a fair amount of stuff, including everything up to N64/PS1. The (new)3DS/2DS is also a great emulation device and can run basically everything up to SNES/Genesis handheld.

Oh and one more option. If you have Android, you can easily install a variety of emulators and use a Bluetooth or wired controller with them utilizing a controller phone mount.

Promotional credits can expire. Gift cards that have been purchased cannot

file or disk encryption is only for protecting against attackers with physical access to the machine your VM is running on. Getting files from your server to local storage you should still use a secure connection and encrypted traffic to prevent ISP snooping, but going extreme on file encryption isn’t necessary unless you’re downloading actual heinous shit (CSAM) in which case you should go to jail.

resources in the Megathread link pinned to the community can lead you there.

An invite would be amazing. Please and thank you

Cinnamon has an official Ubuntu flavor now. I would recommend that over Mint, since mint is LTS-only. You can also do KDE-Plasma, but my personal preference is Cinnamon.

And is developed by ID software, not Bethesda Game Studios. Bethesda the publisher has different tactics when it comes to games not developed by BGS.

Legally, yes it is wrong.

Morally? That depends on the person. I think asking a piracy focused community means you’re going to get a heavily skewed set of answers that all veer towards various forms of “Not wrong” or “It’s good actually. Don’t even support the platforms that make the content legally available because DRM sucks” etc.

Generally speaking though, most older visual media releases no longer make money for anyone who worked on them directly. Use that information however you see fit. I know it changes how I think about piracy in general.

I’m currently using Sync but once some of the others polish up and catch up, I’ll probably switch. All of the actively developed apps have a solid foundation, some are just newer than others.

Photo editing software. My wife didn’t want to pay for Lightroom anymore, so we switched to a software with a one time payment, Luminar. There are some FOSS alternatives, but none of them have been a hit with her. All of them are missing something or are intended to compete with a different line of product like Photoshop, Illustrator, or ProCreate.