Amazon Fire TV, Echo Show won't have Firefox app by end of April
Mozilla's Firefox web browser will no longer be an option for users on Amazon's Fire TV or Echo Show devices.
Starting April 30, all Firefox support will stop on the Amazon devices (h/t Engadget). That means no updates and no new users or downloads. If you're one of the affected users you can keep watching on Firefox unsupported, but if you delete the app you won't be able to get it back.
For those who have Firefox set as the default browser on their Echo Show devices (that's an Alexa-powered AI assistant speaker with a screen) you'll be automatically redirected to Amazon Silk, Amazon's own web browser. In the U.S., Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari dominate browser options across all types of devices. On Fire TV, the only browser options have always been either Firefox or Silk.
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The Firefox app has long been used as a workaround to access YouTube on devices where it's not supported, as Engadget explained, especially after Fire TV removed the YouTube app in 2017. The Google-owned video streamer is back on Fire TV now, but not on the Echo Show. That's where the Silk browser comes in. But Amazon did add the video conferencing app Zoom to the Show on Monday, so there's that.
Still, by the end of April if you want to surf the web on your Amazon devices, Mozilla suggests asking Alexa to "open Silk."
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
