A few months ago, Amazon blocked a lot of sideloaded apps like Flix Vision on Fire TV devices. At first, everyone thought this was the beginning of Amazon blocking sideloaded apps that are used for viewing piracy content. That was not the case then. The reason for blocking those apps was, they were using resource monetizing services that pay the developers in exchange for using your CPU and internet connection, and without your consent. Once the developers updated the app and removed that sketchy code, the app was no longer blocked.

Now, Amazon announced that they will begin to block both official and sideloaded apps that provide access to view copyrighted content according to The Sun and AFTVnews. Amazon is working with the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), and they will compare apps that are installed on Fire TV devices with a list of apps that are know as piracy apps by ACE. When an app is detected on a Fire TV device, a user will be first notified most likely with an on-screen message, that the app they are using is illegal and that it will be removed. Then that app will be blocked and stop working, forcing you to uninstall it.

This new piracy app blocking from Amazon will not affect other non-piracy apps to be sideloaded. Users will still be able to sideload apps that are not available in the official Amazon Appstore.

Part of me thinks that this has something to do with the release of the new Fire TV Stick 4K Select the runs Vega OS, and got a lot of negative reviews from users and influencers, for the reason of not being able to sideload apps. Of course, there are a lot of other reasons also that users don’t like the new 4K Select. Some of those are, limited app selection, less internal storage and no support for external storage, no Alexa Home Theatre, no Dolby Audio or Dolby Vision, and many more other reasons.