Amazon enabled Fire TV access to Youtube via browsers
Amazon and Google have been going at each other for a while now, that’s not new. The recent events had forced Google to disable access from Amazon’s Echo Show. This stemmed from Amazon banning Google’s own devices from accessing Amazon. Of course, that didn’t sit well with Google, so they fired back. These all lead up to Google’s removal of Amazon devices accessing YouTube come Jan. 1st, 2018. This is bad news for anyone who uses YouTube on their Fire TV devices. Something that a great deal of us do.
However, it looks like things have been accelerated. This morning I fired up my Fire TV in my bedroom to see what new videos were posted. Instead, I noticed a message that read the following;
Access YouTube and millions of other websites by using web browsers such as FireFox or Silk. Click on one of the links below to access YouTube directly with the browser of your choice.
I wasn’t expecting this and what does this mean? It means that Amazon wasn’t waiting for Google to pull the pull on YouTube on their Fire TV devices. And instead, have forced a shortcut whenever you click on the YouTube app. Now doing this will give you the option of using either Silk Browser or FireFox browser. So, it seems like all is lost. Right? Well, not really.
You see, the Silk browser does a great job of emulating the YouTube app. It never was an official app in the first place and I suspect it was just a browser that was skinner. In fact, once you launch it with the Silk browser, you won’t even be able to tell the difference. I couldn’t really tell, nor could my children. So that’s a plus. As far as FireFox, I didn’t really test it. When Amazon announced that both browsers were coming to Fire TV, I tested them both. And FireFox was simply the lesser of the two. But you can read all about that here.
I imagine that Amazon wanted to get this over and done with. Especially since they reportedly have sold a huge amount of Fire TV Echo products during this holiday season. With Google holding the keys to YouTube, it’s clear that neither one were going to have this issue get resolved anytime soon. Now, we can only hope that Google doesn’t somehow stop those devices from accessing YouTube. Here I thought that the companies were close to a resolution as Google Chromecasts are now available for sale on Amazon.
Still, I wish both companies would realize that they aren’t hurting each other. No, they’re hurting us. The consumers, the people that purchase both of these tech giants products. But I suppose that is a detail that is lost on both of them.
