Amazon have given Fire TV users the ability to browse the web with a choice of Firefox and Silk browsers.
Fire TV, customers already have access to more than 500,000 movies and TV episodes, and tens of thousands of apps, channels and Alexa skills. Now with the Firefox and Silk browsers, customers can access the World Wide Web including popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Reddit, as well as local and international news sites, video sharing services, cloud photo sites, and other social news, sports, and entertainment content.
“With full web browsers on Fire TV, our customers’ entertainment and information options are greatly expanded. We want to make it easy for customers to access the Web from the comfort of their couch. We’re excited to bring web browsing to customers on every Fire TV device in every country where they’re sold.”
– Marc Whitten, vice president, Amazon Fire TV and Appstore
Tamebay on Fire TV
Browsing the web using the Amazon remote is a bit fiddly as you have to type using on screen selection for each letter one at a time – This is similar to many Smart TV input devices that lack full keyboards and so isn’t the end of the world. If you can put up without a full keyboard then you can now get Tamebay on your Fire TV device should you wish to… oh and the rest of the web of course – Needless to say this includes shopping sites and marketplaces.
Something that Amazon didn’t mention in their press release is that the addition of a browser means you really don’t need a terrestrial TV aerial any more. Once you have a browser, sites such as TVPlayer become accessible and you can watch just about any channel available on Freeview and subscribe to premium channels should you so wish.
Fire TV devices are the number one selling streaming media players in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan and have tens of millions of monthly active users. Firefox and Silk are available now on every Fire TV device available in more than 100 countries and territories. Simply search for Firefox or Silk to download the browsers to begin browsing the web.
One Response
Google have withdrawn the YouTube app from the Fire TV stick in retaliation for Amazon’s refusal to sell Google hardware. No doubt offering a browser through the Fire TV stick for the first time is Amazon’s response. Be interesting to see if Amazon integrate Alexa into the browsers. There is no ebay app on the Fire TV stick. As a consequence of the new browser apps will you be able to buy ebay product through the Fire TV stick? Or is ebay blocked by Amazon? And can Google block YouTube from opening up in the Fire TV browser? And how will the EU view all these shaninigans? More fines maybe? Or is it simply a spat between cyber competitors?