AMAZON has removed a popular feature from its Fire Stick gadgets in a new software update.
The move has left Fire Stick users, many of whom have used the feature for years, furious.
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Apps can no longer be hidden away, according to Fire Stick owners online.
That includes both pre-installed apps like Amazon Live Shopping – the ones that are impossible to remove – and your usual platforms like Netflix.
Amazon introduced the ability to hide Fire TV apps five years ago.
Hiding apps doesn’t save on storage by ‘offloading’ them – it simply removes them from view on the homepage.
They are still accessible if you search for them.
It has become a feature people use 24/7, with many people customising their user profiles with only the apps they use – and removing the ones they don’t.
It was particularly useful for parents who wanted to remove certain apps, such as internet access, from children’s profiles.
However, since Fire TVs latest software update, which rolled out a few days ago, the option to hide apps has disappeared.
Defunct apps like Amazon’s Freevee, which has had its content transferred to Prime Video, are also not able to be hidden.
The software update is titled Fire OS 8.1.2.7.
“I’ve restarted multiple times,” one user wrote on Reddit. “And have no idea why [the option is] missing or why apps I had hidden (Amazon Music and Internet, for example) are now unhidden.”
They continued: “My other sticks aren’t running this software version and haven’t lost this functionality.
“Crap like this adds up, and it has me really weighing Google TV.”
Another user replied, saying: “Yeah I’ve been trying to get [apps] off too but you can’t now, which sucks.”
The option to hide apps has vanished from both the older 1st-gen Fire TV Stick 4K, and the current 2nd-gen Fire TV Stick Max – suggesting it is being rolled out to all devices.
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