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Amazon has launched a major global crackdown on Fire Stick piracy
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoThis year piracy apps, next year Plex/Jellyfin? Or will they call those piracy apps already?
- Forgeties79 1y agoYou should check out the details on the apps in the article. They’re pretty clearly malware at best.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoRight, and security is regularly used to justify starting down a path that's really about profit.
- Forgeties79 1y agoDon’t disagree but these aren’t harmless programs. They’re explicitly designed to exploit users. I am not sympathetic to a crackdown on them even if I want to keep an eye out on how they are cracked down on.
- iAMkenough 1y agoThey're sideloaded by users accepting that risk for themselves. I'm really not looking forward to the day I can only install sanctioned software from a walled garden on all of the devices I "own." For security reasons, of course…
- Forgeties79 1y agoNo disagreement there. I’m just pointing out the nuances.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoI would rather have the freedom and whatever risk comes with it, I'm an adult and don't need any part of tech giant paternalism. Even if their overall interests were aligned with mine.
- nerdsniper 1y agoJust Jellyfin. Plex, being a for-profit corporation, will pay for FireTV app store placement.
- stonecharioteer 1y ago> Flix Vision has been shown to use resource monetizing services that pay app developers in exchange for using the device CPU and network traffic while their app is running. Live NetTV has been criticized for doing the same. These kinds of proxy monetization services have been classified as Riskware and accused of giving cybercriminals access to devices and residential IPs for malicious operations. > It seems far more likely that Amazon targeted and disabled these two apps because they functioned as residential proxy providers, rather than due to any role in facilitating unauthorized access to copyrighted content. For over a decade, Amazon has shown through inaction that it is unwilling to combat piracy outside of its appstore by endlessly disabling third-party piracy apps. However, the possibility of a network of unknowingly compromised Fire TV devices being used as gateways for cybercrimes appears to have been sufficient motivation for Amazon to take action and block the apps. Sigh. Yeah no. This is a good thing. I'm sure they're not worried about stuff like Jellyfin or SmartTubeTV.
- rs186 1y agoOnly source is the Sun and there has been no official response from Amazon? I'll wait till this can be confirmed before deciding what to think of it.
- woleium 1y agothat, plus the downgrade and lock option
- embedding-shape 1y agoThe organization behind the "crackdown" have made a press-release themselves: https://www.fact-uk.org.uk/latest-crackdown-on-illegal-iptv-services/ https://www.fact-uk.org.uk/latest-crackdown-on-illegal-iptv-... Follow the links in that and it seems to mostly be about people selling Firesticks with software on it that allows purchasers to view piracy streams without doing anything but plug in the device.
- herpessimplex10 1y ago> but the real issue appears to have been the apps’ use of resource-monetization services that grant cybercriminals access to devices and residential IPs for malicious activity. So the apps are malware that function as residential proxies. Way to bury the lede.
- parsimo2010 1y agoRTFA. That was for the previous round of blocks, and those apps were restored after the offending behavior was removed. The current round of blocks is targeting apps that support piracy even if they don’t have any other malicious behavior.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- leoh 1y agoIt's pretty incredible how many apps have this kind of functionality. There are some sketch af sites that sell access to these proxies. I took a look to do some web scraping a while ago. In the end, I just ended up using TOR with a Rust API and that worked a lot better and made me feel a lot less dirty, in addition to being free.
- dexterdog 1y agoFortunately when it comes to the $20-30 TV devices there are plenty of options that can be made mostly bloat free that you can install anything you want on.
- ciupicri 1y agoLike what?
- Piterniel 1y agoXiaomi TV Box
- NedF 1y ago[dead]
- dexterdog 1y agoOnn devices from Walmart
- toomuchtodo 11mo agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/comments/1l7iozl/onn_streaming_devices/ https://old.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/comments/1l7iozl/onn_st...
- Kiboneu 1y agoA computer and an hdmi cable.
- embedding-shape 1y agoJust the HDMI cable would be like at least 25% of that budget, what $10-$15 computer handles displaying 4K for example?
- hollow-moe 1y ago
- daft_pink 1y agoSo what’s the alternative android stick that users will soon be purchasing instead?
- ThrowawayTestr 1y agoSome backdoored piece of shit from China
- RobotToaster 1y agoAs opposed to this obviously backdoored piece of sh*t from America (that was made in China)
- 6ak74rfy 1y agoNvidia Shield is a really good device.
- attendant3446 1y agoIt's pretty expensive. And didn't Nvidia started pushing ads?
- nickthegreek 1y agonvidia doesn’t push ads. shield runs androidtv and with the default stock launcher, you will see the ads google wants you to. but you can easily change the launcher to something like flauncher and have a streamlined experience.
- nekitamo 1y agoI purchased an Onn TV from Walmart for $25 and am very happy with it after 2 years of using it. Amazon is sentencing the Fire TV to irrelevance with these dumb decisions, just like the Fire Phone.
- kotaKat 1y agoFun note - Walmart already started region locking the ONN sticks to US and Puerto Rico.
- mieses 1y agoGood. Think of the media industry. If those people weren't able to do their work for millions they'd be doing it for tens on street corners.
- dpacmittal 1y agoWelp! There goes stremio
- ChrisArchitect 1y ago[dupe] Fire TV: Amazon to block piracy apps in the future https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45774284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45774284
- aussieguy1234 1y agoI keep my old laptops mainly for use as tv boxes. Even for a 5 year old laptop, my current tv laptop has much more power than a fire stick and I can run whatever I like.
- para_parolu 1y agoHow do you control them?
- aitchnyu 1y agoI would try KDE connect to do keyboard or mouse input.
- inemesitaffia 1y agoYou have USB receivers that respond to regular remote controls.
- voxic11 1y agoI use one of these, very convenient. You can even buy multiple of them and place them around the room. https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad-PC-connected/dp/B014EUQOGK https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Touchpad-P...
- barrkel 1y agoAll I need in a remote, though, is a direction pad and about 6 buttons: power, select, back, home, volume up & down. And those power and volume buttons need to be routed to the display (projector in my case) and sound bar respectively.
- aussieguy1234 1y agoI bought an "air mouse" remote from AliExpress. There's a lot around. On the back it has a little keyboard for typing.
- thunderbong 1y agoCan you give some more details? I have a few old laptops which I can re-purpose for this.
- utf_8x 1y agoIs there any non-tabloid source for any of this?
- embedding-shape 1y agoI guess this is as close to the dragons mouth as it gets: https://www.fact-uk.org.uk/latest-crackdown-on-illegal-iptv-services/ https://www.fact-uk.org.uk/latest-crackdown-on-illegal-iptv-... I think the previous events/arrests/sentences they're referring to are all related to people selling "dodgy Fire sticks" or whatever they call it.