Amazon Fire TV customers are now able to browse the web with Firefox and Silk browsers on their TV bringing back YouTube to the platform.
According to Amazon, customers can access the World Wide Web including popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Reddit, as well as local and international news sites, video sharing services, cloud photo sites, and other social news, sports, and entertainment content.
Interestingly, the announcement follows Google’s decision to remove YouTube from Amazon Fire TV from January 1, 2018.
“With full web browsers on Fire TV, our customers’ entertainment and information options are greatly expanded. We want to make it easy for customers to access the web from the comfort of their couch,” said Marc Whitten, vice president, Amazon Fire TV and Appstore. “We’re excited to bring web browsing to customers on every Fire TV device in every country where they’re sold.”
“Bringing Firefox to Fire TV is an exciting new way to reach our users and serve up more of the full web to everyone,” said Mark Mayo, Sr. Vice President of Firefox. “Firefox has always been about bringing the web directly to people no matter what device they’re using. Starting today, we will be able to expand the already great Fire TV experience by enabling viewers to surface a multitude of web content – including videos – through Firefox.”
“It’s a sign of the strength of Firefox Quantum that Amazon came to us looking for a partner who could bring more of the full web to its customers,” added Mayo. “The team came together to port, design and release a best-in-class application designed for the 10-foot, leanback experience and that makes watching videos as easy as clicking, searching or entering a URL. With this in-product application, we will be able to continue to drive our mission and reach existing and new users no matter what device they’re using.”
Amazon Silk has been optimised for Fire TV by designing for a true television viewing experience that is best enjoyed from the couch.
Firefox and Silk are available now on every Fire TV device available in more than 100 countries and territories. Customers can download the browsers from their Fire TV to immediately begin browsing the web. However, at the moment the Firefox site says that Firefox for Fire TV is an app only available in the Amazon AppStore in the US.
