Mozilla is shutting down Firefox for Amazon Fire TV and Echo Show devices

Mozilla's Firefox, the world’s most popular privacy-oriented open-source browser, is dropping support for Amazon’s Fire TV and Echo Show devices, just over three and a half years after it was released, the non-profit organisation announced its website.

With the company dropping support for Firefox on these platforms, users will stop receiving updates at the end of April. The announcement was first reported by Android Police, noting that users will have to switch to Amazon’s Silk browser once Firefox drops support and that Firefox’s listing would be pulled down from the Amazon Appstore at the end of the month.

Read more: Mozilla, Internet Society flag concerns over India's new social media rules

The end of Firefox’s support for Fire TV and Echo show devices appears to be a delayed response to YouTube’s return to the Amazon AppStore a couple of years ago. During the time that Amazon and Google were feuding and unable to reach a compromise, Firefox served as a fantastic alternative for users to play their videos on the platform. It wasn’t the only option at the time, as Amazon’s Silk Browser was another excellent alternative that users had access to at the time.

“Starting on April 30, 2021, we will no longer support Firefox on Amazon Fire TV or Echo Show. You will no longer be able to install the app on FireTV, receive security updates, or be able to reinstall the app if you uninstall it starting on April 30, 2021. If you have Firefox set as your default browser on Echo Show, you will be redirected to Amazon Silk for web browsing starting April 30, 2021,” Mozilla said on its end-of-support announcement for Firefox on Amazon's devices. 

Also read: Firefox 87 makes users privacy better with SmartBlock feature, here’s what it does

Users who currently have the Firefox browser installed will still be able to access the browser, but will not be able to download it again, if they uninstall the browser -- new users will not be able to find the browser on the Amazon Appstore. However, just because you have the app installed does not mean you should use it -- after April 30, users will be vulnerable to any future security flaws which will not receive any security fixes, at which point switching to Amazon’s Silk Browser would be highly recommended.