AMAZON’S newest Fire Stick model has attracted some brutal reviews from shoppers after the retail giant made some key changes to the device.
And some of same changes are being rolled out to existing Fire Sticks too.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select is the first to adopt the shake-up, having only been launched a few months ago.
Those hoping to side load or use a VPN have had an unexpected surprise – it’s blocked.
The ability to side load on previous Fire Sticks meant users could download third party apps not available from Amazon’s Appstore.
But due to it being abused for illegal streaming apps to watch the Premier League on the cheap and premium movies, Amazon decided to crackdown on the practice.
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Front and centre of that is changing the underlying operating system from Android to its own-made one called Vega, so Amazon has more control over what can and cannot go on them.
Vega doesn’t allow any sideloading.
At the moment, the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select also doesn’t have any VPN apps available either – though these are being added soon.
Many have recently jumped for the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select as it’s on sale for £19.99 during Black Friday – and the cheapest Fire Stick you can currently get.
But people have plugged them in and found side loading restricted.
As it stands, the model has a 3 out of 5 star rating.
Some 40 per cent of reviews have given it a one star – substantially higher than other models like Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K which only has two per cent of reviews rated one star.
“I need VPN, I regret buying it, I don’t want this, gonna have to probably just bin it,” one person wrote.
“Waste of my money. All I wanted to do was upgrade my old TV stick.”
Another commented: “If I could give it a zero star I would have absolutely useless and a waste of money very disappointed.”
A third added: “Cannot side load 3rd party apps so this fire stick version is basically useless!”
Announcing the changes previously, Amazon said: “Piracy is illegal, and we’ve always worked to block it from our Appstore.
“Through an expanded program led by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a global coalition fighting digital piracy, we’ll now block apps identified as providing access to pirated content, including those downloaded from outside our Appstore.
“This builds on our ongoing efforts to support creators and protect customers, as piracy can also expose users to malware, viruses, and fraud.”
STREAM SMARTER – NOT MORE DANGEROUSLY
HERE’S some advice from The Sun’s tech editor Sean Keach…
The fact that millions of Brits are turning to piracy isn’t a surprise.
Telly subscriptions are now wildly expensive, and it’s increasingly hard to justify having them all.
I mean a top-tier Netflix subscription will cost you £17.99 a month, while Disney+ comes in at £14.99 a month.
And the offering seems to be getting worse: Amazon now shows ads on your Prime Video movies and shows unless you pay extra (on top of your Prime membership) to remove them.
That’s an extra £2.99 on top of the regular £8.99 fee.
Netflix, meanwhile, just hiked prices in the US – and experts told The Sun that a UK rise is likely to follow.
And if you pay for Sky – and extra services like Sky Sports – then your costs will simply balloon.
So what are you to do?
Well one of the best strategies to cut your TV bills is to try something called “service cycling”.
That’s where you only have one TV service active at a time, and then rotate through a list.
So one month you pay for Netflix and watch all of its top telly.
Then scrap it and move on to Disney+ the next month, before binning that and going to Amazon for the third month.
Do this with three or four services then start the whole process over again.
It means you’ll get three or four months in each year to watch all of each app’s content.
So you won’t miss any top shows, but you’ll avoid paying for all of the apps every single month for an entire year.
It brings enormous savings and you won’t miss out on any great telly either.
Plus it’s totally legal, so you don’t have to worry about that.
