Firefox now available on Amazon Fire TV for watching YouTube
The battle between Amazon and Google over streaming services is heating up in a new way, as Mozilla has just announced that its Firefox browser is now available on the Amazon AppStore for Fire TV users to download. Google still plans on blocking YouTube for Fire TV users come January, but one of the first things mentioned on the Firefox help page is that you can use the browser to watch YouTube videos.
Firefox for Fire TV is an app available in the Amazon AppStore in the United States. Once installed, you can launch popular video websites, like YouTube, load any website address, and search the web for videos to play full screen on the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick.
The timing of this release and the wording of the support documents make it obvious that Mozilla is capitalizing on Amazon’s spat with Google over the lack of Chromecast support by providing access to the service that Google has held over Amazon’s head. It will be interesting to see how the argument shapes up in the future, as for now Amazon has revealed plans to sell Chromecast and Nest devices on its storefront. However, YouTube is still blocked from both Echo Show and will be blocked on Fire TV come January.
There’s also been some speculation that Amazon could be working on its own YouTube competitor to cut Google out of the mix completely. Either way, this sort of feuding isn’t in the customers best interest at all.