Amazon brings its Silk Browser to Fire TV
Amazon has brought its Silk Browser to Fire TV devices, making it easier for users to surf the web on the big screen. It features voice search, parental controls, and more — but it cannot be used to download images or other files, Amazon says.
The Silk Browser will already be familiar to anyone who’s ever used a Fire tablet. It’s Amazon’s own web browser, and though most would agree it’s not as fancy as Chrome, it certainly does its job. And now that it’s available on Fire TV, browsing the web in your living room couldn’t be simpler.
Bing.com is set as the default search engine, and it appears when you use Silk for the first time. Once you close Silk, the last page you visited will automatically appear the next time you reopen it. Other features include voice and text search, history, and parental controls.
Amazon has also included settings and advanced settings menus, which let you adjust things like scrolling speed, text size, and tracking. You can also switch the default search engine, enable Safe Browsing, and use the Amazon Cloud to sync bookmarks and preferences from other Fire devices.
One thing you cannot do in Silk is download images and other content. This is likely to prevent users from more easily gaining access to apps that aren’t available in Amazon’s own Appstore.
You can use Silk now on the first- and second-generation Fire TV, and second-generation Fire TV Stick, and the Fire TV Edition TV.