Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/19/how-to-jailbreak-an-amazo.html
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From personal experience, I know that Amazon actively tweaks the os of their fire sticks to disallow doing this. I found that while I was able to reconfigure the device, within a short while, some of the sideloaded apps would stop working or disappear entirely. The only way that I found to get around it was to block the Amazon update servers on the router level, and even then, that tactic failed. I ended up switching to Roku.
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Anyone know if these have hardware support for AV1? I know it does HEVC, but that’s almost certainly going to be the HD-DVD to AV1’s BluRay. I haven’t had a Kodi/XBMC device since the original Xbox and I sure do miss it.
Amazon appears to have just allowed Google play to live on my tablet and not force jailbreaking. Keeping my old tablet able to load apps via Google was akin to an early Slackware release level of upkeep. Too much.
I have a Amazon tablet, too, that I use to access my Evernote notebook for recipes in the kitchen. I did sideload the google play store, and it sort of works, but it’s not completely happy. And it just refuses to load the Evernote widget. And forget about trying to load Netflix on it. It just won’t. I don’t know why they have to make things so difficult.
Kodi was one of the apps that kept disappearing on my Fire stick. I imagine if I had kept up with the Amazon Firestick forums, and kept track of which update server IPs I was supposed to keep blocked, it would have been ok, but who’s got time for all that? Amazon wants you to see their stupid menus and advertisements, and they try their best to make you do what they want you to do.
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Netflix works on mine just fine. I can download and save to the SD card and everything. Tablet is wonderful for Hulu/Netflix/Prime.
Google Play acts mostly functional but I think its “hardware checking” defaults to “Doesn’t run on this device” on anything questionable.
I’m too wary of the practice, so I didn’t try to sideload anything but Google Play, so neither Hulu nor Netflix show up for me. I was able to download the TCM app, so watching old flicks while I wait for something on the stove is ok with me.
very good instructional vid for “freeing” the tablet without rooting:
tweaked the fire8 (5th gen) for a friend of mine; works great, every app works, can go online without interfering from amazon. install an alternative file-manager to get full access to the SD-card and you are good to go.
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We have two firesticks and a Kindle tablet, all run Hulu with apps supplied by Amazon, and Kodi has run unmolested for years on the tablet and older firestick. No jailbreaking was necessary, just flipping the switch that allows loading from unauthorized sources then using a downloader to install Kodi.
Maybe it was the version of firestick I had? I don’t know. I just know that at one point, despite all the changes I made to it, it reverted back to the default configuration, more or less. Kodi was disabled and I gave up in disgust.
(I just looked on Amazon. It says that the one I bought in 2016 is unavailable and a previous version, so I don’t know which generation it was.)
My fire devices from about a year ago (not the latest versions) don’t need to be jail broken and can freely sideload apps, no play store required. I guess it’s either the first gen and newest devices that give people a hard time.
The apps remain, no disappearing apps. No issues. Even installed NORDVPN to my devices. Kodi, mobdro, tvzion, you name it…
Yeah, I’ve heard that. Sometimes I take something like that as a challenge, but I’ll probably just jump down the rabbit hole of researching third party Android TV boxes when the time comes.
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