Google Prevents Amazon Fire TV Users From Accessing YouTube App, Redirects To Browsers Instead
It is the New Year and Google has put its foot down. Google has now completely blocked Amazon Fire TV devices from accessing the standalone YouTube app that was developed for the platform. It had started this blocking about four days ago in some regions but today it has been a complete blanket ban. The restricting access to YouTube app on Fire TV devices like Fire TV and Fire TV Stick started as early as 28th December in some regions, where users reported on social networking platforms like Reddit and Twitter that they were being redirected to use either Silk or Firefox when opening the native YouTube app.
The move was in the making since we informed you about the feud between Google and Amazon due to various issues, chief among which was lack of reciprocity for each other’s streaming services and devices. In a bid to circumvent this ban, Amazon developed its Silk browser for Fire TV and asked Mozilla to create a Firefox browser for Fire TV. The apps have been available since December 21st on the platform. Currently if you try to open the YouTube app that has been installed on your Fire TV device you are being shown a message which says you can access YouTube as well as millions of other websites by using Silk or Firefox. As you can see from the image below you have two YouTube links one for Silk and one for Firefox.
While talks are still on between Amazon and Google to sort this issue, Amazon has brought out a quick fix to help its customers still access YouTube. When the media tried to reach Amazon for a statement regarding this issue, they replied with a generic statement stating that browsers have to be used to access YouTube. Now we are still not sure if Google and Amazon will ever reach a settlement but for now though, Amazon Fire TV devices can breathe a sigh of relief.
The move was in the making since we informed you about the feud between Google and Amazon due to various issues, chief among which was lack of reciprocity for each other’s streaming services and devices. In a bid to circumvent this ban, Amazon developed its Silk browser for Fire TV and asked Mozilla to create a Firefox browser for Fire TV. The apps have been available since December 21st on the platform. Currently if you try to open the YouTube app that has been installed on your Fire TV device you are being shown a message which says you can access YouTube as well as millions of other websites by using Silk or Firefox. As you can see from the image below you have two YouTube links one for Silk and one for Firefox.
While talks are still on between Amazon and Google to sort this issue, Amazon has brought out a quick fix to help its customers still access YouTube. When the media tried to reach Amazon for a statement regarding this issue, they replied with a generic statement stating that browsers have to be used to access YouTube. Now we are still not sure if Google and Amazon will ever reach a settlement but for now though, Amazon Fire TV devices can breathe a sigh of relief.
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