My parents fire tv has already been remotely disabled by Amazon. It loads, then the launcher goes online to download all the ads, crashes because too many, reboot, repeat, loop

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I bought one because it was cheap (presumably because ads) but I never connected it to the web.

I won't be surprised if they remove all video inputs in the near future.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 3 points 5 days ago

Guess they can't in your case without internet connection.

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

what a surprise /s

seriously anyone using those devices should set up some firewall..

[–] LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'm curious and concerned "how" Amazon did this.

I mean the first thing I'd do would be login (cause it's necessary), enable adb, disconnect the internet, block firmware updates, and restrict dns then reconnect to the internet.

Is that what these people are doing? Or do they just grab the latest firmware, sideload their app(s) and hope everything will "just work" today/tomorrow/ and beyond?!?

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 7 points 5 days ago

the first thing I'd do would be login (cause it's necessary), enable adb, disconnect the internet, block firmware updates, and restrict dns then reconnect to the internet.

You have to realize maybe a small handful of people that own these devices will do any of that. They'll just plug in and go. Sure they may know how to side load, but they aren't taking any other preventative measures as you suggest, nor do they have the know-how to do so.

I'd imagine Amazon initiated these via firmware updates that just about anyone would blindly install. The updates probably included scripts to uninstall any "unauthorized" APKs, disable developer options, restore factory system settings, lock the user profile from modifying the system, etc.

[–] f1error@thelemmy.club 2 points 5 days ago

Does anyone make alternate ROMs for FireTV/AndroidTV?