Greetings, DCT213, and thank you for offering your advice! In many ways, I suspect we are all newbies with respect to the many and varied aspects of operating a Firestick. Nonetheless, I value your insights as they help me to reduce my ignorance.
I am not running everything off of my Firestick. By the Gods! I’d have next to no room left, and I’m sure that would seriously impair its performance. I have a San Disk 128GB USB 3.0 attached to a generic powered OTG cable (I attached a combination multiple 120 VAC/multiple 5 VDC outlet to the wall directly next to my TV’s support arm). The set-up works quite nicely for me.
I am using the X-Plore file manager I downloaded from Amazon Apps store rather than ES File Explorer, although I am familiar with it as a file management app too. Presently, I have Aptoide TV, Audible, Plex, and X-Plore installed on the USB drive, and they all are functioning quite nicely. Mostly what I would like to accomplish (if I am able) is to remove some of the software Amazon saw fit to include with the Firestick - not really ‘bloatware’, at least from Amazon’s perspective. By the same token, bitter experience has taught me to make haste SLOWLY when it comes to tinkering with things I don’t have a full working knowledge of!
Regrettably, I do not own a tablet, although I do have a laptop which I use primarily when I work on my van. At the same time, I have a Samsung Galaxy A 13 smartphone with a 512 GB San Disk micro SD card, which I can use if I am in bed and choose not to get up and sit in front of my desktop system. The main drawback with my smartphone is the size of its screen (and the fact that my near vision isn’t so great any longer). THAT is why I am grateful that Amazon chose to include a browser app, since Roku, nor Vizio have seen fit to do so! Now THAT’S what I call a monitor (61" screen)!
Additionally, I wish to thank you once more, Miki, for your follow-up to some of the questions I asked you in my previous reply to you. I priced out the OTG hub you use. It’s not only affordable, but it’s among the most highly rated powered OTG hub/Ethernet adapters out there! Presuming no unanticipated financial disasters (fingers crossed) that and a Cat 6 cable are on my shopping wish list for October.
Also, would you mind fleshing out for me what maintenance apps you’re using, so that I might consider them for my set-up? One app that I’d really like to have (if it exists), is a clean-up app that has been designed by its developer(s) to be intelligent enough to know what files can be disposed of and do so as well as being able to identify and shut down those apps whose developers decided it wouldn’t really matter if they kept running, even when they’re not needed. Sort of a cross between a file clean-up utility and a task killer app, perhaps? (Hey! If you’re gonna dream, dream big, right?)
Well, time to be moving along. I’ve got my apartment that desperately needs cleaning, cooking to be tended to, and some preliminary sketches of a box for a Bluetooth receiver/amplifier I’m building for my digs!
TTFN