Why are we even having this discussion? I don’t know about you, but I bought my Amazon Firestick from Amazon. I did not lease it, or rent it, I bought it. I was under the impression (silly me) that I owned it; and it belonged to me. How in the hell can you block a third party app on a device that you no longer own? Sounds like to me that a class action law suit is going to be, or should be, in Amazon’s future. Am I missing something? What do you guys say?
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You own the hardware (the stick) but you LICENSE the software (OS) just like Windows on your computer.
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I just uninstalled my Firestick and replaced it with an ONN. Like a certain politician says, “We’ll see what happens”. From now on it’s probably going to be a game of cat and mouse. Bought a lot of stuff from amazon over the years and I’ll probably continue to buy, but no more Firesticks.
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I stopped using the Amazon FireStick when Amazon was in the process of changing the OS about 2 years ago. I purchased the BUZZ TV e5 box and I have 2 IPTV services on it that work great and I can add any apps that I so desire.
It’s now down to £59.99 on Amazon UK. I see the Thomson 270 box is made by SDMC - same as the Walmart ONN box, but setup for Europe & UK - same specs as ONN 4k Pro
Yes an incredible climb down after the original markup at over £100. The box is the ONN box, absolutely nothing different about it. Just rebranded to sell in Europe cos Walmart don’t ship here.
THANK YOU for the reply. Happy to hear I wasn’t going crazy not being able to find it! 
Yes. Exactly the point. I don’t appreciate Amazon hijacking my firestick after I already purchased it. They don’t own it.
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The writing has been on the wall for a very very long time. Nearly every update on these Fire devices includes something that disables apps or your launcher. I’ve grown tired of trying to implement workarounds to keep my fire device functioning the way I set it to function after each and every update. Over 2 years ago I purchased an NVIDIA Shield Pro and have never had an issue like this since. I will never go back to another Fire device again. For those who chose to stay with their Fire devices given these obvious obstacles after every update deserve the headaches that come with its ownership.
I own a Firemax 11, which supports expansion up to 1TB, so I bought an SD card for that purpose. I modified my Firemax 11 to bypass app restrictions, making it a great tablet—aside from being an Amazon product. A few months ago, an update introduced a hidden setting that archived all my third-party apps without warning. The archive feature is frustrating: it doesn’t list the app names, and clicking “reinstall” either redirects to the Amazon App Store or does nothing if the app isn’t available there.
Rather than manually reinstalling each app, I’ll likely factory reset the device. During my investigation, I discovered the setting labeled “Automatically archive infrequently used non-Amazon apps”—clearly targeting non-Amazon apps. This blatant push to remove third-party apps infuriated me, especially since I paid for the tablet and expanded its storage to maximize its use.
Since this incident, I’ve reduced my reliance on Amazon and plan to stop entirely after their recent actions with Firesticks. Their monopolistic tactics won’t succeed with my support. Jeff Bezos can forget about my business.
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Third party apps are spectacular. We need them. Amazon needs to stop blocking these spectacular apps.
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FlixVision is still down and out for the count but interestingly, LiveNetTV is now working for me (?!) Don’t know if this is just a temporary glitch or if Amazon has seen the light (?!)
Fyi, i see some apps that were blocked by Amazon, but they was on the internal storage and the others one that are on external storage, those can’t be blocked, i have these on a USB drive storage .
So i dont have any problem with that snd and watching my Flixvision with no problem.
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That’s interesting(?!)
In your settings are you able to turn off that automatically archive? I stopped using Amazon tablets with my HD 8 I had Google Play store downloaded. I had my tablet deregistered by them. The first time I didn’t know how it was done it was deregistered by them. Second time I figured it out I was using a fire TV remote app from Google Play store I even called them and they told me I’d deregistered it when I did not. From then on I purchased the Samsung S5E and have had for a 4 years and haven’t looked back plus with the AMOLED screen it looks a lot better. Side loaded apps are not pushed off by anybody. It’s kind of like on the fire devices sticks and cubes when they put the offload automatically setting for apps that always needs to be turned off.
Hey all! I was just sent a noticed from Amazon, that the 4K Fire Stick is on sale prior to Prime Day.
If you planning to get a new Fire Stick raise your finger. 
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The middle one. Right!
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Right or left, it doesn’t matter.
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You should read what I wrote about Amazon highjacking my Firemax 11 which I paid close to $400 for the bundle when it first came out. Talk about infuriating!!!