The Firefox web browser is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers as well as Android and iOS phones and tablets. For the past few years there’s also been a version of Firefox for Amazon Fire TV devices that you could use to surf the web or stream videos from sites that might not have native Fire TV apps available.

But now Mozilla says it’s ending support for Firefox on Amazon Fire TV devices at the end of the month. You’ll still be able to use the app if you’ve installed it prior to April 30, 2021, but you will no longer receive security updates and if you uninstall the app, the only way to re-install it after that date will be to sideload an outdated version.

Mozilla will also end support for Firefox for Amazon Echo Show devices at the same time.

It’s unclear how many people will be affected by the move – the Firefox app for Fire TV first launched in 2017, around the time when Amazon was in a dispute with Google that meant there was no official YouTube app available for Fire TV devices, so web browsers like Amazon’s Silk and Mozilla’s Firefox provided a workaround.

Now that there is an official YouTube app for Fire TV, it’s likely that fewer people are using the web browsers.

The Firefox app does have more than 270-thousand user ratings in the Amazon Appstore, but many of them are several years old at this point.

Mozilla didn’t provide an explanation for its decision to end support for Amazon devices, but the company does note that it’s not like you’re left without options – you can still use Amazon’s Silk browser.

via AFTVNews

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4 replies on “Mozilla is ending support for Firefox on Amazon Fire TV and Echo devices”

  1. I don’t think Firefox will survive, they are trying to cut back on many things, they’re only propped up by Google’s yearly $300 million.

      1. We desperately need someone to take firefox out of mozilla’s hands. Did anyone actually LIKE the the expanding URL bar? I can’t think of anyone who did, but now the only way to make it stop expanding is with a userchrome.css, which updates break constantly. Now they’re getting rid of compact density, and doing the same thing they did with the URL bar: give you a token about:config item to shut you up that no one knows about but those frustrated by the change, then they’re probably just going to remove that too, because “no one was using this feature we hid because few of our users who still had telemetry enabled were using it, so we can’t be bothered to continue supporting it”.
        And to make matters worse, “compact” density is going to take up nearly as much vertical space as “normal” density now! LAPTOPS AREN’T USED IN PORTRAIT MODE MOZILLA!

        It’s not like they don’t know this. They just don’t care. By my count, they’re going against 8 of the 10 points of the Mozilla Manifesto. Some argue that their current approach brings in more donations which can be used for those executive salaries before they jump the sinking ship because long term profitability isn’t possible when you’re up against google, which funds most of mozilla anyway, and also has plenty of financial incentive to make blink the ONLY viable web rendering engine.

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