Amazon has launched a major global crackdown on Fire Stick piracy
24 comments
·November 2, 2025rs186
Only source is the Sun and there has been no official response from Amazon?
I'll wait till this can be confirmed before deciding what to think of it.
woleium
that, plus the downgrade and lock option
herpessimplex10
> but the real issue appears to have been the apps’ use of resource-monetization services that grant cybercriminals access to devices and residential IPs for malicious activity.
So the apps are malware that function as residential proxies.
Way to bury the lede.
parsimo2010
RTFA. That was for the previous round of blocks, and those apps were restored after the offending behavior was removed.
The current round of blocks is targeting apps that support piracy even if they don’t have any other malicious behavior.
null
leoh
It's pretty incredible how many apps have this kind of functionality. There are some sketch af sites that sell access to these proxies. I took a look to do some web scraping a while ago. In the end, I just ended up using TOR with a Rust API and that worked a lot better and made me feel a lot less dirty, in addition to being free.
dpacmittal
Welp! There goes stremio
daft_pink
So what’s the alternative android stick that users will soon be purchasing instead?
6ak74rfy
Nvidia Shield is a really good device.
ThrowawayTestr
Some backdoored piece of shit from China
aussieguy1234
I keep my old laptops mainly for use as tv boxes.
Even for a 5 year old laptop, my current tv laptop has much more power than a fire stick and I can run whatever I like.
thunderbong
Can you give some more details? I have a few old laptops which I can re-purpose for this.
para_parolu
How do you control them?
ChrisArchitect
[dupe] Fire TV: Amazon to block piracy apps in the future
mieses
Good. Think of the media industry. If those people weren't able to do their work for millions they'd be doing it for tens on street corners.
add-sub-mul-div
This year piracy apps, next year Plex/Jellyfin? Or will they call those piracy apps already?
nerdsniper
Just Jellyfin. Plex, being a for-profit corporation, will pay for FireTV app store placement.
BolexNOLA
You should check out the details on the apps in the article. They’re pretty clearly malware at best.
add-sub-mul-div
Right, and security is regularly used to justify starting down a path that's really about profit.
stonecharioteer
> Flix Vision has been shown to use resource monetizing services that pay app developers in exchange for using the device CPU and network traffic while their app is running. Live NetTV has been criticized for doing the same. These kinds of proxy monetization services have been classified as Riskware and accused of giving cybercriminals access to devices and residential IPs for malicious operations.
> It seems far more likely that Amazon targeted and disabled these two apps because they functioned as residential proxy providers, rather than due to any role in facilitating unauthorized access to copyrighted content. For over a decade, Amazon has shown through inaction that it is unwilling to combat piracy outside of its appstore by endlessly disabling third-party piracy apps. However, the possibility of a network of unknowingly compromised Fire TV devices being used as gateways for cybercrimes appears to have been sufficient motivation for Amazon to take action and block the apps.
Sigh. Yeah no. This is a good thing. I'm sure they're not worried about stuff like Jellyfin or SmartTubeTV.
Fortunately when it comes to the $20-30 TV devices there are plenty of options that can be made mostly bloat free that you can install anything you want on.